All started beautifully for the Mike Leach era at Mississippi State, with his Air Raid offense surprising defending national champions LSU with a 44-34 win. It was a statement to the SEC that Leach-ball was here, and by the looks of that first game anyway, unstoppable.
It has now proven stoppable. And like so many times before, Leach is lashing out after the result, this time putting the blame on the players, and saying that some may be “malcontents” that will require a “purge.”
Kentucky beat Mississippi State 24-2 on Saturday. That score is not a misprint. Leach’s high-flying offense scored zero points, with the defense doing the work with a lone safety.
And after the game, Leach put the onus not on himself, but rather on the players.
“We’re going to have to check some of our group and figure out who really wants to play here,” Leach said, via ESPN, “because any malcontents, we’re going to have to purge a couple of those.”
Mississippi State’s players did not play great on Saturday. Quarterback K.J. Costello, who broke passing records in the opening game against LSU, threw four interceptions in the game. He threw 55 passes on the day, completing 36 … for 232 yards.
Looking at those stats — 36 complete passes for only 232 total yards, shows just a bit over 6 yards gained per completion. If anything, this speaks to a failure of Leach’s, not his players.
Why? After the first game against LSU (which after another loss to Missouri, might just not be any good at all), there were college football coaches that noted that Leach was running the exact same plays and scheme he ran last year at Washington State.
Went back to last year doing some film watching @Coach_Leach when he was at @WSUCougarFB.
Not sure why… he's running the same stuff.
Does this play look familiar? CROSSING ROUTES!!! pic.twitter.com/F2wDsYYzPD
— Ruscin&Zach (@RuscinZach) October 2, 2020
The defensive solution, which I read about before the game even started, was to not let Costello throw the deep ball, and instead make him do dink-and-dunk short pass stuff until he tried to take a shot downfield.
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday. Kentucky kept the receivers in front of their secondary, let them take short passes, and then punished Costello when he tried to throw downfield.
Leach can say the players are malcontents or not doing the right thing, or whatever, and I’m sure the players made some mistakes, but he’s the one trotting out the same plays and expecting SEC defenses not to adapt to them.
It took them a couple weeks. They figured it out. That’s not on malcontents. That’s on Leach.
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