ASU gearing up for SEC challenge vs. Mississippi State after coaching staff overhaul

ASU football has not won a single game against an opponent from arguably the best conference in college football, the Southeastern Conference (SEC), but the Sun Devils want to change that on Saturday.

After destroying Wyoming 48-7 on Aug. 31, Arizona State faces Mississippi State who are just coming off of their own blowout victory a few days ago.

Producing 450 yards of total offense as a team and Mario Craver having a two-touchdown night, the Bulldogs cruised to a 56-7 win over Eastern Kentucky this past Saturday. Starting quarterback Blake Shapen completed 15-of-20 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns in his first start after transferring from Baylor.

Bulldogs revamped coaching staff looking to test Sun Devils

Mississippi State finished 5-7 overall and 1-7 in SEC play last season, but is coming into this year with a revamped look to its coaching staff.

First-year head coach Jeff Lebby is bringing his vast amount of experience from Oklahoma and Baylor to the Bulldogs program, new offensive coordinator Coleman Hutzler worked under college football icon Nick Saban at Alabama and there are a plethora of other coaches getting their first taste of being at Mississippi State in 2024.

Understanding the history of Arizona State and the Sun Devils competing against an SEC school, ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham spoke to the media on Monday and acknowledged they have a tough test ahead of them.

“We’ve never beaten an SEC school. We’ve never won an SEC game. I think that’s one,” Dillingham said when talking about reasons to focus on Mississippi State and not Wyoming. “We have a chance to do something that the school has never done. Two, regardless of people, the same people who are talking about how we played really well are the same people that picked us dead last. Three, you’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are. So, get off your high horse. Success in our program is being the very best at whatever you’re currently doing at the time. Let’s go be successful again this week. And that’s the message, that’s the vision and this is a really good football team.

“We’re about to play Coach Lebby who is one of the best offensive minds in college football. He brought over a special teams coordinator from New Mexico State. That guy was a part of the best season New Mexico State has had in a long time. They brought over a defensive coordinator who was trained by Nick Saban and even though he’s never called defense, he’s from that pedigree. So when you’re talking Lebby, who is from the Lane Kiffin tree, a defensive coordinator who is from the defensive Nick Saban tree and you’re talking about a guy who was just at New Mexico State as their other coordinator. You’re talking about a really well-coached football team in year one that just won by 60 points. I don’t care who they play, you beat the Kenny Dillinghams of Scottsdale, Arizona by 60 points, that’s impressive. We have a tough team against us.”

Trying to spark a new era of the Sun Devil program, Dillingham and his coaching staff were able to formulate a game plan and breezed past a Wyoming team that won nine games last year as well as the 2023 Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl.

While almost everything went according to plan in the season opener, there will be adjustments to combat Mississippi State’s talented defense.

“All year we prepared for it. Odd weak-side overhang/four down in the offseason, because that’s the Nick Saban simulated pressure is really popular in that tree. So we were prepared for that,” Dillingham said. “We heard some D lineman went out, so we’re like, ‘Okay, that fits the odd weak overhang world.’ They have a lot of linebackers, so this makes sense. And then they come out in their odd five techniques, three high safety, which is the only thing that that coaching tree hasn’t been in… To me, I’m not going to get carried away in the one game of film.

“I know the identity of the coordinators where they come from, and if you can be an odd five technique team and move a linebacker down to defensive end. When you’re in four down, then you can easily be an odd four eye team and make that same linebacker a weak side overhang. So we face so much four down in practice with our defense, and our defense blitz is more than green grass that we don’t need to see much four down. We just have to prep for odd weak overhang, odd three-high safety, mix in some four-down looks. But we’ve been seeing that for a while. Four to five defense, so we’ve got to really prepare for the odd three-high safety, the odd weak overhang. And I think that’s the majority of what we’re going to see.”