STARKVILLE — Staring down a 4th-and-16 at the Kansas State 35-yard line, Mississippi State freshman quarterback Garrett Shrader took flight.
Time felt suddenly halted.
Shrader’s knees collided first with Kansas State cornerback AJ Parker’s shoulder before striking linebacker Elijah Sullivan’s pads. Beginning to helicopter roughly six feet in the air, the MSU signal caller began his wildly graceful descent toward earth.
Crashing into the turf, Shrader landed almost perpendicular to the ground with his head angled toward the end zone at the Kansas State 20-yard line.
He was a yard short.
“I hoped I got the first down,” he said. “I didn’t.”
In that instant, the three-foot gap between Shrader’s final resting place and the line to gain signified the culmination of a 31-24 loss Saturday. But at its core, the one-yard distance was a manifestation of the unbridled inconsistency that plagued MSU (2-1) throughout the afternoon.
First, it was the Kansas State (3-0) rushing attack that gashed the Bulldog defense. Of the 14 plays that comprised the Wildcats’ first two scoring drives, six were runs of six yards or more — three of which went for nine yards or more.
Whether it was Jaden Crumedy and Erroll Thompson’s combined fourth down stop in the first quarter or Brian Cole’s fourth quarter strip-sack, the unit undoubtedly improved as the game developed. But as the group played under coach Joe Moorhead’s bend, don’t break mantra — it cracked in crunch time as wandering eyes in the linebacking corps left Kansas State receiver Dalton Schoen unmarked for the game-winning touchdown reception with 5:37 remaining in the fourth quarter.
“It was just a blown coverage — eye candy,” senior defensive back Brian Cole said. “Every time the tight end leaked out it was a play action pass. We really just had bad eyes for a second.”
Offensively, junior running back Kylin Hill further demonstrated why he entered Saturday’s contest as the nation’s second-leading rusher as he recorded his third-straight 100-yard game.
Grounding and pounding, Hill’s performance was all the more impressive as he recorded just two rushes for 10 yards or more en route to an 111-yard day — one that also marked the first time in his career the Bulldogs lost a game when he eclipsed the century mark.
As good as Hill was, MSU’s vaunted passing attack, or so it had been deemed over the past two weeks, was far from prolific.
Quarterback Tommy Stevens continued to battle the upper body injury that made him a game time decision and ultimately forced him from the game, recording his worst completion percentage — 46.6 percent — of the season on 7 of 16 passing.
Shrader was an even more dismal 33.3 percent passing, completing just four of his 12 passes for 51 yards. While at least two of the incompletions were drops, and he added another 82 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries, the freshman did little to inspire the Kansas State defense to sit back in coverage.
“I think Garrett played very hard,” Moorhead said. “He did excellent in the run game and there’s certainly things in the pass game that he needs to clean up.”
And for as inconsistent as both the MSU offense and defense proved, it was the Bulldog special teams unit that was perhaps most troublesome.
While Kansas State’s two muffed punts resulted in two MSU touchdowns, blown coverage on Scott Goodman’s fourth quarter kickoff led to a Malik Knowles 100-yard touchdown return to knot things up at 24 following Jace Christmann’s 47-yard field goal.
Postgame, Moorhead took the blame — placing as much responsibility for the troubling deficiencies on coaching as the actual execution.
“We’re going to look back and see probably three or our plays on each phase — offense, defense and special teams — where we’ll have to make sure we’re making the right calls as a coaching staff,” he conceded.
Stevens’ lingering injury concerns thrust a mild cloud over the immediate future in Starkville with Kentucky coming to town next week. Moorhead said he hoped the upper body issue is not an ongoing issue but that Stevens would see the training staff postgame.
But sticking true to MSU’s cliched approach that each week is a one-game season, the Bulldogs are preparing to go 1-0 against the SEC’s version of the Wildcats next Saturday.
“It’s already behind me,” junior receiver Osirus Mitchell said of the loss. “I’m about to go watch film right now and go into the Palmeiro Center and do a couple drills.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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