BATON ROUGE — Two high-powered offenses will take the field on Saturday when seventh-ranked LSU travels to Starkville to face winless Mississippi State at 8 p.m. in a game televised nationally by ESPN2.
The Tigers, 4-0 overall and 1-0 in league play, are coming off a 17-10 victory over seventh-ranked Georgia last week. Mississippi State, 0-3 overall, is coming off a 42-35 loss at Houston last week. Saturday’s game will be the league opener for the Bulldogs.
Saturday’s game will also provide a chance for the Tigers to move its overall record to 5-0 for the first time since the 1973 team won its first nine games.
Against State, the Tigers will face a squad that puts up plenty of points and yards on offense, however, its has had the same problem — allowing plenty of points and yards.
“Mississippi State is a team that certainly needs to be respected,” LSU coach Nick Saban said. “Their offensive team has put up almost 33 points a game and over 450 yards of offense a game and they have an outstanding quarterback in Kevin Fant, who has thrown for almost 300 yards a game.”
Several faces familiar to the LSU football program will be on the Mississippi State sidelines, including former Tiger head coach Curley Hallman, now the cornerbacks coach for State, and former LSU offensive coordinator Morris Watts, who has the same position with the Bulldogs.
“Morris Watts, who is an old friend of mine and a guy that I coached with (at Michigan State), has done an excellent job of helping their offense,” Saban said. “They are good on offense with some very good skill people and they have made a lot of big plays.”
The Tigers will counter the State offense with one of the nation’s top-rated defenses as LSU leads the SEC and ranks eighth nationally by allowing only 260.2 yards per game. Through four games, LSU has allowed only three first half points, the fewest since 1960 when the Tigers gave up only three first half points over the same span.
The Tigers also lead the SEC with eight interceptions with Corey Webster accounting for three of those.
Defensively, State is allowing 512 yards per game and over 38 points a contest, both of which rank last in the SEC. They are giving up 169 yards rushing and contest and over 342 yards a game through the air.
“They have some very good players on defense and they are very athletic,” Saban said. “They have six freshman or sophomores starting on defense so they are young, but you can see that they have made improvement each week, which is what young players do as the season goes on.”
The Tigers will attack the State defense with quarterback Matt Mauck, wide receiver Michael Clayton and running backs Joseph Addai and Shyrone Carey. Mauck continues to be one of the league’s top rated passers as he’s completed 60 of 100 passes for 788 yards, nine touchdowns and only two interceptions. Mauck’s nine touchdowns leads the SEC.
Mauck’s favorite target has been that of Clayton, who despite catching only two passes for 26 yards against Georgia, ranks second in the SEC with 111.5 yards per game and he’s third in the league with 6.25 catches a contest. For the year, Clayton has caught 25 passes for 446 yards and four TDs.
When the Tigers aren’t throwing the ball, they will rely on Carey and Addai. Addai leads LSU with 261 yards and two TDs on 56 carries, while Carey has rushed for 257 yards and a team-best four scores on 52 attempts.
As a unit, the Tigers are averaging 40.0 points a game and 424.2 yards of offense a contest.
“We’ve had a good week of practice,” Saban said. “I think division games like this are really critical and we need to be ready for each and everyone of them.
“It does not get any easier and I talked about this last week. Every game you win makes the next game even more important. I think this is a very defining game like I said in the press conference on Monday. This is a defining game for our team and this will show if we have what it takes to be a consistent performing, improving team like we need to be to win in this league with any kind of consistency.”
After this week, the Tigers will be open next Saturday before returning home to face Florida on Oct. 11.