What Mike Leach said after Air Raid offense fell flat in stunning loss to Arkansas
Mississippi State was the talk of the SEC last week after upsetting LSU in Mike Leach’s first game as the Bulldogs’ head coach.
The Bulldogs were also the talk of the SEC this week, but for much different reasons, as they dropped a 21-14 game against an Arkansas team that had been winless in SEC play the last 2 seasons.
After the game, Leach gave the Razorbacks credit, but pointed out that the Bulldogs made a lot of mistakes on their own (via SI.com):
“I really didn’t feel like it was Arkansas as much as ourselves,” Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach said. “I want to give (Arkansas) all the credit in the world. They deserve the credit. I thought they played harder than we did. I also thought they played one play after the next a little better than we did. I think some of our inconsistency was revealed. But you know, Arkansas gets credit for the win for sure but I thought a lot of our wounds were self-inflicted.”
A couple of late drives ended when Mississippi State failed to convert on fourth-and-short plays. After that came into play on the final drive, Leach said he wishes his team would have kicked the field goals:
“I wished I’d have kicked (the field goal) both times in hindsight,” Leach said.
As for Arkansas, he said perhaps the Mississippi State players got caught napping against a team that has struggled so much against SEC competition:
“We’ve got to be full-throttle,” Leach said. “We can’t make judgments about games and opponents and stuff like that. I felt like we did some of that. As coaches, we tried, but we didn’t reach it. We didn’t get the message across … Arkansas came here with the determination to take this game away from us and they did.”
Will the Bulldogs turn things around at Kentucky next week? The Wildcats are struggling, so anything is possible.
To be real, Arkansas tripped over their own feet several times as well.
The 4th and inches out of the shotgun makes me wonder a little about Briles.
It just came down to a ‘good enough’ defensive scheme and harder effort by the Hogs.
After UGA played ND last year, ND laid the blueprint for how to slow down UGA’s offense. I obviously don’t know if Arkansas did that to MSU, but you have to at least wonder.
When we played Leach against UK in ’98, we rushed one and dropped everyone else into coverage. Turnovers cooked our goose last night.
How many times? HOW MANY FU**1*G TIMES DOES STATE HAVE TO KEEP MAKING AN AMATEUR MISTAKE? Over and over it happens, mistakes by State the likes of which are usually made by teams that haven’t experienced any bit of success. State got caught napping, like f*****ng amateurs. Leach needs to run their pants off every day this week until they puke (sorry D, you played a good game, but one team one fight). In fact, Leach is responsible so he needs to run with them.
That’s why we call you Misstake. LMAO
You’ve got to be kidding me. 1 win in the last 20 tries; you don’t have a leg to stand on calling anyone else anything, jerkoff.
Remind us how many SEC games you won in the last 20 games?
1? Oh ok.
“LMAO”
But we be y’all the number 16 team
Yeh, credit though to Arky D. Played very well.
1st paragraph Leach says “I really didn’t feel like it was Arkansas as much as ourselves,” LOL. Only really good teams can say that kind of stuff.
Get ready for the rest of the SEC to use our blueprint to stop the air raid cause you don’t know how to use one of the best RB in the SEC.
Well I’m sure the players, coaches and fans enjoyed reading about their team in the paper and online all last week.
They caught LSU off guard. Inexperienced secondary and a DC determined to play man coverage. Now that LSU has showed everyone how not to defend against State, they are going to have problems with that one-dimensional offense.
And that’s why Leach isn’t an elite coach. It isn’t lack of talent. It’s lack of consistency.
These next two weeks are going to really tell how good Mike Leach really is.
I think the complexion of the game changed when both RB’s went down. Both coaches turned down opportunities for FG’s that could have changed the outcome. Leach needs to understand that he played a team with talent that needed good coaching but a team that is lacking depth. The rest of his schedule will be filled with teams that have very good coaches with great talent and depth. He better adjust or he will lose his fans as quickly as he first won them over.