and when we rush 3 guys, we don't. We have to keep pressure on them."

Uh, yep.

Only time they 3 man rush is when Miss St. is in the red zone in the second half.

You better believe they saw our game plan and knew to rush 4 at times.

Somehow it was a controverial topic with the experts on here. They apparently loved seeing 3 men waltz with 5 while it was 7 to 10 yards per pass play.

Oh, that was the 7th sack of the game btw. In the 3rd quarter early.

7th sack for Bama. What the hell were we doing?

Playing patty cakes

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7th sack for Bama. What the hell were we doing?

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"Keeping the ball in front of us." Like 5 yards in front of us but 10 yards from the line of scrimmage.

We do well with pressure on QB. We didn't get it with 3. Epic coaching strategy failure with zero adjustment

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We do well with pressure on QB. We didn't get it with 3. Epic coaching strategy failure with zero adjustment

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Exactly. We didn't even try to mix it up to any degree.

Love Elko but we had a trash gameplan against Mississippi state

The only possibility is we were sandbagging and thought we could win anyway... until we didn't.

They also tackled better and covered MSU WRs better…we aren't that good at coverage.

tn_ags said:

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The only possibility is we were sandbagging and thought we could win anyway... until we didn't.

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There are other possibilities, Rook

90ags said:

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They also tackled better and covered MSU WRs better…we aren't that good at coverage.

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That and our offense sucked donkey balls.

i'll go back and watch it and let y'all know for sure…. I DO know back in the day our blitzing Leach's QB at Kyle was utter defeat. But times and personnel change….

Biggest difference between us and Bama vs Miss St was the OFFENSE. Miss St was moving up and down vs their D- but their poor D let the game get out of hand. Our D never had that advantage because our O struggled the whole time, so we had to limit the big scores and quick strikes potential of their air attack, and reduce the overall scoring to make it a shorter game.
A lot of short passes by MSU kept clock running. We didnt have the blocking ourselves for sustained long drives running the ball, nor the air proficiency needed.

Our D looked really good vs Bama because our O grew up.I dont think Elko became dumb for one game vs MSU. I think our D was hamstrung by our O.

Time of Possession Miss St. 34.5 A&M 23.5

Even if our offense struggled TOP could be equal. But it certainly wasn't.

That defense the Aggies ran against MSU worked against them all of last year and also when Leach was at Washington State. It seems that Leach finally adjusted and figured out how to attack it.

So i rewatched it and have to correct
my earlier post- our O was actually not that bad. In 1st half We DID rush 3 almost exclusively, and they slowly marched down field. but our O was pretty much matching them- actually moving in large chunks.

2nd half we started mixing it up with some 4 man blitz and occasional 5. More often than not though, they had big gains when we did. Our 3 man was at LEAST as effective as the blitz.

The game was looking a LOT like our games last year, where we just stay tight then take them over at end. Except THEY were the ones with the long drives, so we did not have a worn out MSU D at the end.

We got behind the 8 ball with too few minutes left, and when we had that one awful possession at end, that was it.

The big fail was our coverage in the secondary. Bad all night. gave them Waaay to much cushion. Wouldve been nice to roll the dice with more heavy blitz and tight coverage from time to time. Only DB playing his ass off was our freshman CB Chappel- tight coverage all night. He is alresdy very good and will be GREAT!

Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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That defense the Aggies ran against MSU worked against them all of last year and also when Leach was at Washington State. It seems that Leach finally adjusted and figured out how to attack it.

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Leach's QB play is much better this year than last

It was simply an awful gameplan, learn and move on

In fairness, most teams have had more success with 3 man rushes against Leach. Washington always beat him and that's what they did. Not everyone has the players saban does on the back end to be able to afford to do that.

We just tackled poorly overall. LSU and memphis beat them with basically the same gameplan as us.

We held State to 21 points. Offense did not follow thru on execution to score more points.

We lost due to no pressure at all and the offense not scoring 21+ AND the offense giving State 5 points.

Regardless, as Saban said "we need to affect the quarterback" which is why they rushed 4, usually 3 DL and an LB but sometimes 4 DL. Our D gameplan was extremely frustrating, even if it did what Elko and Jimbo wanted and ultimately we lost due to our offense. You can say that looking at our game in isolation as far as how the game went and how it played out. But playing the "what if" game, if we had chosen to be more aggressive and rush 4, maybe State O does not get those 21 points.

I go back to the example I have given before, if we were playing any traditional offense and held them to 2-3 yards every 1st and 2nd down so that they faced dozens of 3rd and 7+ in the game, Elko would never for the entire game just rush 3 and give up such huge cushion as to give away 7-12 yard completions easily, almost uncontested. We didn't do that vs. Bama facing a superior QB, OL and WR/TE group. So why would you do it vs. State/Leach. That makes no sense.

As great as our DL is, Leal, Clemons, etc., very few of them are going to beat a double-team of two 300+ OL that are holding constantly.

You have to affect the QB, and the most successful D strategy vs. State/Leach is to rush with 4 and occassionaly bring a 5th, and have good open field tackling. But it starts with pressure.

I respectfully disagree. The most successful defense over the last couple of decades against leach have been with 3 man fronts. Read articles about Washington. They beat him every time. Always bring 3. I just watched a little film against LSU/State. LSU brought 3 the vast majority of the time, and nearly got burned the first time I saw them bring 4. Just a lucky overthrow.

Even in our game, we gave up far more big plays the few times we brought 4 than when we brought 3.

We didn't tackle well. That's the main reason our defense suffered in this game. Tackle better, and we win. Play just slightly better on offense, and we win.

Our offense was mediocre, and gave them 5 points as well. It was a combination of 2 units just playing very mediocre football. But ultimately, the defense held state to their 2nd lowest offensive output of the season. Not great, not terrible, either. Should have been enough to win, and would have been for Memphis, LSU, or Bama's offense they displayed against Miss State.

https://blogs.usafootball.com/blog/6919/how-washington-has-snuffed-out-the-air-raid

They not only beat Leach every time, they hold him to 10-17 points every single time.

What was most frustrating to me was the lack of adjustment. We came into it with a plan. The plan wasn't working. And we just kept doing it. All game long. We didn't give up big plays, but we let them dink and dunk their way down the field and into the end zone. All game long.

Ogre09 said:

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What was most frustrating to me was the lack of adjustment. We came into it with a plan. The plan wasn't working. And we just kept doing it. All game long. We didn't give up big plays, but we let them dink and dunk their way down the field and into the end zone. All game long.

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We gave up 17 in the first.

We gave up 7 in the second

LSU gave up 3 in the first half. Then 22 in the 2nd.

Now, we did get lucky they missed 2 field goals, and one of those FG drives was an 8 minute clock killer that limited our offenses opportunities. No doubt.