Everything Jeff Lebby said at Monday's press conference

Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby held his weekly Monday morning press conference and discussed a wide array of topics about last weekend, as well as the Bulldogs upcoming game against Northern Illinois.

Lebby also provided some updates about injuries to key players. Here's everything he said:

Coach, what are kind of your goals heading into this one?

Yeah, for us it is, it's about having the ability to go beat 4-0, 1-0 on Saturday. And for us, man, having undefeated non-conference. We've talked about that a ton as a program, as a football team, that's incredibly important for us to be able to start 4-0. We put ourselves in a position to do that, but we've got a great big test on Saturday at three.

Is there anything you can about Northern Illinois from some of the recent upsets?

Yeah, I think Northern Illinois, what they've done from a program standpoint, they've gone on the road, and they've won huge games. I think you point to that as much or more than anything, and understand that over the last four years, they've went into somebody else's house, powerful opponent, and won three of the four games. They had opportunities to beat NC State. They're throwing it into the end zone last year to go win that game and beat Notre Dame, who gets beat by a touchdown in a national championship game. So, I'm constantly trying to point at Northern Illinois and what they've done from a program standpoint. They'll be an incredibly confident unit, had opportunities to be on the right side of it versus Maryland a couple weeks ago. They've had an open date again. So, man, the urgency our guys got to operate with is crucial.

One of the things that really jumps out about Northern Illinois is the rush defense, I think they're giving up 74 yards a game. What have you seen from that front? What are they doing to be so successful slowing down the run game?

Yeah, these guys don't stay blocked. They've done a great job of getting off blocks. It's really hard to dent the interior. And they are, they're physical, the Mike, the Will Backers, being guys that play downhill, and the same deal. They don't stay blocked. And so you see this incredible amount of effort. You see this incredible amount of toughness when you watch the tape. We've got to match that, surpass that, to be able to go do what we want in the run game.

You had the opportunity to play three different quarterbacks on Saturday, it seems like those three guys, they have a great relationship. And they're all there for each other. When you see them celebrating each other, how does that make you feel?

Yeah, I think it talks to who they are, but also what's going on inside our building every day. Big we, little me, that's what we're talking about nonstop. How can we find ways to help the team? How do we have the ability to make sure that we're embracing our role and doing everything we can just to become the best version of ourselves every day? And those guys are trying to do that, and that's fun to see.

We've talked a lot about the defense and just the increase in depth and talent, things like that, but for you, seeing the huge jump in numbers so far, what's going into that, other than just adding more depth and talent?

Yeah, I think for a lot of these guys, it's year two in a system. I mean, I think that's a huge thing. People don't think about that, how important that is. To be able to go get coached by the same guy and to be year two in a system and having great understanding of, man, what are the shortcuts inside our defense? What's the stress of this call? How do I protect the stress? That's about understanding a system. And whether it's Nic Mitchell or Hunter, Kelly Jones, Deonte Anderson, Zakari Tillman, the list goes on of guys that are playing much better than they were at earlier times in their career, but also understanding it is, it's because their knowledge of what we're trying to get done is sped up.

A lot of players got to play, including Ray Thomas. What did you see from him?

Yeah, Ray did some good things when he got in there. There was some real physicality, which we'd love to see, and hopefully he can continue to build on that to be able to give us some quality reps inside.

Any update on Jett or Albert?

Right now, I do feel better about Albert. I feel good about Stonka. Neither one of those guys were cut loose today. Jett is getting back, but again, out of those three guys, none of them went all day today, so it will. It's gonna have to be the evaluation piece of it as we get later in the week. They need to be able to practice tomorrow and Wednesday for them to go play the high level.

On area to clean up based on the game film…

Offensively, as a football team, yeah, I mean, there's a ton to clean up. As we got into the team meeting this morning, I think guys understood that the score was what it was. But there was a lot of things that we got away with on Saturday, and that is the message. The urgency that we operate with to be able to fix the problems that showed up is a huge deal. Again, we were able to overcome some of those things on Saturday. That will not remain the same. We've got to fix them.

Lebby on the defensive line's performance against Alcorn State...

Yeah, I thought Bam Bam, Tay, Red, Joe Head, all four of those guys did some really good things. We're gonna need all four of those guys to play really well this week with what we're gonna get on the other side of the ball. It's gonna be a huge point for Saturday's game as being great against the run, being great on early downs, and we're gonna need the D line to play.

In your experience coaching, when you have a game like that, we're able to, how much does that help the others?

Yeah, it's huge being able to reward those guys to go play. We played 40 different guys on special teams who were really clean from a substitution standpoint. So seeing those things play out the way they did was really good to see. Being able to play all those guys on teams so that that creates depth later for us in the season. I mean, who's another guy that's got the ability to go run down on a kickoff or do a great job on pump block? Whatever it is that is, that's huge for us as we continue to move forward.

You played a lot of running quarterbacks, and it's a little different, I guess. They run some zombie kind of stuff in Northern Illinois. But when you look at this offense, a lot of Wildcat stuff, end around stuff. But what kind of stands out to you when you look at them offensively?

Physicality, the two running backs that they're playing with, obviously the transfer, 10 and 45. Both these guys are guys that have real, they've really got the ability to make some chunk plays, but they've got real physicality in their game. And it's gonna take game tackling the entire day for us to get done what we want to get done, we've got to create great knockback to that they're off timing from a run scheme standpoint. But again, they're going to try to control the clock, they're going to run the football. They've been really good at what they do. Their recipe is exactly what it is. And we've got to do a great job countering that.

Lebby on practices...

Yeah, it's all about how we practice. That's how you create development. Obviously, you've gotta go play the game to be able to create trust. And we're playing a bunch of guys, we've been able to play a bunch of guys in the first three weeks. We wanna continue to be able to play fresh and fast and be violent both sides of the ball. So how we practice has got to be advantage of us, the physicality on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. How we prepare and that is how we'll continue to create the depth we need.

Brenen Thompson's been your number one guy. What's been the biggest difference in unlocking his potential here versus the other guys?

Yeah, I think, again, just from a system standpoint, obviously having Blake being an older guy, we knew really exactly what we were getting. Again, if you watched the tape from him last year, the kid is open nonstop and played a ton of football. He didn't have a lot of production, but he was open a lot. And again, I had him that first year when I was in Norman, he was banged up. But when he played, he had production, just it was very, very limited. So there's just no surprise by what's going on with him.

We talked about Seth Davis the other day, and it was a feel good story and all that. But at the end of the day, he's a really explosive player that could come out in this offense too. I mean, for his future now here in your offense, what do you see from him and his role in this offense, whether it be this year or beyond?

Yeah, the hope is that he can get all the way back healthy. And he's just, he's not there yet. And he knows that our medical team, we talked about doing an unbelievable job with the young man. It's just been incredible to see what Thomas and his entire staff and our docs have been able to get done with Seth. And he's closer than he's ever been, but he's still not all the way there. And the hope is that this guy can get truly back to 100% healthy, because he can be a problem.

Three games in three different offensive line, starters, combat musical chairs. I know you're probably more eager than anybody to get that settled, but do you worry a little bit about the offense here a little bit? And have you had a lot of any reps as a unit?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, again, for us, that's something that's gonna be a huge part of our success offensively is playing the way we need to play up front. And we have, it's been musical chairs, hopefully have Albert back. If he'll be able to go practice tomorrow and Wednesday, that will be huge. And then we can settle it. We do wanna still rotate interior at the guard position to be able to, again, be fresh. But we've got to settle on these seven to eight guys max to be able to go roll. We're gonna do what we wanna do.