Mississippi State football: Bulldogs would benefit by bringing in Kelly Bryant

A transfer quarterback would allow for Garrett Shrader to redshirt and learn the offense.

If there’s one thing we can all take away from this situation, it’s that Joe Moorhead’s offense is not as easily learned by quarterbacks as Mississippi State football fans had hoped. It took Nick Fitzgerald until late in the season for him to start posting up respectable passing stats and he’s a fifth-year senior who has seen just about everything in college football.

More than likely, it will take some time for Garrett Shrader to adapt to Moorhead’s offense. In general, it’ll probably take the young quarterback some time to adjust to life in college and in the SEC West. Mississippi State football fans can’t realistically expect him to come out and shred defenses right away.

Just as Fitzgerald needed some time to grow in Moorhead’s offense, Shrader will also need to learn. Bringing in a talented quarterback by transfer to start the next season will allow for the Bulldogs to redshirt Shrader, or play in a limited role as a freshman, and then set him up to start in 2020.

That would benefit the Bulldogs for the future. Instead of throwing Shrader right to the wolves, the Mississippi State football team would be able to adjust him in at a much more reasonable pace. Even though there’s going to be an adjustment for Bryant to a new offense, he has more experience in college and wouldn’t be going in with zero college experience.

If the Bulldogs can convince Kelly Bryant to come to Starkville, then there’s a good chance that MSU will benefit from it in multiple ways. To boil it down to just a couple: it’ll help mitigate any sort of decline next season and could put the Bulldogs in position to see more success down the line.

Obviously there’s a ton of “ifs” surrounding the situation, but should things go the Bulldogs’ way with this, we’ll all be feeling better about the state of the program.