Ryan Glasspiegel
Videos by OutKick
KJ Costello, the quarterback in the Mississippi State air raid offense, was benched for Will Rogers by coach Mike Leach in the third quarter of tonight’s game versus Kentucky. It is an insane turn of events from just two weeks ago, when Costello threw for 623 yards — the most in SEC history — in an upset win at LSU.
Tonight, Costello was 31-45 for 200 yards — 4.4 yards per attempt — and threw three interceptions and no touchdowns as the Bulldogs’ offense scored no points in the game’s first 35 minutes. This comes a week after Costello had just 5.1 yards per pass attempt in a loss to Arkansas.
Kentucky presently leads Mississippi State 14-2; regardless of what happens in the rest of the game the Leach/Costello SEC honeymoon was quite short.
You could see this coming watching Costello, even in his LSU game. He makes a lot of dumb decisions, throws into traffic, and throws off of his back foot. SEC defense have watched the tape, they have seen this trend, and have adjusted. This is a good move by Leach. LSU is also just inexperienced and clueless defensively right now, so they’re not a good gauge. The SEC is big boy football, and Mike Leach is finding that out in a hurry.