Sam Pittman knows exactly what he’s up against going into Starkville this weekend and getting the offense on track and fixing special teams will be huge.
Both are fixable in the short term. Effort and organization weren’t the problems against Georgia.
Quarterback Feleipe Franks looked like a traffic officer directing traffic at times to get players in the right spot.
“That slows everything down,” Pittman said.
It also takes away one of Franks’ experience looking at defenses in the SEC.
“We really didn’t have that problem at practice, but we did the other night,” Pittman said. “The quarterback was getting everybody lined up instead of looking at the defense seeing how we can attack that. So that has to be a big thing for us this week.
“We have to calm the quarterback down so he can make plays. The only way we can do that is if everyone else knows what their assignment it.”
Maybe the biggest change from the last couple of years is there are no questions from anybody that Franks will be the quarterback behind center.
The offense could never get in sync. It would be nice to hear from offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, but that isn’t happening so we’ll just have to go with what we have.
“I don’t think any of us were happy with the rhythm of the offense,” Pittman said. “Too many misalignments.”
The other issue was the inability of Arkansas’ wide receivers to consistently get any separation from the Georgia defensive backs. Mississippi State won’t have a secondary that good.
“We’ve got to get open,” Pittman said. “We’ve got to get separation. That was one of the things that stood out.”
Treylon Burks was targeted 11 times in the game. All the other receivers combined had 13 targets so it probably won’t be a secret if Burks doesn’t have someone on him from the time he gets off the bus Saturday.
For the Razorbacks to have any sort of hope at all they’ve got to put points on the scoreboard and this may not be the type game where either offense can blink.
Part of the problems last week was Georgia’s defense.
“I knew that we were going to struggle up front against Georgia’s defensive line,” Pittman said Monday. “Going into the game I didn’t think we were going to be able to pound the ball at ’em.”
Mississippi State gave up 117 on the ground against LSU last week, but knocked that number down in the boxscore by sacking Myles Brennan for 37 yards in losses.
The Hogs will have to figure out ways to get into the end zone and it will probably be by passing (State gave up 345 yards in the air to the Tigers).
That and fix some of the technical things on special teams.
Forget about the defense. They couldn’t stop Georgia’s third-team quarterback Saturday when it counted the most and State’s offense is going to probably come out flinging it around and probably won’t stop.
Oh, and Pittman made it clear there are no plans to slow things down offensively, either.
“That’s who we are,” he said about the tempo they want out of the offense.
Which means everybody has to line up correctly and stop the game of musical chairs like against Georgia.
“We’ll get that done and get those corrections made this week,” Franks said after the Georgia game.
If they don’t, well, it could turn into a track meet for State.
