Mississippi State football is 4-0, 2-0 in the SEC, and up to No. 16 in the national polls following a thrilling 31-24 win against a ranked Missouri squad. The Bulldogs secured their third win over a power conference opponent (more than the last two seasons combined) in front of an incredible Davis Wade Stadium atmosphere.
Superstar quarterback Kamario Taylor was brilliant both early and late for State, delivering big-time passes in crunch time to lead his team to victory. But if you were to award anyone MVP of the game, it would have to be running back Fluff Bothwell.
The 5-10, 230 pound bruiser had his best game as a Bulldog, running the ball 25 times for 122 yards and a score and catching six passes for 55 yards and another TD. That TD reception came on a niftily designed pop pass where he makes a great snag.
His 177 scrimmage yards were the most of his career. It was his third-straight 100-yard rushing game of the year, and to make it even more impressive, 99 of his rushing yards came after contact per PFF.
Fluff’s ability to break tackles and fight for extra yardage against stout defenses has been evident since his arrival to Starkville last season. It’s not a surprising skillset for him to have given his frame (though ironic given his name), but it’s something that makes him an incredibly valuable chess piece to have within the Mississippi State offense.
The Two (Three?) High Dilemma
Both leading into and coming out of the win over Missouri, there’s been lots of online discussion about how defenses should go about trying to stop Mississippi State’s offense. A popular answer has been to play Cover 2 to take away the easy throws downfield and force the Bulldogs to have to sustain drives to score, trusting your Front 4 to hold up in the process.
As CBS Sports’ Bud Elliot pointed out, that formula isn’t unique to stopping Mississippi State, as it tends to be quite effective against almost everyone assuming you’ve got the horses to do it.
Getting a bit more specific, it’s not just about being able to rush the passer with just four while playing Cover 2 behind that. It’s also a matter of being able to stop the run game from those looks. For many college offenses, if there isn’t success running the ball vs 2-high, there won’t be much success offensively overall.
Though not a unique concept for defensive success, Mississippi State’s brand of offense has traditionally been even more susceptible to that defensive approach. A quote tweet of Elliot’s comments above from an account that has since gone private pointed out that Briles systems, like State’s, specifically find themselves running into trouble against some Cover 2 variations when well-run.
That’s accurate, and it’s less about the exact coverage and more about the defensive structures teams will align with against this offense. It’s a structure Missouri played out of frequently last Saturday.
It may not look that interesting at first glance, but the Tigers are doing a couple things to adjust their typical 4-2-5 defense against the Bulldogs. First, you’ll note their two linebackers have essentially removed themselves from the box. They’re still in position to play the run, but rather than aligning over interior gaps, they’re on the perimeter where they can help cover State’s pass-catchers.
Second, they’re playing with, effectively, 3-high safeties. It’s more like 2.5, as the middle safety is down closer to the box, but all three are in position to handle deep coverage responsibilities.
You can play a number of coverages out of this look, and Missouri did, but one of the most popular is Tampa 2.
The linebackers and corners (blue) take underneath zones, while the field and boundary safeties (red) take deep halves of the field. All are prioritizing their pass coverage roles over run defense. Meanwhile the middle safety (black) is taking a true “read and react” role. Against the pass, he’s responsible for the middle of the field, including deep coverage. Against the run, he’s to make a beeline for the ball-carrier.
So why is this a go-to way to handle Veer and Shoot teams like State? The spacing of the linebackers helps, in tandem with the corners, to limit the quick throws underneath in the RPO/Screen game while the safeties can take away vertical shots. That alone provides answers for the bulk of Veer and Shoot passing games.
But what about the run? This is an offense that wants to run after all.
The defense still has answers. The front is tasked with clogging up the interior gaps to prevent the ball-carrier from quickly getting uphill and instead force him to bounce outside. From there, the linebackers and safeties will swarm to stop the runner. This is particularly true of the middle safety, as the lack of immediate run/pass conflict for him means he can more aggressively play the run. And, removed from the box, many run schemes aren’t going to have a blocker account for him, meaning he’s often unimpeded to make the tackle.
Ideally, the defense can make that stop for a minimal gain and do so enough that the offense can never truly lean on their run game and find themselves in uncomfortable passing situations.
Many teams will take this a step further and swap out a pass-rusher for another coverage player, utilizing a “Rush 3, Drop 8” approach to make throwing downfield even more difficult and still trusting they can limit the ground game enough.
The big key is that this alignment makes hitting the explosive pass plays Briles offense teams thrive on difficult. Even if you aren’t totally shutting down the run game, you are requiring sustained drives from the offense, which many college teams in general struggle to do consistently. Even in this game, we can be honest that Mississippi State didn’t do it consistently for all four quarters, and it’s why Missouri had a chance.
Veer and Shoot teams build their offense around run/pass conflict, and this is a style of defense that removes much of that conflict. So how does one attack it? Well, having a bulldozer helps…
Bothwell Bulldozes Missouri
There’s basically two ways of dealing with this style of defense. You either completely overwhelm them on the ground, or you out-execute them with the passing game. Neither is particularly easy to do.
When it comes to the passing game, you need to have a QB that can effectively win as a dropback passer. He has to be able to quickly work his progressions, throw with timing and accuracy, and have the patience to not force what isn’t there. Few college QBs are comfortable doing this consistently. Add in that you also need to hold up in pass protection for this, and this approach isn’t where many teams turn.
