A one-sided victory in week one is great for morale and confidence to kick off the season, but for both Mississippi State and ASU, the true test comes on Saturday night when both teams will meet in Tempe. What can we expect from this Bulldog squad? Let's take a detailed look at Saturday night's ASU opponent.

Mississippi State Offense

With the transfer departures of Will Rogers to Washington and Mike Wright to Northwestern, Mississippi State faced a significant need to replenish its quarterback room this offseason and acquired a talented and seasoned starter in Blake Shapen, formerly of Baylor.

Sun Devil fans likely remember Shapen’s name from his 2019 verbal commitment to play both football and baseball at Arizona State before he shifted gears and signed with Baylor.

After redshirting at Baylor in 2020, Shapen appeared in 27 games across the 2021-23 seasons, completing 64.0% of his passes and throwing for 5,574 yards with 36 touchdowns to just 13 interceptions with 184 net rushing yards and six scores on the ground.

During his time with the Bears, he had five 300-yard passing games, including a career-high 345 against Oklahoma State on Oct. 1, 2022.

Shapen’s Mississippi State debut was efficient and effective. He completed 15-of-20 passes for 247 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions while leading the team with 44 rushing yards on seven scores, including a touchdown.

Keyvone Lee, Davon Booth, and Johnnie Daniels are slotted as the team’s top running backs, with Lee having earned the start in the opener last weekend. Last week, the trio combined for an even 100 yards on the ground.

Against Eastern Kentucky, Lee had nine carries for 40 yards, Booth notched 39 yards and a touchdown on eight carries, while Daniels had 21 yards on five carries.

Lee spent the 2020-22 seasons at Penn State before transferring to MSU last season. He accumulated over 1,000 career rushing yards with the Nittany Lions and had 12 carries for 75 yards in eight games last year for the Bulldogs.

Booth played at the JUCO level in 2021-22 and at Utah State last year, rushing for 805 yards and six touchdowns, while Daniels spent the past two seasons at the JUCO level.

Kevin Coleman, Jordan Mosley, and Trent Hudson are listed as the probable starting wide receivers, while Creed Whitemore started last week along with Coleman and Mosley.

In the opener, Mosley had a career day with 104 yards on five catches with a touchdown, while Coleman had five receptions for 88 yards with a score, along with 117 punt return yards to collect 205 all-purpose yards in his Bulldog debut.

Whitemore, MSU’s leading returning receiver from last year after catching 11 passes for 102 yards with two scores in 2023, had one reception for three yards last weekend as well. Hudson appeared in last week’s game but did not record a reception.

The Bulldogs hope to get Kelly Akharaiyi back from injury sooner rather than later, but it remains to be seen if that will be this weekend or at a later point. He is not listed on MSU’s depth chart for this game.

Akharaiyi spent the 2022-23 seasons at UTEP and last year totaled 1,033 receiving yards on 48 catches—an outstanding 21.5 yards per catch average—with seven touchdowns.

At tight end, Seydou Traore is listed as the starter and earned the start last week for MSU. He spent the 2021-22 seasons at Arkansas State, with an outstanding 2022 campaign in which he had 50 receptions for 655 yards with four touchdowns. He then transferred to Colorado prior to the 2023 season but shortly after altered his path to Mississippi State prior to the start of the season. However, like ASU’s Xavion Alford and Jake Smith, Traore was forced to sit out the 2023 season as a two-time transfer.

Traore appeared in MSU’s opener last week but did not record a catch.

The Bulldog starting offensive line figures to consist of left tackle Makylan Pounders, left guard Jacoby Jackson, center Ethan Miner, right guard Marlon Martinez, and right tackle Albert Reese IV, which was the starting five in Mississippi State’s opener last weekend.

Pounders spent the 2021-22 seasons at Memphis before transferring to MSU prior to last season. He brought 12 career starts into the 2024 season. Jackson played for Texas Tech from 2021-23 and accumulated 14 starts during his time with the Red Raiders.

Miner played for Arkansas State from 2019-22 and North Texas last season and had 36 career starts entering this season, while Martinez played for LSU from 2020-23 and accumulated four starts in his time there.

