Week 12: Rotten Egg, Spoiled Citrus, and a Black Friday

ROTTEN EGG, SPOILED CITRUS, AND A BLACK FRIDAY

Sounds like a good title and/or first line to a country "cryin' in my beer" song; right?  I struggled to try to find something clever to say that would take the sting away, but my experience is that often it's better to just embrace misery and deal with it.  I can only imagine the myriad excuses for State's falling flat in the Battle for the Golden Egg, but the game reminded me a lot of the Egg Bowl in Dan's first year, when an inferior team just played harder and better and won a game that that it had no business winning ... except the shoe was on the other foot.  And it ain't a comfortable fit. In another respect, it reminds me of a game the 'Dogs lost to Florida in Jackson in 1975, when despite rushing for well over 500 yards, State lost something like 7 fumbles, 5 of them inside their 20 or inside our 20.  It's hard to win when you keep giving the ball to the bad guys.

At the risk of sounding like I'm making excuses, let me start with this:  The one thing that TSUN had to have happen to have a chance to win the game happened ... Nick Fitzgerald didn't play.  There's no way they win without that.  Do I think they would've scored as they did?  Absolutely, as I expected them to before the game.  Would State have scored more?  Unquestionably.  Keytaon played steadily better and is a helluva runner, but he's not yet the passer that Nick (despite his own limitations) is.  Playing an inexperienced true freshman QB whose passing skills are still under construction with a depleted core of receivers is not a formula for success in an SEC game.  In fact, as I've thought about it, I can -- and will -- advance an argument that the seeds of defeat to TSUN were sown not in the short practice week or in the "silly season" coaching rumors that caroomed around the nation.  They were instead sown in the middling performances against UMass and the Pigs, games which should've been won early and soundly so that a freshman QB could get the very thing his coach says are important, i.e., repetitions.  Think how much better Keytaon looked against UK than he did in the first games he played in.  Hell, think how much better he looked in the 4th quarter against the Landbears than he did in the 1st.  Experience obviously is the best coach of all.

Let me hasten to add, however, that even when Nick went down, I still expected to win ... a close one, to be sure, but a win.  I fully expected the Bulldog O line and running game to trample the lowly Landbear defenders, as they had last year, whether the QB was Nick Fitzgerald, Jackie's "Polish Rifle," or Hal Chealander.  Handing the ball off should've been enough.  But, as in the game with the Little Piggies the week before, the line didn't show the dominance they had all season, even against UAT.  Not sure why ... perhaps defensive adjustments to our scheme, some injuries we don't know about, or ???  But the running game won about 55% of the time Thursday night, not the 90% we saw against the heralded (by their fans and mommies) Landshark D last year, when the 'Dogs hung over a Spurrierian "half a hundred" on them.  Without Nicky Fitz we had to have more.  Give TSUN credit ... it was their best defensive effort of the year.  Perhaps they were not paid in advance for this game?!  Although they seemed on the ropes late in the game, they did not just quit, find their service animals and binkies, and retreat to their safe space, as they had against mighty Arkansas at home a few weeks ago.  They hung on.

I'll also have to give Luke and the Landbears credit for something else:  They had only a puncher's chance, and they took it.  It has been apparent all season that the State secondary lacks the speed -- or something -- to stay with quality receivers on deep patterns.  Whether it was the fast white Lilliputian from UMass or Calvin Ridley, we got burned deep.  Had I coached a team against MSU, I would've thrown deep at least once in every series ... just playing the odds!  [In fact, I found myself asking if Saban is really all that smart since he has the best deep threat in the SEC in Ridley and seldom took deep shots in a game in which they were behind until very late.  WTF, Little Nicky?!?  Guess he didn't think big boys really win without running it.]  Matt Luke doesn't appear to be a genius, but he was wise enough to exploit the one real advantage they had ... and do it often.  But that being said, in the end it was the 2 long scoring runs that our D gave up that cost us the game.  For any other team the last one was their Bednarik play, but TSUN is shaky enough that almost no lead is safe.

So, Bulldog fans, put that Visa or MasterCard back in your pockets and breathe a sigh of relief.  Mickey & Minnie aren't going to get all of your hard-earned money after all.  We'll muddle back to some tropical paradise like Nashville or Memphis or Charlotte for the holidays.  You'll have your good friends in Oxpatch to think for your fiscal restraint.  Thanks a [bleeping] bunch.

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And now that I've waited so long to hammer out my comments on the regular season finale, there's more and bigger news.  For the first time since 1955, a football coach has left Mississippi State under his own volition.  (Wonder if TSUN offered to send him Tommy Tupperware's pine box??)  The silly season just got serious for us.  Later this week I'll put down some thoughts about the former Dan the Man (now Dan the Dearly Departed), where we've been, and where I think this leaves us.

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