Slaton and the Mountaineers (4-0) were idle last week, getting extra time off to correct mistakes from their poorest performance of the season - a 27-10 win at East Carolina on Sept. 23.
"There's a lot of work to do,'' coach Rich Rodriguez said. "You have a tendency, when you just play games, you get away from fundamentals. In open weeks, you're going to get back to it.''
West Virginia ranks second nationally in rushing at 299.8 yards per game despite being held to 153 by East Carolina. Slaton ran for a season-low 80 yards, though he is seventh in the country with 583 rushing yards.
The speedy sophomore was kept out of the end zone after scoring two touchdowns in each of the team's first three games. His 3.3 yards per carry reduced his season average to 6.8.
Slaton is facing a Mississippi State defense which was shredded by No. 9 LSU last Saturday in a 48-17 defeat.
The game saw the Bulldogs (1-4) lose senior defensive tackle Deljuan Robinson to a knee injury. The team leader with eight tackles for losses, Robinson had arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage in the knee and is expected to miss at least three games.
"It definitely makes the job tougher not having Deljuan,'' said coach Sylvester Croom, whose Bulldogs are allowing 27.8 points per game. "He does bring a lot of leadership to the table and he's an experienced player.''
Mississippi State allowed 446 total yards, including 338 passing. Tigers quarterback JaMarcus Russell threw for 272 yards and three first-half touchdowns as LSU built a 35-0 lead before halftime.
"We had a lot of errors on the coverage ... guys just not being in the right place and there was hesitation,'' Croom said. "The only thing you can attribute that to is a lack of confidence. We didn't play with any confidence at all and we were not aggressive in the first quarter.''
Croom's greater concern this week will be stopping the run, which could leave Mountaineers quarterback Pat White with more opportunities to get the passing game going.
White's confidence may be growing after he threw for a career-high 216 yards and two touchdowns against East Carolina.
Though White was intercepted three times, Rodriguez knows his quarterback will have to make some plays with the Bulldogs expected to stack the line in a bid to slow down Slaton.
"There are going to be days when we have to throw the football more and people will shut down your running game,'' Rodriguez said. "We're not a wishbone, Navy type of option team. We work pretty hard on the passing game. We're prepared - I just hope we can execute it.''
West Virginia is looking for its first 5-0 start since 1996, when the team won its first seven games before a late-season collapse resulted in an 8-4 finish.
The Mountaineers sought out an SEC team to add to their schedule as a means of expanding their recruiting circles, and found a taker in the Bulldogs, who will return the favor with a trip to Morgantown next season.
"We wanted to schedule an SEC team to have a visible presence,'' Rodriguez said. "We've been recruiting down south for many years.
"We try to target the northeast and the southeast but if there is a young man interested in us anywhere in the country and we think we can win championships with him we'll recruit him.''
This is the first meeting between the schools, and the first time the Mountaineers are playing an SEC opponent in the regular season since they defeated Kentucky 10-6 on Oct. 6, 1979.
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