Miner’s 37 career starts entering Saturday’s game are the most of any active player on the MSU roster. He has also started 34 consecutive games entering this weekend.

Reese, the lone member of the projected starting offensive line to have spent his entire college career at Mississippi State, entered 2024 with 28 career games played and one start.

Mississippi State Offense Summary

Like many teams – ASU included – MSU faced a major personnel turnover on both sides of the ball this offseason.

On offense, the resulting impact was the departure of the team’s top two quarterbacks, its top, third, and fourth-leading rushers, and all five of its top-leading receivers in 2023 in terms of receiving yardage.

Now then, sometimes these changes can be demoralizing and debilitating and in some cases, they can be addition by subtraction.

Through one game – albeit against an FCS opponent – Mississippi State has shown the potential for speed and dynamic play on offense, especially in the pass game, orchestrated by first-year transfers such as Shapen and Coleman.

ASU has to be mindful of MSU’s desire to attack through the air while also remaining focused on not allowing too much space for Shapen to use his feet.

Potentially, this game could be won or lost by ASU, depending on how effectively the Sun Devils mitigate the fast pace of the Bulldog offense.

Mississippi State Defense

On the defensive line, tackles Kalvin Dinkins and Kedrick Bingley-Jones are slated to be joined by end De’Monte Russell and either Ty Cooper or Branden Jennings at the “Jack” position.

Dinkins is in his third year with the program but only played in two games across the 2022-23 seasons. He missed the majority of last year due to injury. Last week, he posted two tackles, including a sack.

Bingley-Jones spent the 2020-23 seasons at North Carolina, appearing in 26 games with eight tackles for the Tarheels before transferring to MSU. He posted two tackles last week in his Bulldog debut.

Russell has been a Bulldog since 2019. He entered 2024 with 38 game appearances, eight starts, and 54 tackles, including 10.0 for loss and 3.5 sacks. He had four tackles and two quarterback hurries last week.

Cooper is in his fourth year at Mississippi State, and entering this season, he had collected 26 tackles in 23 career games with two starts. Jennings is on his fourth program in four years, beginning at Maryland in 2021, then to UCF the next season, before spending the 2023 campaign at the JUCO level prior to arriving at Mississippi State prior to the 2024 season.

Jennings tied for second on the team last week with six tackles and added a share of a TFL along with a quarterback hurry, while Cooper had one tackle and a quarterback hurry last week.

Mike linebacker Stone Blanton figures to be joined by either Nic Mitchell or John Lewis at the “Dime” position.

Blanton spent the 2022-23 seasons at South Carolina, appearing in 24 games total, starting all 12 of 2023, and collecting 52 tackles with a sack last season before transferring to MSU. In game one, Blanton posted five tackles and a pass breakup.

Mitchell is in his fourth season at Mississippi State and had 27 career game appearances and 15 total tackles entering 2024, while Lewis is also in his fourth year at MSU and had played 28 games with three starts and 23 career tackles entering 2024.

Last week, Mitchell had four tackles, while Lewis also had four stops, including a split of a TFL and a quarterback hurry.

In the secondary, Brice Pollock is slated to be joined by either Kelley Jones or Traveon Wright at cornerback, with Isaac Smith at free safety, Hunter Washington at strong safety, and Brylan Lanier at the “Star” position.

Pollock is in year two at MSU after appearing in 11 games with three starts as a true freshman last season, totaling 24 tackles. Jones, a 6-foot-4 cornerback, appeared in three games as a true freshman in 2023 and redshirted. Like Pollock and Jones, Wright was a true freshman last season for MSU. He redshirted in 2023 without seeing any game action.

Last week, Pollock had four tackles and a pass breakup, Jones had two tackles, while Wright did not play in MSU’s opener.

Smith appeared in 12 games last season as a true freshman, collecting 15 tackles. He had a team-high 11 tackles, as well as a pass breakup last week.

Washington began his career at Florida State in 2021 but is in his third season in the Bulldog program. He entered 2024 with 15 game appearances with nine total tackles and chipped in four tackles in last week’s season opener.

