Mississippi State football announces return of Chad Bumphis

Jeff Lebby continues to build his first Mississippi State football coaching staff and that includes the addition of Chad Bumphis.

It looks like Jeff Lebby has his wide receivers coach. The Mississippi State football program has confirmed that Chad Bumphis will continue to play a role in leading the MSU Bulldogs as Jeff Lebby is ensuring the former Miss. State wide receiver continues to coach in in Starkville.

Bumphis, a star player from the Dan Mullen era of Mississippi State football, returned to Starkville at the beginning of the year to join Zach Arnett in moving the Bulldogs away from the Air Raid. He arrived from the Utah Utes and their offense prior to the hire of eventual offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay.

And though the offense was disjointed for a number of reasons (almost all of which exist outside of Barbay and Bumphis), it looks like Lebby is interested in keeping Bumphis around Starkville for another season.

Bumphis is generally considered an incredible recruiter and he’s also a coach on the rise. He’s someone who will likely start getting looks for some pretty big jobs over the next few years if he continues to grow as a coach.

Mississippi State football: Jeff Lebby retains Chad Bumphis

This is going to be an interesting hire for Lebby as he did not retain anyone else on the offensive side of things. But Bumphis is a solid coach who fans love.

There’s a very good chance that this is going to be one of, if not the single most interesting offense that Bumphis has been a part of as a coach. You could argue that it’ll be more interesting than the offenses he was a part of when he played for Mississippi State. The route tree isn’t exactly going to be what Bumphis was praising back in January, but that shouldn’t matter as this system puts a heavy emphasis in helping receivers thrive in space.

Bumphis’ familiarity with recruiting in the state of Mississippi should be recognized here even though the Bulldogs no longer need to exclusively recruit players in-state.

Getting someone like Bumphis, who is from Mississippi and played at Mississippi State and was instrumental in helping Mississippi State be successful under Dan Mullen, involved in coaching should help this staff as a whole acclimate to the Magnolia State. It’ll still be important to win in-state recruiting battles and it’ll still be important to see Chad Bumphis have an instrumental role in Starkville.