As recruiting slips, Mississippi State's Coleman Hutzler loses lone saving grace

Mississippi State football has had a horrific year on the defensive side of the ball. The Bulldogs are surrendering over 33 points per game and rank 125th nationally at 466 yards per game allowed. They're worse than the infamous 2016 defense, and it's not out of the question that they reach 2003's unprecedented level of awfulness.

Naturally, changes to the defensive staff are in order. Hiring Coleman Hutzler as defensive coordinator was incredibly risky to begin with given his lack of experience running a defense, and with how poor his unit has performed thus far, keeping him would be an even riskier decision for HC Jeff Lebby.

But if there was an argument to be made in defense of Hutzler, it was that the talent he's working with would make it impossible for even a great DC to field a strong defense. There's no getting around the fact that State's defensive roster is the worst it's been in over two decades, and while there are lots of ways to scheme up points on offense regardless of talent level, success on defense is more heavily correlated to talent.

How would Hutzler do if he had better players? For a short time, we pondered if we'd get an answer to that question. State was finding some momentum in recruiting, particularly by landing instant impact players on defense. While he wasn't having success on Saturdays, Hutzler seemed to be attracting good talent to come play for him. Would it make sense to still fire him, potentially lose those commits, and then hand the next DC another bad roster? Or would you keep him, let him get his guys in, and see what he could do?

It now looks like there's no reason to consider those options. Top JUCO edge rusher Kevonte Henry, one of the players expected to immediately improve the Bulldog defense in 2025, flipped his commitment from MSU to Alabama. MSU's best high school safety commit, Stephen Miller, flipped to USC. And while not official, recruiting insiders expect another Bulldog defender to soon flip as well.

What momentum State had has quickly faded, and the one thing that could've justified keeping Coleman Hutzler in Starkville for another season is no more.

If Coleman Hutzler isn't bringing Mississippi State wins on the recruiting trail, there's nothing to justify bringing him back

The one positive point on the resume for Coleman Hutzler at the time of his hiring was his reputation as a recruiter. He was known as a guy that would attract high-level talent to the roster. So while he had zero experience running a defense, the hope was that his recruiting prowess would lead to Mississippi State landing enough talent that he wouldn't need to be some incredible play-caller. Surely he had learned enough from Nick Saban at Alabama that he could make it work if he had great players, right?

The problem is he hasn't consistently gotten the players. During the transfer cycle leading into this season, when it was clear MSU was in desperate need of adding portal pieces for the defense, MSU failed to attract any defensive transfers of significance. There are seven 4-star defensive prospects in the state of Mississippi for the 2025 class. Just two are committed to the Bulldogs, and there's nothing to suggest any of the five others will flip to MSU.

State does have a few quality defenders currently committed, even with the recent decommits, but if they continue to flounder on that side of the ball, is that class going to stay intact? Because while some prospects will see that as an opportunity to come in and play right away, the guys with legitimate NFL hopes are going to be questioning whether or not this defensive staff (the problems go beyond just the play-caller) can actually prepare them for the next level.

I recognize Coleman Hutzler is facing a somewhat impossible task being asked to field a SEC-caliber defense with players that are no where close to being SEC-caliber. But there's nothing to point to in his career to give anyone confidence that he actually can field that level of defense, and now, we have no reason to believe he's actually going to get the players necessary for improving things.

Barring an unforeseen improvement over the back half of the season and/or some massive recruiting wins that come out of nowhere, this defensive staff has to change after the year is over.