Will 'Improving' Bulldogs’ Offense Continue to Open Up Against Memphis?
Two games in, two wins down – yet Mississippi State still has much to improve on as the season progresses. Head coach Mike Leach laid that out quite simply for us.
“I think they’re improving – but we’ve got to keep improving.”
Mississippi State will meet a hungry team in the Memphis Tigers at Liberty Bowl Stadium this Saturday. The Bulldogs have seen an improvement from sophomore quarterback Will Rogers, as he’s thrown for 300+ yards in both of the first two games of the season. But the offense still has a long way to go.
And if the Bulldogs expect the winning results to continue into Saturday, the sophomore Rogers will have to continue that trend.
The Air Raid offense can often take a full offseason or two before it truly begins to click with the entire offensive unit. Leach has seen moments from this group, but the consistency has yet to be on full display. In the NC State game, that was quite evident as this Mississippi State offense didn’t truly get into a groove until the second half, though it was a much more steady performance than what we saw from them in Week 1.
Heading into Saturday’s matchup against a Memphis defense who just allowed 50 points to Arkansas State, I’m expecting this Mississippi State offense to continue to find itself and consistently make progress.
If Mississippi State gets ahead in this matchup early on, it seems plausible for Mike Leach to test Rogers and the rest of the offense. Leach could open up the playbook and truly see what the unit could be capable of as their ceiling continues to grow.
Leach has already spoken to the broadening as far as the playbook goes, comparing last year to this year.
“We’ve got more in than we did last year, for sure."
It will be interesting to see how things shake out as the Bulldogs and Tigers kick off at 3 p.m. CT on Saturday in Liberty Bowl Stadium.
