Mississippi State Wide Receivers Must See Improvement Ahead of 2022 Season
Mississippi State football runs the Air Raid offense, which is founded upon getting the ball into playmakers' hands with what is most of the time a relatively even distribution between pass-catchers.
Problems can occur, obviously, when players at wideout are struggling. Such was the case in the Bulldogs' most recent scrimmage, with another scrimmage approaching Saturday afternoon in Starkville.
The Bulldogs had several drops, making the stat lines of players like Will Rogers and Sawyer Robertson look much worse than they should have been.
Looking at the final lines on the day, Rogers completed 9-of-18 passing attempts for 77 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Robertson was 11-of-21 for 80 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Make no mistake about it, Rogers is one of the most accurate quarterbacks in college football and could experience a meteoric rise in 2022 and Robertson is poised to have a successful college career himself. While there were some slight errors from time to time on the quarterbacks, this was more on the players who should have come down with the catch and did not even when they were put in solid positions to do so.
Head coach Mike Leach spoke to the frustration surrounding this following the scrimmage.
"I think we've got to get tougher at receiver," Leach said. "I think those receivers spend a certain amount of time being awfully willing to get shoved around."
There is still some time before the season-opener against Memphis on Sept. 3, though, and not every day has been negative for a wide receiving corps that loses a significant piece in Makai Polk but was still a force in 2021.
That was reflected in some of the practices following the scrimmage. MSU's wide receivers room this year features the likes of veteran Austin Williams, who has embodied consistency, Rara Thomas, Caleb Ducking, Lideatrick "Tulu" Griffin, Jamire Calvin, Jordan Mosley, Jaden Walley, Rufus Harvey, Antonio Harmon and other up-and-comers.
This is a group that showed a lot of flashes and optimism to build upon last season, and it's up to them to put it all together in full form when the season starts up in roughly two weeks.