Lanier is on his fourth program in as many years, beginning at Alabama in 2021, then Indiana in 2022, the JUCO level in 2023, and now at Mississippi State. He posted five tackles in week one for MSU.

Mississippi State Defense Summary

With the departures of seven of the top eight tacklers from 2023, including three NFL Draft picks, MSU faced quite a rebuild on defense heading into this season.

However, even with that rebuild, Mississippi State didn’t lean too heavily on the transfer portal to replenish its starting defense, as only three players listed as potential starters for Saturday – some of which with the ‘OR’ designation on the depth chart – are first-year Bulldogs from the portal.

Last season, MSU allowed nearly 27 points per game, and the Bulldogs' first contest of the 2024 season—a 56-7 win over FCS Eastern Kentucky—doesn’t provide much of a litmus test of the capabilities of this year’s Bulldog defense.

One note from last week’s game for MSU that could be intriguing is that Eastern Kentucky’s two running backs combined for 146 yards on 33 carries – a healthy 4.4 yards per carry average for EKU – with only three total yards lost among those carries.

If ASU is able to impose its will on the ground against MSU, the Devils can control the pace of the game and also potentially use that matchup to heavily impact the final score.

Mississippi State Special Teams

At kicker, Kyle Ferrie returns after connecting on 16-of-22 field goals and all 27 PATs as a true freshman for MSU in 2023. Last week, Ferrie missed the only field goal he attempted,

Punter Nick Barr-Mira, potentially a familiar name for Sun Devil fans, spent the 2019-22 seasons at UCLA before relocating to Mississippi State prior to last season. Prior to this season, he was mainly a placekicker with some kickoff duties as well, along with minimal time as a punter, but he is positioned as MSU’s primary punter for 2024. In week one, Barr-Mira averaged 48.0 yards on two punts – one went 52 yards, the other 44.

In returns, receiver Kevin Coleman had a huge day with 117 yards on five punt returns. He is slated at the top of that depth chart again for this weekend’s contest.

Mississippi State did not register a kick return in their 2024 opener. Running backs Davon Booth and Johnnie Daniels, along with Coleman, are listed as the top kickoff returners for MSU’s game against Arizona State.

Overall Summary

Last week’s win over Wyoming was an outstanding way for Arizona State to open its 2024 campaign, but it seems safe to say that with an SEC opponent coming to town, Saturday’s contest just means more.

We’ve heard the narrative all week that ASU is winless all-time against the SEC, which is technically true if you consider the games the Sun Devils have played against active members of that conference.

In that light, ASU is 0-5 all-time with losses against LSU in Tempe in 2005, a home-and-home pair of defeats against and then at Georgia in 2008-09, a road loss at Missouri in 2012 and a neutral site season opener in Houston against Texas A&M to begin the 2015 season.

If we want to be very technical about it, however, ASU holds a 4-11 all-time record against the current members of the SEC, as the Sun Devils have faced several of the conference’s programs prior to their tenure in the league.

Though the Bulldogs had a losing (5-7) record in 2023 and have faced some deeply trying times in the past two years following the December 2022 passing of former head coach Mike Leach, any SEC team will always be a challenge, even at home in the Tempe heat.

With the offseason hire of new head coach Jeff Lebby, a prominent offensive mind with an emphasis on attacking speed, Mississippi State, like ASU, is looking at this weekend as a crucial opportunity to remain undefeated and climb back to bowl eligibility.

Even after a dominant opening win over Wyoming, we still don’t quite yet know what this 2024 Sun Devil team is all about, but Saturday should paint a much clearer picture in that regard.

The quarterback battle figures to be a key competition in this game, with the veteran Shapen for the Bulldogs clashing with ASU’s Sam Leavitt, who looked incredibly sharp last week but enters what still will just be his second career collegiate start.

Sun Devil fans eagerly hope for the same energy and execution to be shown on Saturday as was the case for virtually the entire game last week. This could create the same result in the win-loss column, but if the focus falters, ASU can very likely find itself 1-1 after this weekend.

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