I didn’t want Jeff Lebby to be hired at Mississippi State. I feel like that’s pretty well out there in the world at this point. And also, when Lebby was hired, I wanted to be proved wrong on that front. And then also at the same time when that hire was made, I said Lebby needed to be given about three seasons so that we could see what plays out and what has happened.

And… Well… Uh… Neither Jeff Lebby or Mississippi State football fans are having any fun right now.

What’s disappointing is that I have thought on occasion that I would be proven wrong by Lebby. I was rooting for that. Following Mississippi State’s solid win over Arizona State a season ago and then again as MSU raced out to a 4-0 start this season, I thought we were trending in that direction.

And… Well… Uh… Mississippi State has lost five games in a row. Part of that has to do with Kamario Taylor’s injury, sure. That should be said. But it’s alarming that an injury to one player has caused this season to get so far off the rails.

The depth isn’t there. The ability to survive an injury isn’t there. And it really feels like Lebby, despite all of the reported roster spend money available, just doesn’t have the players he needs to make things work.

Which is absurd. Because a lot of money has been spent for Mississippi State to be this bad.

We’re talking in the neighborhood of $25 to $30 million.

And so, Zac Selmon, we’re in year three of this experiment. MSU is once again underachieving with a young head coach. The last time you did that, you were new to Starkville and moved on from Zach Arnett. You hired Lebby.

So, how are you going to navigate these waters?

Stakeholder management in a season of underwhelming results and a ton of money being spent

We’ve talked about this before. We’ll talk about it again. I need to set up a workshop on how to do stakeholder management and engagement for athletic departments as they try to figure out what to do when dealing with the general public.

Not because I’m an expert on the inner workings of college athletics. I’m not. And it’s not because I’m an expert on pacifying very wealthy people or large crowds of people. I’m not.

I’ve taken a few crisis comms classes in both of my attempts at a master’s degree in grad school. I do PR in my day job. And I don’t envy the level of pressure and scrutiny that is on the director of athletics at any major university these days. It’s probably not much fun.

So, why would I offer such a workshop?

Well, it’d help me pay off a few bills, for one. But also stakeholder management and stakeholder engagement is the lens through which I examine everything I do while working in marketing and PR.

I’m a huge fan of stakeholder theories. HUGE fan.

And as we’ve discussed before, the theories I love the most center around hate-holders, faith-holders, neutral parties, and fake-holders.

In this day and age, trying to discern how someone falls into those camps is going to be tricky. And I’d love it if someone paid me money to be a consultant and to talk to them about these things.

Because if they make a mistake when juggling the priorities that each of those groups can assert on something, the bill might be a bit more than what I would charge them.

Head coaches are expensive. College football rosters are expensive. More so now than ever. Stakeholder expectations are likely tougher than ever to navigate as a result of the overall investment going into all of this.

And that’s largely because the money is being spent above the table these days. Receipts are a bit more accessible.

So what does MSU do? Is this a simple QB depth chart issue, is it a deeper issue with overall depth and roster concerns, is it an even deeper issue of a lack of buy-in and trust from stakeholders with this institution and coach?

I’m not entirely sure. I think the questions are worth asking. I think MSU, Selmon, and Lebby need to be asking these questions of themselves at this point.

Navigating faith-holders, hate-holders, fake-holders, and what to do with neutral parties

We’re in year three. A fair runway has been given for Lebby and this program’s coaching staff and leadership apparatus. And yet, here we are, looking at a team that can’t win unless a generational talent at quarterback is available.

Faith-holders are a group that will continue to buy in and support the team no matter what, but it stands to reason that this group just doesn’t have much reason to keep buying in. Expect this group to dwindle and fast.

Mississippi State just lost to the Vanderbilt Commodores for the first time since 2004. Before that, the last time Vandy beat the Bulldogs was 1988. The last time the Commodores won in Starkville was 1971. Well over 50 years.

That’s not the sort of history that Jeff Lebby and company want to be making. And yet they are. And people won’t like that.

Hate-holders are the folks who have been out on Lebby since Day 1 (and then the population of folks who have drifted in this direction from being neutral and from being bought in on what Lebby could do for the Bulldogs). Whether it’s fair or not for them to be out on Lebby, I don’t want to get into that. What we do need to talk about how this collection of individuals who do have legitimate attachment to Mississippi State and are displeased with the overall results on the field and the direction of this program.

Because Lebby, Selmon, and MSU need to collectively figure out how to pacify folks in this camp and how to bring folks out of this camp back towards neutral and then also figure out how to prevent folks who might be neutral or are currently faith-holders from drifting in this direction.

And if you don’t make a head coaching change, then where do you get things to make this group satisfied? How do you connect with them? What do you do to help make things more bearable for them?

The wins aren’t happening on the field, so that’s not an avenue of releasing pressure. Something needs to be done. A message of some sort needs to be sent.

What does that look like for the Bulldogs?

Some musings on Kamario Taylor’s injury, roster depletion, Lebby as a head coach, and other things

I don’t love that Mississippi State is so reliant upon a once-in-a-generation type of talent to be able to simply win games against even bad competition. That is alarming. Lebby’s success is so dependent upon having Taylor at QB right now because his skillset helps this offense overcome a ton of concerns.

Like the offensive line.

Lebby, a former offensive lineman himself, hasn’t figured out how to fully protect his once-in-a-generation type of talent at quarterback with a solid offensive line in Starkville. And I’m concerned about that.

That’s the most alarming thing to me.

Generally speaking, if Taylor can’t be healthy, Mississippi State can’t win. And if Taylor isn’t protected, he might not be healthy. So, uh, let’s get that shored up in the very near future throughout this offseason, please. Regardless of who is the head coach, let’s get this roster situation settled.

And let’s also figure out how to build a more robust quarterback room? I don’t understand what’s going on there. For Lebby to be such a QB whisperer, we’re not seeing anything close to what we need from the depth situation there.

Was Jeff Lebby the right hire for Mississippi State in 2023? Should MSU make a coaching change? Who should MSU hire?

I didn’t want him to be hired, but he was the right sort of hire for the Bulldogs. Really, he was. Lebby had a good resume for the sort of guy MSU should pursue.

He didn’t have direct experience in building a program as a head coach, but he checked a lot of boxes from helping Brent Venables and Lane Kiffin rebuild things at Oklahoma and Ole Miss respectively thanks to the work in the transfer portal. He had recruiting connections across the South (and was really well-connected in Texas, Florida, and Mississippi).

The biggest knocks on him at the time were the lack of head coaching experience directly and his connections to the Baylor scandal.

The guy I really wanted instead of him, who generally checked the same boxes but didn’t have the big question marks in place was GJ Kinne.

If MSU went in a different direction now, Kinne would be among my first calls for the gig. Because he still checks those boxes in ways that are impressive. Also, it’s so dang difficult to win at Texas State (and yet he can still do just that). The full list of names I’d consider would be (in no particular order) the aforementioned Kinne, Manny Diaz, Charles Huff, Zach Kittley, Sonny Cumbie, and Neal Brown.

But I don’t know if you make any of those changes right now. And that’s weird to say. Year three isn’t over yet. But it’s just about there. And the season has taken a swift nosedive.

Pressure is going to be on Selmon and Lebby to navigate a really weird stakeholder situation. I don’t know exactly what they’ll do. But if they want to spend some money talking to someone to get ideas on how to sort through things, I’d be happy to chat and pay off a few bills.

And if Selmon wants a few ideas for a head coach, I’m not qualified but I’d be happy to be paid to give my thoughts there as well.