What Moorhead, players said after loss

[aubiefifty 18,398]

What Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State players said after 56-23 loss to Auburn

Posted Sep 28, 2019

5-6 minutes

Auburn took it to Mississippi State on Saturday night, routing the Bulldogs 56-23 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The win pushed Auburn to 5-0 on the year while it dropped Mississippi State to 3-2. After the game, Bulldogs coach Joe Moorhead, quarterback Garrett Shrader, defensive end Kobe Jones and offensive lineman Darryl Williams met with the media. Below is a transcript of their postgame remarks.

Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State coach

Opening statement…

“Against a good football team like this, we went into the week talking about how small the margin of error is. We come out and spot them 21 before the band even gets in their seats. You don’t give yourself a chance. You’re fighting out of a corner the whole game. I thought some of our warts got exposed today - our deficiencies and weaknesses - and they took advantage of them. The first and biggest thumb goes back to me. Myself and our coaches have to make sure to put the kids in position to be successful with the calls. We’ve got to make sure that we’re out there making them play. Too many penalties. I think we won the turnover battle. We didn’t win third-down, we didn’t win the red zone and we certainly didn’t win the explosive play battle. And when those things happen against a team like Auburn, you’re not going to win the football game and that’s what happened. So we were 0-1 this week. We’re going to learn from it. We’re going to correct it. We’re headed into the bye week and move on and we’ll be 1-0 next week against Tennessee.”

On what made Bo Nix so difficult to defend tonight…

“He’s obviously a coach’s son. Very poised and polished. And well coached for a true freshman/early enrollee. He can beat you with his arms and his legs, and he demonstrated that tonight. He’s got time back there patting the ball, counting Mississippis, throwing down the field. We have to make sure we’re doing a good job of across the board. The kid’s a good player and he’s going to be a really good player in the future, too.

On the tough start to the game…

“I thought the clock was getting run when we came off the sideline early. We had the delay of game. And then we took the sack. And then we punt and gave them a position on the 30 and get a one-run play. It’s not ideal. And then the next drive, we have third down and whatever and we have the little dig route coming from the backside and we catch it, it’s a conversion and the ball gets dropped. That leads straight to points and it kind of snowballs from there. Against this team, you can’t spot them 21 off the bat. It’s less than ideal.”

Darryl Williams, senior offensive lineman

On the difficulty in the run game…

“It wasn’t anything different. It was more of the offensive line not being on the same page during certain points of the game.”

On being down 21-0 so early…

“We need to claw and dig back in. Auburn did an excellent job of playing on defensive.”

On getting guys refocused…

“I told guys to lock in. There was a lot of game left, so that was all I could really tell them then.”

On the message for the team for upcoming weeks…

“We have to regroup. We have a bye week to get guys healthy and work on the little things.”

Kobe Jones, junior defensive end

On challenge getting back into the game…

“It was a challenge. They were winning the field position battle. They got the ball on the 30 like four consecutive times. It was definitely a challenge. We just tried to keep our composure and take it one play at a time. I just didn’t go in our favor today.”

On difficulty defending Auburn’s run game…

“I think it is a little hard against Auburn because they give you a lot of variety of looks and you just have to turn the keys and play with confidence and just hope you are where you are supposed to be.”

On defending Bo Nix…

“When the opportunity presented itself and we got a chance to hit him, I feel like we did that for the most part. But I feel like those guys came out pretty confident with a great game plan and they executed it better than us.”

On what makes it so difficult to defend Bo Nix…

“Tonight, like I said, I feel they had a great game plan and, overall, I feel that’s what gave us our biggest challenge because he was just on point. He didn’t make a bad read. He was just confident. Whether he was going to tuck and run or run and look to throw. He just had a great game today.”

Garrett Shrader, freshman quarterback

On providing a spark on offense tonight…

“Just running the ball early, being aggressive in the running game. Quarterback running game is normally what helps us out. I mean obviously we have Kylin [Hill] and me running the ball helps, too.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

[boisnumber1 2,992]

7 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

“I think it is a little hard against Auburn because they give you a lot of variety of looks and you just have to turn the keys and play with confidence and just hope you are where you are supposed to be.”

I wonder if this was their Defensive game plan going in. Just run around and hope you end up in the right spot 😂

[homersapien 12,275]

13 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

 He’s got time back there patting the ball, counting Mississippis, throwing down the field.

This made me chuckle.

Mississippi's contribution to our estimating time.

[gr82be 14,996]

28 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

So we were 0-1 this week. We’re going to learn from it. We’re going to correct it. We’re headed into the bye week and move on and we’ll be 1-0 next week against Tennessee.”

So you can count a bye week as a win now? Interesting concept. I guess if some schools can count NCs that really didn't happen then MSU can count a win that doesn't really happen. 

 

[aubiefifty 18,398]

coach speak is often really weird to me..........