STARKVILLE — Earlier in the week, Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen said a lack of effort wasn’t the reason his team was falling short in big home games.
In a way, MSU’s third-year coach proved that line of thinking true Saturday night when he and the Bulldogs tried everything to no avail in a 24-7 loss to the No. 4 University of Alabama.
In the second quarter, MSU earned its second first down of on an 11-yard pass from Tyler Russell to Chad Bumphis. Everyone at Davis Wade Stadium wondered what was going on when the former Parade All-America quarterback ran off the field and was replaced by third-string quarterback Dylan Favre.
The next few minutes got a bit more interesting.
Mullen had signaled in a play MSU calls “A-11,” where the only two players in the tackle box are Favre and center Dillon Day. The other lineman are stretched out wide with skill position players behind them.
Russell said in the postgame media conference the Bulldogs had worked on play in practice for more than three weeks and that it was only for Favre to be behind center.
Favre completed a 5-yard pass to Bumphis while the defense looked around with its arms in the air.
“They’re one of the top defenses in the country, so we thought we’d get them off balance and keep them on their toes,” Mullen said. “We needed to try different formations and, at times, it was pretty good.”
The drive moved deep into Alabama territory before Derek DePasquale missed a 41-yard field goal. The miss by the junior kicker forced Mullen to pull out another trick when he used sophomore kicker Brian Egan on the next field goal attempt.
Egan, who never had been used on anything more than kickoffs before Saturday, missed badly wide right on a 29-yard attempt.
Egan was a Parade All-America kicker at Prattville (Ala.) High School, and was the Alabama Player of the Year at his position. He set a state record for points in a single season by a kicker (116) and connected on 20 of 24 field goals, the second most in state history.
However, he went 2 of 8 in one season at Western Illinois before transferring and walking on at MSU.
Egan had struggled in fall camp kicking field goals despite Mullen’s claim after the game that the sophomore “kicks the ball really well in
practice.”
“That’s my fault,” Mullen said. “I need to make sure he is mentally tough for the plays.”
In one of the game’s most critical spots, Mullen used senior quarterback Chris Relf in the red zone similarly to how the offense worked at the University of Kentucky but to a different result.
With MSU driving late in the first half, Relf took over on a second-and-6 at the Alabama 25-yard-line. A 1-yard draw play and an incomplete pass saw boos come down from many of the 57,871 fans at Davis Wade Stadium. DePasquale’s missed field goal was followed by a cascade of boos from the home fans.
“We called plays and there’s a lot of things we wanted to do with different guys at different times,” Mullen said, bristling at the question of the quarterback switching. “I think we rotated a tailback, too, and receivers.”
Alabama had prepared all week for Relf in running situations, so the switch didn’t surprise Crimson Tide defensive coordinator Kirby Smart.
“We knew that would be important,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “We knew that when (Russell) was in the game, we had all the respect in the world for the pass. When (Relf) was in the game, we had to defend the run. That is a difficult offense to defend.”
Mullen is 0-3 against Alabama at MSU. The combined score of those games is 85-20.
After the game, Mullen said he’ll remember Saturday’s loss not for what he could’ve done but what MSU’s players did to hurt themselves.
“They made a mistake and we went to pounce, but we returned it with another mistake,” Mullen said shaking his head. “I love the way our kids played … but in this conference you’re playing the best teams week in and week out and we have to execute at the highest levels.”
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