Mississippi State credits bad week of practice to loss at Georgia

As great as Mississippi State’s win over LSU was two Saturday’s ago, maybe it was too great. Coming off the biggest win over the Tigers in program history, the Bulldogs didn’t rise to the challenge of their top 20 matchup at Georgia.
Saturday’s game was the first time these two schools had met since 2011 and it was the first meeting between the two teams in which both were ranked.
The other Bulldogs were all bite right from the start, landing an early haymaker in the form of a 59 yard flea flicker touchdown pass on their first play from scrimmage.
MSU simply never recovered. Junior Quarterback Nick Fitzgerald completed less than 50 percent of his passes for just 83 yards and the State defense allowed more than seven yards per play.
The end result was a 31-3 loss, very much indicative of MSU’s preparation back in Starkville. “Throughout the week at practice, having to redo a lot of plays. Just messing up a lot and it kind of rolled over into the game,” said Fitzgerald.
Mississippi State Defensive Back Tolando Cleveland said, “Yeah, you kind of know early in the week how you’ll play. You play how you practice, so we’ve got to pick it up next week in practice also.”
Mississippi State Head Coach Dan Mullen said, “I thought we played with good energy and effort, just a little bit more execution at different times. We got ourselves in all three phases at the wrong times we didn’t execute. I don’t think we tackled as well as we have in the past couple weeks, so just little things like that that we’ll get fixed up and get coached up from our guys.”
During his time as head coach at Mississippi State, Dan Mullen’s record versus ranked opponents in now 7-31.