Where, when, weather and TV
Where: Davis-Wade Stadium, Starkville, Miss.
When: 3:15 p.m. central time Saturday, Oct. 19
Weather: Sunny, high of 75
TV: SEC Network (Taylor Zarzour, Matt Stinchcomb, Ashley Stroehlein)
No. 14 Texas A&M (5-1, 3-0 SEC) depth chart
Mississippi State (1-5, 0-3 SEC) depth chart
Texas A&M statistical leaders
Passing: Reed, 43-79 (54.4%), 585 yards, 6 TD
Weigman, 41-66 (62.1%), 501 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT
Rushing: Moss, 88 carries, 609 yards (6.9 YPC), 6 TD
Daniels, 57 carries, 245 yards (4.3 YPC), 4 TD
Reed, 43 carries, 226 yards (5.3 YPC), 2 TD
Receiving: Thomas, 19 catches, 252 yards (13.3 YPC), 2 TD
Allen, 12 catches, 204 yards (17 YPC), 1 TD
Walker, 11 catches, 131 yards (11.9 YPC), 1 TD
Mississippi State statistical leaders
Tackles: Smith, 56
Blanton, 50
Lanier, 37
Tackles for loss: Jennings, 3.5
Lanier and Williams, 2
Sacks: Jennings, 1.5
Dinkins, 1
Interceptions: Three players with 1
Forced fumbles: Ellington and Blanton, 2
Pollock and Smith, 1
Fumble recoveries: Three players with 1
What A&M wants to do
Mississippi State is giving up 6.5 yards per play and 5.1 yards per rush. That sounds like a prototype Collin Klein game, where you run the ball heavily and take some deep shots.
Georgia completely ignored the run, but that's not A&M's way of doing business. Le'Veon Moss and Amari Daniels will likely get a heavy workload, taking some of the pressure off of Conner Weigman (who, believe it or not, will only be making his third career road start). Going right at the Bulldogs has been successful for everyone who has tried it.
Weigman showed really good patience and the ability to find receivers in zones, and he may need to do that again this weekend. Mississippi State uses a 3-man front most of the time, with a JACK (standup end) the remainder. They blitz frequently, but their blitzes have been ineffective -- five sacks on the season. But that leaves a lot of open space in the middle of the field, which could be exploited by the Aggies.
Against Missouri, we saw the first real downfield passing game from A&M all season, and that will likely continue against the Bulldogs. State has given up 13 passes of 20 yards or more in the past two games; A&M had five passes of more than 20 yards against Missouri. There could be an opportunity to open things up some Saturday.
The most important thing will be to continue the lack of turnvoers. A&M has turned the ball over once in the last five games and has controlled time of possession. If the Aggies avoid turnovers and are close to their average TOP of 32 minutes a game, they should be in good shape.
How Mississippi State may try to counter
By breaking every single trend they've shown so far this year. They're at the bottom of the conference --- and the country -- in every single category. The only one area where they haven't been terrible is forcing turnovers, where they have seven -- two last weekend against Georgia. Those two interceptions became 10 points.
The best thing the Bulldogs can do is try to slow down Moss and Daniels and hope Weigman can't repeat the performance he had against Missouri with cowbells clanging in his ear. State has been terrible when it comes to getting opponents off the field on third down, so they have to win there much more often.
The blitzes the Bulldogs use have been largely useless so far, so they'll either have to be more effective, change them up or totally change their defensive scheme. But getting pressure on Weigman and forcing some turnovers will be key to giving their offense a chance to keep them in the game.