Most teams opt for the run game approach, but again, it’s not easy either. You generally need to be strong enough along the offensive line to get immediate push against the defensive front and/or have ball-carriers talented enough to grind out extra yards, either through physicality or elusiveness. This typically means having a clear talent advantage, which is matchup dependent. But fortunately for the Bulldogs, they had a Fluff…
This is just the second drive of the game. Mizzou is in their 3-high look, basically daring State to run the football with all that open space in the box. They actually play Cover 3 out of it on this occasion, but the idea is all the same. As the defense widens to cover WR screens to each side at the snap, Taylor hands the ball off to Bothwell.
It’s the right read, but it’s what Mizzou wants. It’s clearer from the endzone view (which I didn’t include), but the DL all slant into the interior gaps, forcing Fluff to bounce outside on this Inside Zone run. They’ve fallen right into the Tiger’s trap, as there’s a LB right in position to make a stop near the line of scrimmage.
But Fluff cuts right past him and races up the sidelines for an 18-yard gain. That’s an explosive run against a defense all about preventing explosives. That one big play was enough to get Mizzou to load the box and play man coverage on the very next play, allowing Kamario Taylor to hit Sanfrisco Magee for a 43-yard score.
There’s some irony in the fact that Missouri’s go-to defensive approach in this game was about forcing Mississippi State’s offense to be patient, and yet the first time the Tigers gave up some yards, they lost patience themselves and got burnt as a result.
Giving up a deep shot for a score seemingly brought Mizzou DC Corey Batoon back to the original gameplan for most of the game, and I should reiterate that it worked well for stretches (though some of that was self-inflicted by the Bulldogs).
But where State did have consistency was in giving the ball to Fluff Bothwell and letting him go to work.
This time the Missouri front doesn’t go for the interior gaps, basically directing him immediately to the middle safety on another Inside Zone run. State center Canon Boone actually does look to climb to that safety, but the Tiger linebackers swarm in from the perimeter to make the play. No matter. Fluff still runs through them.
Now on Outside Zone…
Neither the linebacker or corner to the boundary get properly blocked, and each has a chance to bring down Bothwell. But they’re no issue for him as he runs for another strong gain. Also note that Anthony Evans is looking to block the middle safety on this play. I said in the previous section how that defender is often unaccounted for in run schemes. Well, it’s not as though it’s new defensive concept, and Lebby has certainly made some tweaks to deal with it.
Defenses are comfortable playing out of these looks when they aren’t getting hit like this over and over in the run game. Fluff Bothwell is a talented enough (and physical enough) ball-carrier that he routinely created chunks on the ground. He was good enough to overwhelm the Tigers on his own.
He showed it off as a receiver as well. You’re not going to simply abandon the passing game against these defensive looks. There’s always opportunities through the air, especially given who State has at QB and their WR talent. If one guy blows a coverage, you’ve got a chance to score from far.
But if the defense does cover things well and you have to take the checkdown, it sure helps to have a player that can turn a dump-off into a good gain or conversion, which Fluff did multiple times on Saturday.
This was one of the biggest plays of the game, as this third down conversion helped set up the game-tying TD for State. This time Missouri isn’t even taking a conservative approach. They’re blitzing and playing man behind it. Taylor lobs it to Fluff over the middle, who is quickly hit by a safety. Rather than going down short of the line to gain, Fluff literally drags the defender for the first down.
Therein lies Fluff Bothwell’s value for Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are going to see more teams look to play them in a similar manner to Missouri. Teams want to force them to have to sustain drives to score, and that means they must be picking up consistent yardage. Bothwell allows them to do that. And that’s not even pointing out that he’s strong in pass protection too, creating even more value.
Now will that last the entirety of the season? That remains to be seen. Given the quality of defenses remaining on State’s schedule, the odds are high that at least one of them will do a better job of bottling up Bothwell and force the Bulldogs into other options.
And of course there’s the durability question. He’s averaged over 18 attempts per game (21.3 in the last three), which is by far the most of his career. He obviously missed time with injury a season ago and got banged up late against Missouri (he’s currently “probable” to play against Alabama).
If he’s not fully healthy, his effectiveness at running through or around defenders is obviously going to go down. The word on backup Kolin Wilson, along with the few highlights we’ve seen of him, is that he’s also equipped to turn should-be small gains into big ones, leaning more on speed and elusiveness. Will he get more involved going forward to spell Fluff?
Of course there’s another elite runner who could take some of the load of of Fluff in the ground game, and that’s Kamario Taylor. Jeff Lebby hasn’t used him heavily as a designed runner yet this season, clearly trusting the offense doesn’t need him to do that to succeed and, understandably, not wanting to risk injury to the single most talented player State has ever seen. Still, at some point I imagine we see that be a bigger part of the offense.
But for the time being, State’s go-to answer for attacking the 2(3)-high safety looks defenses are going to throw at them looks like it will be to feed Fluff, and that appears to be a winning strategy.
Discourse around college running back value hasn’t reached the heated levels that it does in NFL circles, where we’re just a few years removed from the league treating heavy investment in the position as a mortal sin. Given the run-first nature of most college offenses and that enough talent discrepancy still exists from team to team to make simply handing the ball to a stud athlete 25+ times a game a worthwhile gameplan, plenty of RBs are still viewed as priority players at the college level.
But in the NIL/rev-share era where programs must actively choose where to invest resources for their roster, many are asking if paying-up for a tailback is actually worth it. I certainly won’t argue that there aren’t several other positions that should be treated as higher priorities. But the modern flavor of defenses have put the pressure back on offenses to invest in fielding a strong ground game, and rolling with replacement-level runners may not be the best approach.
Mississippi State made retaining Fluff Bothwell a priority last offseason, and it’s paying off for them in 2026. In their system specifically, having a stud in the backfield makes all the difference.
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