JACKSON, Miss. — In a game full of big plays, one stood out to Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom in his team’s 17-14 upset of then-No. 13 Vanderbilt.

Defensive end Cortez McCraney began the play late in the fourth quarter — with the game on the line — facing a double team that he simply beat.

“He trips the quarterback up, forces him to pitch the ball, the ball carrier jumps over him on the reverse, then Cortez makes the tackle at the line of scrimmage,” Croom said.

McCraney added a key sack on Vanderbilt’s final drive and has led a resurgence by the Bulldogs defensive line that’s coming just in time for a team struggling to build a winner. Croom counts himself among the most surprised by the senior’s season so far.

“I would say Cortez has been the main one,” Croom said. “He and I have had our differences since he’s been here, but I’ve got nothing but praise for the way he has performed this fall.”

When Mississippi State (2-4, 1-2 SEC) has been at its best this disappointing season, McCraney and the Bulldogs’ rebuilt defensive front have led the way. They have another opportunity to wipe away a 1-4 start when they face Tennessee, a team whose offensive line appears vulnerable.

Besides being athletic and large, coaches have found the group to be extremely versatile. They can use wide bodies like Jessie Bowman, Kyle Love and LaMarcus Williams to overload the line of scrimmage like they did in a 3-2 standstill of a loss against Auburn.

Or they can unleash speed players like McCraney and Jimmie Holmes to chase down quarterbacks. The team’s three-man rush was extremely effective in a narrow 34-24 loss to LSU and the win over Vanderbilt.

“In the three-man rush, if one person gets a one-on-one block with anybody, he’s going to try to beat his man and make plays happen,” Holmes said. “The last few weeks the three-man rush has been giving them trouble so we practiced that a little harder and that’s what we were trying to catch them with.”

The Bulldogs held the Commodores to 107 total yards, a number that makes Tennessee offensive coordinator Dave Clawson wince.

“Trying to make me feel good?” Clawson asked when reporters pointed out that statistic.

There hasn’t been a lot to feel good about lately for the Vols offensive line. Perhaps the best unit in the nation last season, Tennessee returned all five starters this year.

Yet with efficient quarterback Erik Ainge gone to the NFL, the Vols have given up nine sacks this season, more than twice as many as last year when they led the nation with just four. Tennessee rushed for 1 measly yard against Georgia last week in a 26-14 loss and the challenge remains daunting with Mississippi State’s suddenly fearsome front coming to Knoxville.

Its not the kind of week to expect a lot of improvement along the line.

“We need to (improve), though,” Clawson said. “That’s the challenge of a coach. You’ve got to take your team and every week you keep the pedal on the gas and you work like crazy to make it better. The results are not, so far, what we wanted or have worked for. We’re going to be better this week.”

Not if the Bulldogs have any say. Both teams are fighting to right programs that expected more this season. Mississippi State’s stumbling start included a loss to Louisiana Tech and Tennessee’s only wins have been struggles against second-rate teams UAB and Northern Illinois.

To get back into the bowl picture and silence a growing chorus of dissatisfied fans, each team needs to win this weekend.

A game Tennessee didn’t expect to be easy to begin with only gets more heated with so much at stake.

“Just the tradition of a Mississippi State football team, you know they’re going to come in here and try to knock your head off,” running backs coach Stan Drayton said.

Croom wasn’t sure if the Bulldogs would be capable of carrying out that tradition after losing three seniors, including defensive ends Titus Brown and Avery Hannibal, on the line after last season. And a reserve tackle expected to play a large role had his season derailed by legal troubles.

Croom moved McCraney to end in spring practice and hired assistant David Turner to start the rebuilding process.

Things have gone much better than Croom expected, however.

“I thought it was going to be different,” Croom said. “We lost two pretty good ends. And we lost our best athlete on the line, Quinton Wesley, bar none. It wasn’t even close. And Cortez wasn’t playing well. In the spring, he didn’t have a good spring at all.”

Croom, in fact, wasn’t really counting on McCraney. Though he showed up to classes and workouts, McCraney admits — without providing a lot of details — to following a path most coaches would frown on away from the field.

The 6-foot-2, 272-pounder from Southaven, Miss., started his career at Memphis after playing just one season of high school football. But he “didn’t see eye to eye” with the coaches there and transferred.

He sat out a year and played as a reserve at tackle last season. In the offseason, though, McCraney turned things around.

“I wasn’t doing nothing too bad, but I don’t feel like I was being a team player,” McCraney said. “So I had to work on that.

“I just got my walk with God right.”

The move to end also turned out to be the correct path on the field. McCraney can use his speed and athleticism to get away from blockers on the edge, yet he’s big enough to hold the corner on run plays.

“Out on the edge it’s a little easier,” McCraney said. “You get tackles one on one or the tight end and fullback. On the inside, you’re going against two guys that weigh 330. That’s about 600 or 700 pounds coming down on you.”

The Tennessee offensive line will be a bigger challenge than the undersized overachievers at Vanderbilt, however. Much bigger. The starters average 303 pounds.

“Their offensive line is massive,” McCraney said. “They’re real big, but we’re going to have to get penetration and play real physical. They’re going to make it a real physical game. That’s what we pride ourselves on, too, so we’re going to have to play hard, do everything as a team and make plays.”

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