Everything Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby said after Saturday's scrimmage

Mississippi State is exactly two weeks away from its season-opening game against Southern Miss in Hattiesburg.

The Bulldogs will continue with preseason practices this week, but did hold their second scrimmage of the preseason. The scrimmage was closed to the public, but coach Jeff Lebby spoke with reporters afterwards. Here's everything he said:

Coach, what changes for you guys from scrimmage one to scrimmage two? I mean, is the play calling different? Are you expecting more from them as camp kind of ramps up?

Yeah, I mean, the installs have continued to build as we've moved through camp, right? So, the call sheet today was different both sides of the ball than it was last week. And so, I think that's natural again for our guys. We're trying to create some stress for them, make it as hard as we can right now in the moment so that when we get to game plan, man, they're able to dial into that and it streamlines it and makes it easier.

You know, when we started this camp, I asked you about retention. I would imagine at this point it's more about progression. Do you see the progression from week one to week two that you're wanting to see?

Yeah, you do. With a bunch of the guys sitting in the chair that I'm sitting in, you want more. You constantly want more. That's not ever going to change. And so, the stress is regardless of who's out there, whether it's the ones, the twos, the threes—whoever it is—the stress is being able to execute. And so, there's been this great amount of growth for a bunch of guys. And there's a bunch of guys that got to get a heck of a lot better. And that's where the strain is. I think that's part of coaching. That's part of leading and trying to find ways to get the most out of them every single day and get these guys where they need to be.

Before watching the film and breaking all that down, what caught your attention today? What stood out?

Yeah, I think again defensively we had great energy. Made some huge plays in some short yardage situations where we were able to get off the field defensively to end a couple of drives early in the scrimmage and that created real momentum, which I thought was great to see. So, I thought the energy, the toughness, the attitude, and the edge—we're getting close to where we want to be from that standpoint. We got to continue to play cleaner and play better and create depth, but the mentality and the edge right now, I'm proud of where our guys are defensively.

There's been a lot of talk about the depth that you've added on the defensive line, but you added a lot of experience in terms of snaps on the back end as well with the safeties. Are you seeing kind of complimentary skill sets there as you're evaluating who's going to play what role?

Yeah, absolutely. A guy like )Jahron Manning) who's come in and played a bunch of ball, he's been very productive. He's going to have a great year for us and I'm excited about who he is and where he's at right now as he's fitting into it.

You know, between the portal and some of your freshmen, a couple of JUCO guys, you had a bunch of people who weren't here for the spring. Do you feel like those guys are about as up to speed as they can be at this point?

Yeah, it's a race, man. Like those guys that have now practiced with us 13 times, they've got to get every rep. They've got to get every walkthrough, every minute of every day to be ready to roll and play the way we need to go play on August 30th. The process for those guys has been sped up, but again, we got a bunch of new offensive linemen that we've got to come together as a unit there. I think physically we have the bodies. We've got to continue to come together inside that room to be able to play seven, eight guys and play winning football.

Coach, in the portal, wide receiver always appears to be a priority to you. You took some guys that have a ton of potential, but not a lot of college-level production. Guys like Ant, of course, and Brennan. How have they performed so far, and what are your expectations for them?

Yeah, my expectations for both those guys are to be not good players, but great players for us. I love their skill set. I love how they've attacked every day. They've practiced every day. They've taken care of themselves. They've had really good production. So, I'm excited about both those guys.

Two weeks until the opening game. At what point do you start moving from the installation, the cleaning up installation, to it's time to finalize things and start working towards the first opponent and for that matter the first month of the season?

Yeah, tomorrow will really be a day as we're in the office to dial in on depth charts and from a special teams standpoint, hey, these are the guys that are going to be on the bus. This is exactly where we're going to end up and there's going to be great competition as we move through next week. But there'll be a lot of scout work next week as we get ready for the first few opponents and that'll be important for our guys to have this great amount of growth and get ready to go while some of our guys' roles are going to be changing. That was something we talked about after the scrimmage just a minute ago. Some guys have to make sure we're buying into their role as we change the format of practice and how we do what we do.

Anybody on offense kind of catch your attention today? And how was Blake?

Yeah, I mean Von and Fluff, Colin did some good things. Johnny did some good things. I thought all four of those backs had a pretty solid day and were productive. Blake was solid, took care of the football and that was good to see. From a decision-making standpoint he was in a really good spot. And then the other two guys, Luke and Kamario, both had solid days. It's all about the ball, man—taking care of the rock—and those guys did that today. We had one fumble on an exchange that was an issue. Outside of that, we were much cleaner, which we needed to be.

I asked you last week if any guys on both sides of the line had started to separate themselves and you said let you get through another scrimmage and two weeks of camp and you might name some names. Are there a couple guys that have kind of separated themselves over there?

Yeah, I think on the D-line when you think about it—new guys like Will Witson, Jaray Bledsoe and Jamil—as those new guys have gotten in, they've done a really nice job for us. And you think about Deonte, Bam Bam, Kalvin Dinkins, B Jen and Malik Sylla. Malik's the only new one of those guys, but again, guys that I feel like can go play winning football for us. At that position, you got to play multiple guys. And I think that's probably what I'm most excited about, feeling as if we've got a chance to have maybe nine, ten guys go play winning football. There's been a great amount of growth. We're not anywhere close to where we need to be, but that's going to give us a chance.

Coach, kind of back to the roster composition as you move forward. Not every young player comes in here thinking they're going to start and win the Heisman. When you begin to transition from competition role to kind of scout team role, how do you communicate that to the player to continue to get the buy-in from them you need?

Yeah. Through conversation and meeting with those guys and again it's coming from me every single day. Everybody on our football team, inside that locker room, inside our building, has a role. Buy into that role. Embrace the role and become the best version of yourself you can possibly be. To me, that's life and that's the real world. And so if I can get guys to buy into just doing that every day, one, they're going to practice the way we need them to practice. They're going to have great energy and appreciation for their opportunity. We're stressing that non-stop, but it is through conversation and time.

Related to Steve's question, the first thing you said on signing day last December was you improved the team depth. You repeated that in spring. Can we fully appreciate how much practice has changed this preseason that you actually have depth to practice with and a viable scout team?

Yeah, I mean again today we were over 110 snaps, which was really, really good. I'm not certain, but I want to say last year's second scrimmage we were right around 80 to 85 and it was 1,000% because of bodies. And so, we're going to go practice the way we need to practice just to give ourselves a chance and that's going to be big for us.

Jordan and Blake both told us Thursday how disappointed they were about how the offense looked in that first scrimmage. Did you see from the veterans how they really took on ownership of that and wanted to make it better this time?

Yeah, I think with our guys offensively there's incredible accountability and there's been leadership in that room. Now it's a game of doing. It always will be and that's going to be forever the thing for us—a game of execution, a game of doing. And our guys feel that, they understand that, and that's something that they've continued to preach and will continue to preach as we get closer.