(Photo: Justin Ford/Getty Images)
Nowhere is the saying “There’s always bigger fish” more prevalent than in college football. Arizona State football (1-0) gave that lesson to Wyoming (0-1) in Week 1. ASU was a three-win power five team in 2023, its last in the Big 12. Wyoming was a nine-win group of five Mountain West squad in 2023. ASU showed the difference between the two levels with a 48-7 thumping of the Cowboys.
Now the Sun Devils will look to avoid getting taught that same lesson themselves. Mississippi State (1-0) of the SEC — arguably the premier football conference in the country for much of the last decade and a half — came to Tempe looking to show Mountain America Stadium that football down south is just a different level.
Bulldog head coach Jeff Lebby kicked off his head coaching career with his first game at the helm in Week 1 against Eastern Kentucky. Having ample experience working for various legendary offensive minds like Art Biles at Baylor, Josh Heupel at UCF and most recently being the offensive coordinator under Lane Kiffin at Mississippi, Lebby is considered an offensive mastermind. His arrival in Starkville came with expected fireworks as Mississippi State dispatched Eastern Kentucky 56-7.
“Coach Lebby is one of the best offensive minds in college football,” ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham said.
Mississippi State has been a competitive SEC school for much of the past decade averaging 7.3 wins a season and having finished ranked in the Final CFP top 25 poll four times. Since 2014 the Bulldogs have played in a bowl game every season, except 2023 where they only won five games, going 5-4 in those bowl games.
Mississippi State hasn’t appeared in an SEC Championship game since 1998 and isn’t generally viewed in the same tier as the premier perennial national championship contender programs in the SEC like Alabama and Georgia. However, that’s more a testament to the hyper-competitive nature of their conference than anything else. The SEC has had dominion over college football for much of the 21st century having won 14 of the 24 national championships.
Arizona State has played five games against SEC opponents in school history. They most recently got their shot at Texas A&M in 2015 losing 38-17. In fact that’s the theme of Saturday night’s clash.
ASU has never beaten an SEC school in its history. Mississippi State represents their chance.
“You’re talking (about) a really well-coached football team that just won by [49] points,” Dillingham said. “We got a tough team against us.”
Offense (2024 SEC Rankings)
- Total Offense: 450 yards (8th SEC), 56 points/game (6th SEC)
- Passing: 247 yards (10th SEC), 3 passing touchdowns (T-3rd SEC)
- Rushing: 203 yards (6th SEC), 3 rushing touchdowns (T-5th SEC)
If there’s one thing Lebby knows how to do, it is to be a part of an explosive offense. He was the running backs coach for Baylor from 2012-2014. The Bears averaged over 235 yards rushing a game and over 48 points a game while Lebby was on the staff. Just a few years after that Lebby found himself as the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at UCF for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. During that span, the Knights averaged just over 43 points a game and 532.5 total yards of offense a contest while going 22-4 overall. Lebby’s success continued to stints with Ole Miss and most recently as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma for the past two seasons where in 2023 his Sooner offense averaged over 500 yards of total offense and over 40 points a game.
Lebby and his fast-paced style of offense have proved effective before. Now finally with the keys to his own car at Mississippi State, he’s attempting to bring his prowess to the Bulldogs. This matchup against ASU offers another opportunity for Lebby to get his high-power attack firing.
“They spread the ball around a lot,” Arizona State defensive coordinator Brian Ward said. “You’re going to see the ball in the air I think a lot. They try to get you out of position with their tempo. They may be the fastest team we see all year.”
His starting quarterback already has experience with Tempe. Senior Blake Shapen committed to ASU in the summer of 2019 before decommitting a few weeks before Christmas that same year. He ended up at Baylor in 2020 and started for the Bears from 2022 to 2023. In his two seasons at the helm, he threw for 4,978 yards and 31 touchdowns to 13 interceptions. Shapen got his first taste of Lebby’s up-tempo style offense throwing for 247 yards and three touchdowns in the Bulldogs season opener while also showing his mobility and playmaking abilities outside the pocket as he also led the team in rushing yards with 44.
“Shapen is an experienced quarterback, he’s had a lot of success,” Ward said. “He’s elusive, he’s an athletic quarterback. If he doesn’t see his first read, he’ll move around and try to create.”
