I don’t think I can say enough about how impressed I am with how things have been going for the Mississippi State Bulldogs in year three of the Jeff Lebby era in Starkville. It’s been a steady build for Lebby, but things are really, truly taking off in such exciting ways right now and I don’t think I can do enough to express my gratitude for this.
Largely because I didn’t expect Mississippi State to really be looking quite this good right now. For this team to have this much potential is such an exciting thing. And yes, so much of this is excitement over potential, but I’m okay living in that because fans of the Bulldogs haven’t had many reasons to be hopeful in recent years.
Lebby has delivered that (and then some) while also accomplishing exactly what he needs to from a program development standpoint.
It’s something that should be commended.
Jeff Lebby is doing exactly what he needs to in order to win over stakeholders
I’ve talked about this before in a variety of different ways and places, but one of my favorite aspects of studying public relations and crisis comms in grad school happens to center around stakeholder theories. I particularly love exploring the relationships between organizations and faith-holders, hate-holders, and fake-holders (and I tend to throw in neutral parties into the equation).
And what does all of that have to do with a college football coach in the first few weeks of his third year of trying to build an underdog, overlooked program?
There’s so many different ways to navigate all of that, and we can do a deep dive essay on that later if you’d like. I might do a series of how a school should navigate a crisis for its athletics department. Or a variety of different ways to do that. I dunno yet.
But for now, let’s stick with surface level analysis of the matter.
And a quick, overly-generalized rundown to help everyone:
- Faith-holders: folks who are going to support an organization no matter what
- Hate-holders: folks who really don’t want to support an organization but their voices do matter (generally this group has had its feelings hurt in some form or fashion)
- Fake-holders: a group that positions itself as having an influence on something but isn’t actually a group of stakeholders (and their opinion doesn’t matter)
- Neutral parties: Either someone who is neutral on the spectrum between faith-holders and hate-holders or someone on the outside looking in (a healthy delineation of separating that into two categories is something I should probably do, but I’m not there yet)
Anyways, a couple of years ago, I was generally against MSU hiring Lebby. Not necessarily a hate-holder, but a bit closer to that end of the stakeholder spectrum than I was to being a faith-holder.
So, if you wanted another category to help with all of this, I guess “doubter” is a decent term to throw into the equation.
I thought it was generally a sort of hire that brought some unnecessary baggage to Starkville and also was a hire of someone who had never been a head coach before. I wrote about all of that when I broke down everything Mississippi State fans needed to know about Jeff Lebby as the Bulldogs hired him:
But if you need a few bullet points of excerpts to help break that down, here you go:
- I thought Lebby was a risky hire, in part because of his connections to the Baylor scandal but also because of how he had no head coaching experience at the time, which put him at the same level as Zach Arnett, who he was replacing.
- I wrote that MSU’s roster wasn’t built to run the veer-and-shoot and that fixing it would take a couple of years of recruiting and portal work before the offense could function as designed. This seems to be working out well for MSU, though it did take time.
- I flagged the tempo gap as a seismic shift: OU ran just under 75 plays per game that season, MSU just over 62. Again, this seems to be working out just fine, but it took time.
- I wrote that the Art Briles connection seemed unlikely to be ignored, and pointed to Briles showing up at Oklahoma in Sooners gear as the kind of mess that could follow the hire. There’s been some moments, but MSU has weathered the PR mess that has occasionally popped up.
- I set the bar explicitly: patience was warranted unless there was a major scandal or a pattern of troubling behavior. But honestly, that’s the case with any head coach that you hire. And right now, there’s nothing to really indicate anything is going wrong in Starkville, which is good.
- I closed by saying MSU would have to weather a PR storm and make sure nothing went wrong in the process. So far, the Bulldogs seem to be accomplishing this (and at the same time there’s momentum building on the field).
So yeah, I was cautious in thinking that this could work out without major frustrations. Generally speaking, I was doubtful that this would build enough momentum to give MSU fans proof of concept that this could work out.
After I spent a significant amount of time tracking flights and it was clear that MSU was all in on Lebby back in 2023, I ultimately landed on the position of “don’t do anything bad, don’t embarrass my alma mater, and win games and prove my doubts wrong.”
