Three Things to Watch in Mississippi State's Second Scrimmage of Fall Camp

Mississippi State football holds its second scrimmage of fall camp at Scott Field on Saturday.

Mike Leach's goals for the weekend are simple -- be consistent and keep getting better.

"Just improvement. Steady improvement," Leach said. "Then we go into Mock Game Week, where all the periods are the same as game week, then we have to make some decisions. We’d like to be in a good position to do that. Have a good crisp, well-executed scrimmage."

In comparison to the previous scrimmage, this one should be expected to be just as competitive.

"(It should be) competitive at every level," Leach said. "Execution on both sides of the ball, which pretty much means both sides are pissed, because they would have liked more plays…would have liked to be more explosive…more success on their side of the ball. Competitive, dynamic consistent play, that isn’t streaky or in spurts."

Here's a look at three storylines heading into Saturday:

1. Offensive line performance.

The showing from the offensive line as a whole in the previous scrimmage was not up to standard, as the Bulldogs allowed 10 sacks between the four quarterbacks who saw the field.

While some of these happened because a quarterback held the ball for too long, others happened because of the incompetence of the o-line on that particular day. The unit has largely had a solid camp, and it will be interesting to see how much better they fare from the first scrimmage to the second.

Leach said he thinks the unit has improved since the first scrimmage.

"I think so," he said. "The big thing is we have to put good plays closer together. We make plenty of good plays, we just make them in streaks. We kind of traded blows today. I thought it was pretty even on both sides, nobody got the momentum for too long…a little bit in team. Offensively, we had it for a long time and then defense had it for a long time."

Bulldogs offensive lineman Cole Smith said Friday that the group is putting that first scrimmage performance in the past and is looking forward to getting things right this time around.

We just tried to put it (the first scrimmage) behind us and get better every day," Smith said. "I feel we’ll be much improved by tomorrow."

Smith and LaQuinston Sharp have both seen some time at center throughout camp, though Sharp seems to have the edge and it seems far more likely that we'll see Smith line up at guard instead this year.

“He’s a thick guy with long arms,” Leach said of Sharp. “When he stopped kind of pressing on himself and let himself play, then he really started to take off.”

2. Stepping up in Jordan Davis' place.

Leach didn't give an update on Davis' condition, though he tore his ACL in the first scrimmage and is out for the season, according to Matt Zenitz of On3. Davis was carted off the field after suffering a left leg injury in Saturday's scrimmage.

With this, someone has to be ready to take his place, and that someone looks like it could be UCF transfer Randy Charlton.

Charlton has been taking first-team reps since Davis has been gone, and was recently asked about how much of a difference he felt there was between playing the strong side and the weak side.

"No difference at all for me," Charlton said. "You're playing ball, it's just a different place, different plays but it's the same thing -- play ball, be strong, be fierce."

3. The quarterback situation.

It's been hard to see a situation in which sophomore Will Rogers doesn't begin the season as the starter, though South Alabama transfer Chance Lovertich has kept things competitive throughout camp.

In the previous scrimmage, Rogers completed 11-of-20 passes for 79 yards and one touchdown to wide receiver Jaden Walley. Lovertich was good for 19-of-30 passes for 152 yards and one touchdown to receiver Austin Williams.

Since, Rogers seems to have distanced himself more as the No. 1 option and looks more and more the part of QB1, improving daily.

Leach told reporters Thursday that how he plans to break down this scrimmage from the quarterback series standpoint will be much of the same of what we saw last time.

"We’ll meet about that tomorrow afternoon," he said. "I think it will be similar, though."

Outside of Lovertich and Rogers, another thing to watch at quarterback will be the continued development of true freshman passer Sawyer Robertson, who did some nice things in the first scrimmage -- he was 6-of-8 pass attempts for 52 yards with a 24-yard touchdown pass to receiver Teddy Knox on Saturday.

Add us as a preferred source on Google