Football in in the Air

27 days. The long and brutally boring (sports wise) summer is nearly at an end. Practices have started and foolish message board posters are spouting off about how much better the team is going to be based solely upon looking at pictures of the players at practice. We're not even talking about action shots here, these are just pictures of players standing around. I just shake my head in disbelief at our fans sometimes. It is preseason though, if you can't be ridiculously optimistic now when can you be.

One of my favorite sites, collegefootballnews.com has ranked every team from 1-119. Mississippi State came in at #62. Coincidentally, Southern Miss ranked #63 and Ole Miss was #60. Good lord, the state of Mississippi just sucks at football doesn't it? They also have put up their Mississippi State preview. It is depressing at times, though I have to question how much these guys know seeing as they talk about Derek Pegues being a CB. He is a FS now so, yeah. Maybe it just slipped through the cracks, who knows. This little snippet in particular though caught my eye:

Key player to a successful season: Junior QB Michael Henig. He’s not accurate, he’s not a winner quite yet, and he doesn’t have much in the way of skills, but he’s the quarterback the coaching staff will go with, hoping he can do just enough to give the Bulldogs some semblance of a passing game. If he’s awful, the MSU offense will be, too.

My goodness. He isn't accurate, he isn't a winner, and he doesn't have any skills but we are going to start him anyway. Wonderful, that is great news. Personally I don't think he is quite that bad. Don't get me wrong, he is pretty bad but that little paragraph really buries him.

One last thing I want to point out. Jeremy Jones is now listed as the starter at fullback. According to mstateathletics he weighs 275 pounds. Does anyone else think that is a little too big? That is an offensive lineman not a fullback. Once again message board posters rant and rave about how he will be unstoppable as a blocker and how he and Anthony Dixon will run over everybody. Well that is all well and good, but can the guy move? Fullbacks have to be able to block in space, they are often the lead blocker for the running back so they have to be able to quickly lead him through the hole. If he is as slow as an offensive lineman running plays will be blown up before he crosses the line of scrimmage. Defensive ends will just run around him when he is pass blocking. Can you see the problem now? All that size is power is worthless if you can't use it on anybody because you are too slow. Maybe he can move fine though, I have no idea but it is a concern. Of course if Brandon Hart takes back the starting job, all of this will be a moot point.