Jeff Lebby is doing exactly that (and then some) as he builds the MSU Bulldogs
Mississippi State’s recent road win over Minnesota is HUGE and yet another huge step in the right direction for this program. Today’s game against the South Carolina Gamecocks provides another such opportunity for Lebby and the Bulldogs.
It has taken a little bit for Lebby to get here, but there’s real progress in play for Mississippi State fans to sit back and enjoy.
And as long as the wins keep coming (and there’s no concern or controversy happening off the field), then Lebby is doing exactly what he needs to do. And that’s a good thing for him and for Mississippi State.
There’s obviously more that Lebby needs to do. This season isn’t done yet. There’s more games to be played. Still, there are moments that you can point to and say “hey, I like that, and I think things could work out well.”
Like beating Minnesota in its own place by 25 points (while also taking your foot off the gas and going easy on them).
Last season’s win over Arizona State was another key, pivotal moment for this program. That early success wasn’t really sustained down the stretch of the season, the Bulldogs faded and couldn’t get the wins they needed.
But maybe things will be different this season. There will be more great opportunities up ahead. I’m fascinated to see just how far Lebby and MSU go this season.
In large part because the offense wasn’t the only reason as to why the Bulldogs got such a dominant win against the Golden Gophers.
Lebby’s third Mississippi State football team appears to be pretty well-rounded
We’re heading into week three and Lebby’s Bulldogs are capturing the attention of folks across the country because *checks notes* Lebby’s veer-and-shoot offense is working so incredibly well.
Kamario Taylor is the headliner for that and understandably so, his insane arm strength and just flat out bizarre athleticism are reminding folks of some of their favorite quarterbacks over the past couple decades. And then there’s Fluff Bothwell, who is capable of bulldozing down defensive backs and dragging linebackers down the field with him.
But this team is more than just Taylor making great plays and it’s more than what the Bulldogs do when they have the ball.
Against Minnesota, Mississippi State was able to force the Golden Gophers into playing a style of game that they really weren’t constructed to be able to win. Minnesota quarterback Drake Lindsey had to throw the ball nearly 50 times for the Golden Gophers simply because they fell behind so quickly.
Mississippi State was seemingly in its comfort zone throughout the entire game. Minnesota wasn’t anywhere near its comfort zone at all.
But while the Bulldogs’ offense was moving up and down the field in a rapid way, Mississippi State’s defense held Minnesota to just 292 total yards of offense. That’s pretty solid (and something to be celebrated).
It’s encouraging also that once the Bulldogs built a really solid lead, MSU could slow things down a bit. They didn’t just live exclusively in a fast-paced fun frenzy. State got out to a lead, forced Minnesota to try to keep up, and then also slowed everything down a bit.
What does all of this mean for Jeff Lebby and Mississippi State?
I don’t totally know, I don’t have a ton of answers for that question, but I do have a collection of thoughts.
Lebby is doing exactly what he needs to (and what Mississippi State needs him to). He’s winning. He’s building momentum in a program that totally whiffed when it hired Joe Moorhead and when it promoted Zach Arnett (though MSU’s defensive coordinator and former head coach certainly getting plenty of more experience learning what it’s like to build a program after working with Mike Leach, Lane Kiffin, and now Jeff Lebby).
Which that in and of itself is a fantastic sort of stakeholder examination to explore a bit. Lebby just hired the man he replaced to be the defensive coordinator in Starkville and that was rewarded by a performance that totally shutdown the Minnesota offense in a remarkable way.
The tragic loss of Leach really seemed to derail this program and the momentum it spent a few seasons trying to build.
I have no clue how many wins Lebby will get this. I actually admittedly don’t know if he’ll win today.
But right now, I’m appreciating that there’s just simply reasons to be optimistic about the long-term potential of my first alma mater’s football program. I’m excited about the direction. And I’m glad that Lebby is steadily proving my doubts wrong.
He’s doing everything he needs to in order to win over every sort of stakeholder around (fake-holders don’t count, folks). That’s a good thing. Let’s keep that going, shall we?
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