When Alabama football faces Mississippi State on Saturday, the Bulldogs will be running a much different offense than the last time the two schools met. Last year, MSU was led by Mike Leach, who ran college football’s most uncut version of the air raid scheme he helped pioneer.

Leach died in December of a cardiovascular incident. In the wake of that tragedy, the Bulldogs, now coached by former defensive coordinator Zach Arnett, have shifted to running the ball more often.

“I think the biggest difference in this offense is just going to be a more balanced attack maybe,” quarterback Will Rogers said at SEC Media Days in July. “11, 12 personnel, more designed runs and more runs in the run game schematically, RPOs. I mean, just a normal pro style offense for us. I think we really look forward to accepting that challenge and maybe expanding our offense a little bit.”

Kevin Barbay now serves as the offensive coordinator for Mississippi State. The Bulldogs face a unique challenge this season, given how much of the roster that was used to the air raid has stuck around under the new scheme.

So far, the Bulldogs have seen mixed results this season, starting with wins over Southeastern Louisiana and Arizona before a blowout loss to LSU and 37-30 nailbiter at South Carolina last week. On tape, the differences in offensive attack between the 2022 and 2023 MSU teams have been obvious.

“They threw the ball mostly every play last year against whoever they played, against us, against everybody else,” Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry said Tuesday. “I feel like this year, they’re running the ball a lot more. Becoming more of a balanced offense.”

During his Monday press conference, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban said he expected the Bulldogs to be a bigger challenge than UA faced over the last two weeks against Ole Miss and South Florida. He also praised Mississippi State’s physicality.

While noting the increased ability to run the ball, Saban also pointed out that MSU hasn’t totally abandoned the passing game, with Rogers throwing for 487 yards last week.

“The quarterback (Rogers) has been an outstanding player for a long time, but with the new offense that they run, there’s a lot more balance in it,” Saban said. “They’ve got two really good backs that are very, very productive when they run the football. They’ve got a really, really good receiver, No. 5 (Tolu) Griffin, who is very, very productive. They made a lot of explosive plays.

Meanwhile, Alabama defensive lineman Jaheim Oatis said the game would be business as usual for the Tide.

“It’s still the same old ball,” Oatis said. “They have a good offense, a good quarterback, good running backs, good O-line, so this week we’re just going to have to focus on that.”

Alabama and Mississippi State are set to kick off at 8 p.m. Saturday in Starkville. The game will be aired on ESPN.

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