What Mike Leach said after Air Raid offense fell flat in stunning loss to Arkansas
By Adam Spencer
Published:
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.
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