Shapen has a host of weapons at his disposal to attack any defense. Junior Jordan Mosley is finally getting his chance to be a featured receiver in the Bulldog attack. In three seasons in college, Mosley had six career receptions for 95 total yards and a touchdown on his career. In week 1 against Eastern Kentucky alone, he had 5 catches for 104 yards and a score. Junior transfer Kevin Coleman is another quick and explosive option on the outside. He also hauled in five passes for an average of over 17 yards a catch in his first game with the Bulldogs.
Senior starting running back Keyvone Lee only ran for 40 yards in the season opener and hasn’t run for over 100 yards in a season or a touchdown since 2021 when he was at Penn State. While he hasn’t been dangerous as of late, Lebby’s propensity to have prolific rushing attacks, like he did at Baylor, suggests Lee can break out at any moment. It’ll likely take ASU’s full defensive effort to limit the Bulldog playmaking cast.
“That’s going to be a different speed,” ASU Linebacker coach AJ Cooper said. “Talking about the SEC speed, the length, and the size that they have. Your margin of victory is small and your attention to detail has to be even better.”
The Bulldogs have a revamped offensive line featuring 4 new transfer starters. Headlining the group is senior center Ethan Miner from North Texas. Miner was graded as the third-best center in the country by Pro Football Focus in 2023. The rest of the group will look to keep the pace set in Week 1 where it only allowed one sack.
It’s an explosive offense built on speed and pace that will provide challenges for the Sun Devil defense to figure out.
“Their whole philosophy is to get to 100 plays on offense,” Ward said. “That’s what this offense is trying to do.”
Defense (2024 SEC Rankings)
- Total Defense: 295 yards allowed (11th SEC), 7 points/game against (3rd SEC)
- Passing: 169 passing yards allowed (11th SEC), 1 passing touchdown against (2nd SEC)
- Rushing: 126 yards allowed (14th SEC), 0 rushing touchdowns against (T-1st SEC)
While there’s a lot of promise on the offensive side of the ball, the defensive side for Mississippi State still has some questions to answer. Coming with Lebby to the new staff in Mississippi was former Alabama special teams and outside linebacker coach Coleman Hutzler to be the defensive coordinator. Hutzler is trying to revitalize a unit that was the 10th-best scoring and sixth overall defense in the SEC last season.
This is a defense in transition as not only is there a new coordinator, but the group also lost their two 100-tackle linebackers — who were the team’s two sack leaders — and their interception leader from 2023. Redshirt junior transfer Branden Jennings and redshirt freshman Zakari Tillman stepped into the middle of the Bulldog defense to lead all linebackers in tackles in their week 1 win, both with six.
Up front, the Mississippi State defensive line collected two sacks against Eastern Kentucky and will look to occupy the ASU backfield and put pressure on Sun Devils redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt. As stated, the Bulldogs are replacing their two sack leaders from a 2023 group whose 27 sacks last year put them as a bottom-four group in the conference.
Redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Kalvin Dinkins tallied a sack week 1 with junior transfer defensive tackle Ashun Shepphard and redshirt freshman defensive end Joesph Head Jr. both tallied half sacks themselves. The unit will be bringing the signature SEC physicality in the trenches to Tempe to test the spirit of ASU’s offensive line.
“I let them know that these suckers coming in are big,” ASU offensive line coach Saga Tuitele said. “They’re physical. They know what they’re doing. They’re playing together, They’re playing angry. They play together.”
The secondary of this defensive unit is a curious one. On its face, it lost its biggest impact player in safety Shawn Preston Jr., who tallied three interceptions in 2023. The group is relatively inexperienced with only three sophomores in starting positions.
Despite this, the unit logged five pass breakups last week. Sophomore safety Isaac Smith led the team in total tackles with 11 in their last game and figures to be a leading playmaker in the back line. The defensive backs unit has shown enough already to make ASU consider slightly altering their game plan to find different avenues of attack.
“On the perimeter, they got some real guys,” ASU offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo said, “Being able to put guys down in the (tackle) box to take advantage of the guys on the perimeter. Give [ASU receivers] one-on-ones if we can get to that. If we don’t get to that then we got to be able to do it in other ways.”
The Lebby-led Mississippi State team, will look to light up the valley sky offensively while hoping its defense can put a lid on ASU’s ascending offense. They represent a mountain ASU’s football program has never ascended and will not make it easy for this iteration of Sun Devil Football to change that.
“They’re obviously a really talented football team,” Arroyo said. “They’re tough, well coached. They have a good group, a good coaching staff that’s there, they got a new energy, a new juice. I think both sides of the ball are going to give us everything we got.”
