Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

October 30, 2018 at 10:00 pm.

Bulldogs offense finally shows its chops

Mississippi State drove 79 yards on a dozen plays, converting four third downs and scored on its opening drive against Texas A&M on Saturday night.

The Bulldogs’ usually stoic coach Joe Moorhead erupted on the sideline; hugging players and slapping them on the helmet, pumping his fist and yelling and even landing a couple of playful jabs into the midsection of quarterback Nick Fitzgerald.

Needless to say, Moorhead was excited about his offense coming to life.

“I was fired up and that wasn’t fake emotion,” Moorhead said.

“I was kind of juiced. I also wanted our kids to see that we are walking the walk and not talking the talk, like we talked about. I told them that this is going to be a game of passion, this is going to be a game of aggression and that we are going to go after it and not leave anything on the table.”

Moorhead, who also serves as the offensive play-caller, showed the same aggression in his play selection as well. The result was the Bulldogs’ most balanced effort in SEC play with 241 yards passing, 143 yards rushing and 28 points on the board.

“I just went back to game-planning it and calling it aggressively and doing what we do well,” Moorhead said. “We dictated the tempo of the game rather than reacting to the tempo of the game. I think that’s an element that may have been missing at times during the middle part of the season but it won’t be missing moving forward.”

No. 18 MSU had struggled to throw the ball in SEC play, only averaging 92.8 yards through the air. Moorhead was determined to fix the Bulldogs’ struggles throwing the football and resulted in a pair of touchdown passes.

“The passing game was what was missing,” Moorhead said. “For whatever reason, I just said going into that game that you’ve got remember what got us here and that’s what we’re going to be moving forward.”

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