‘Pride in performance’ is No. 5 Georgia’s motivation vs. Mississippi State

There are reasons for the State’s recent demise, starting with the unexpected death of coach Mike Leach in December of 2022. The Maroon Dogs have struggled since.

For starters, they’ve had two coaches in the last 11 months. Zach Arnett did not last the full season last year. He was fired in November with a game remaining in the season and the Bulldogs sitting at 4-6.

Mississippi State quickly hired Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby at season’s end. But the sledding has been tough so far. The Bulldogs arrive in Athens on a four-game losing streak. The worst of them was a 41-17 defeat at home at the hands of Toledo.

Then State lost starting quarterback. Blake Shapen went out with a season-ending shoulder injury three weeks ago in the fourth quarter of the Florida game. True freshman Michael Van Buren took over and did a decent job against the Longhorns as the Bulldogs ran the football and tried to control the clock.

“We all knew this was going to be a year of patience and transition under new head coach Jeff Lebby, but we also thought Mississippi State would look like an SEC-caliber football team, especially on offense,” said Benjamin Rosenberg, football beat reporter for Commercial Dispatch, the local newspaper in Starkville. “The explosive offense that Lebby promised hasn’t exactly delivered, despite a lot of talent at wide receiver.”

Van Buren is a dual-threat quarterback. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound athlete out of Bowie, Maryland, had some 4-star prospect ratings when he signed with Mississippi State last year. He has thrown for 244 yards in 4½ quarters of work and ran for a 12-yard touchdown against the Longhorns. In his first SEC road start, Van Buren completed just 12 of 23 passes for 144 yards at Texas Memorial Stadium.

“I’ll you what, he got thrown into the fire quick,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I mean, in the middle of an SEC game to have to go in and play and then turn around the next week and go to Texas. Those were two really tough games, but he’s a tremendous athlete.”

Georgia fans are familiar with their Bulldogs’ occasional struggles with athletic, dual-threat quarterbacks. They did a pretty good job against Auburn’s Payton Thorne last week, limiting the Tigers to 337 yards of offense and recording three sacks in a 31-13 win.

Complicating matters, the Maroons have had two weeks to prepare for Georgia. State had a bye last week, which for them could not have come at a better time.

“Having a week to truly debrief and not start on another opponent immediately, it gave us a great amount of time to be able to reflect and look at some different things situationally,” said Lebby, who has held coordinator positions at Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Central Florida and Baylor. “See where we played really well, see where we could have played better and be able to grow from that.”

That time, Lebby said, was especially beneficial for Van Buren.

“There’s going to be this incredible amount of growth from week 1 to week 2,” Lebby said. “Obviously, there’s the challenge that we’re walking into, you know, an incredible place that plays incredible defense and has great players. So, for him, it’s about focusing small and continuing to build off what he was able to get accomplished before.”

The bigger problem for State currently is on the other side of the ball. Smart lauded the visiting Dogs’ big, strong defensive line, but they’ve been particularly vulnerable to teams that throw the ball efficiently.

Georgia qualifies as such a team, completing 67.1% of its passes for 290 yards a game. State’s giving up 438 yards a game in total offense, including 225 passing.

Georgia is nine points behind last year’s scoring pace at 32.2 points per game. But there are indications that the running game is starting to catch up to the passing game, which should make UGA even more difficult to defend.

Quarterback Carson Beck is third among SEC quarterbacks in career completion percentage (69.8). Playing State on Saturday should get him closer to No. 2 passer Jayden Daniels (70.2%).

The Mississippi State defense has been absolutely dreadful, allowing QBs to complete 80-90% of their passes on a weekly basis and struggling against the run as well,” Rosenberg said. “This team is making progress but I still wouldn’t expect them to win a conference game this season.”

There are cautionary tales aplenty. That starts with last weekend when No. 1 Alabama and No. 5 Tennessee both went down to unranked opponents.

“It’s a competitive league,” Georgia junior guard Dylan Fairchild said. “The whole league is full of great teams. But as a team, we’re focused on us and the opponent we have. We’re focused week to week on what we have to do.”

Said junior safety Malaki Starks: “You never want to underestimate anybody. Any team can win on an given Saturday. If we come out with the same mindset we do every week and attack it, I think the rest will take care of itself.”

Smart said the Bulldogs didn’t need last weekend’s games to teach them a lesson.

“No,” he snapped. “We don’t rely on the motivation of others. I just don’t think that’s a great way to go about things. We’re really focusing on pride in performance this week. Somebody sent me a great analogy. They said, ‘If they were doing a Netflix documentary on practice this week, would you want people to watch for your performance and pride?’”

After sharing that with the team Tuesday, Smart said his players responded with their best practice of the season.

“They must’ve thought Netflix was doing a documentary on them because they practiced as good as they ever have,” he said with a chuckle.

Georgia heads into Saturday’s game as a 34-point favorite.