By the Numbers: Mississippi State

Tens of thousands of cowbells, a dozen or so dropped balls, and one giant question mark pretty much sum up today's football game. The gap between what we are capable of and what we actually put out on the field continues to widen. Here's a quick snapshot of some of today's numbers:

0. Rushing touchdowns. Pretty sure that's the first time that's happened this season, and hasn't happened very often at all with Sumlin.

1. Touchdown in the first ten drives. We got the quick start we like, but after that the wheels came off pretty quickly.

2. Tackles by Boone Niederhofer. That's as many as Daeshon Hall had.

3. Interceptions thrown by Kenny. All to the same guy. And none of the throws were particularly good.

4. Sacks allowed, for 33 yards in losses. That Kenny Hill still finished the game with 35 rushing yards was a little surprising.

5. Third down conversions, on 17 attempts. We were 1/7 in the first half.

6. Incompletions by Prescott, on 25 attempts.

7. Punts for Kaser. He had a 43.1 yard average on the day.

8. Combined carries for Trey Williams and Brandon Williams. It's been mentioned on this site now a few times, but the strategy behind our running back usage continues to be unclear.

9. Touches by Speedy, for 158 all-purpose yards. Really strong effort.

10. Tackles by Myles Garrett, with one sack. The five-star freshmen came to play today.

15. Dak. Prescott. 259 passing, 77 rushing, and five touchdowns. The most complete QB in the SEC, and not just because of what he did to us today.

29. Our longest pass play only went for 29 yards. The downfield passing game was not there.

62. Passing attempts by Kenny. That's 2 more than he had at South Carolina, with 146 fewer passing yards.

[NOT SURE]

Dropped passes. Does anyone know how many we had? Re-watching and counting would be too depressing right now.

[Ed. Note: fletcher has 15. That's even worse than I thought.]

This doesn't tell us much that we didn't see live: there were few positives and a whole slew of negatives. The silver lining is that most of the negatives (the mental lapses, the drops, etc.) are correctable. And everyone says that we'll  correct them. Well, good. Hopefully that happens soon, because the schedule ain't getting any easier this month. The SEC West is slowly devouring itself.