Players to Know for the Mississippi State: Will Rodgers
Mississippi State has been an interesting team to watch under head coach Mike Leach, and that's not a surprise. Since 2020, Leach has introduced his unique air-raid offense to the SEC West with mixed results. After winning just 3 games in 2020, the Bulldogs have had good moments with starting quarterback Will Rodgers. A lot of Mississippi State's fans were excited to see the pass-heavy offense and Rodgers has continued to put up tons of production each season.
This year the Bulldogs are 6-3 with last week's overtime win against the Auburn Tigers. They are just (3-3) in conference play with losses to LSU, Kentucky, and Alabama.
Will Rodgers, a 3-star recruit (per 247 Sports) out of Mississippi, was brought in by former head coach Joe Moorhead. After coach Leach was hired 2020 early in January from Washington State, Mississippi State would radically change into the unique air-raid system and Rodgers would be asked to eventually take over as a freshman. During the COVID season, he would work his way into the starting role for the Alabama game and would finish the season with 1976 yards in a limited year. During his second season in Starkville, Rodgers threw for 4739 yards on 683 attempts with a completion rate of 73.9%.
Rodgers has led the SEC in passing yards for the entire 2022 season. On the year, Rodgers has completed 68.3% of his passes for 26 touchdowns and looks to be on pace to continue separating as his school's all-time passing leader. Last week against Auburn, Rodgers had 59 attempts for 357 yards and 3 touchdowns.
His accuracy is his deadliest weapon and with plenty of attempts per game, it is even more impressive that he's been able to maintain such a high completion percentage. As a Junior, Rogers now has 3 years under Leach's system and his processing has become very efficient. There are very few other offenses that are more dependent on good quarterback play and despite some free-access throws, it's still essential to have someone who can identify things at a high level. Rodgers doesn't have a tremendously strong arm but his ball placement has improved each year.
In Athens during their matchup in 2020, Rodgers had an outstanding performance with a 78.8% completion rate for 336 yards and one touchdown. Georgia would end up playing a soft zone to challenge Rodgers to make difficult contested throws. Coach Kirby Smart would later admit that when a quarterback beats you by making high-level throws you just have to accept it and continue making it hard to do again.
Several times Mississippi State would throw their way into the red zone with one big breakaway touchdown across the middle during the one time Kirby Smart and the Georgia defense broke out of their soft zone, Mark Webb was burnt for an explosive. The game would end up being close with Georgia winning in 31-24 finish.
Rogers this season has continued to show why he was the 2021 NCAA leader in completion percentage. He's one of the most consistent things about this 6-3 Bulldog team. If UGA is able to mitigate Rodgers, their offense will stall and be extremely limited.
Georgia needs to refocus after their emotional and impressive game against top-ranked Tennessee. If they're able to reset and key in on this unique Mississippi State offense this game should go as planned.
