Dominating the NFL Draft is an SEC tradition. The league became college football's best by having more talent than everyone else, and more talent equals more players making it to Sundays. Every year since 2007, the SEC has seen the most players drafted of any one conference.
That didn't change for 2025, as the league set a draft record with 79 selections from a single conference. Obviously, the additions of Texas and Oklahoma played a role in that total. But considering that both the Big Ten and ACC have more league members than the SEC, it's still a wildly impressive output.
For much of the past 15 years, Mississippi State has played a big role in the SEC's NFL Draft success. The program has churned out an impressive amount of NFL talent, with superstars such as Dak Prescott, Chris Jones, and Darius Slay leading the charge.
That was not the case this year.
In a year where the SEC had 79 players hear their names called, the Bulldogs failed to contribute to that total. Mississippi State saw zero players drafted in 2025, the only SEC program without a draft pick. It was the first time since 2009 that no Bulldogs were selected.
It's embarrassing, but it's also not exactly surprising. State did, of course, just go 2-10 last fall under first year coach Jeff Lebby, the program's worst season since 2003. And far and away the biggest reason the Bulldogs were that bad was due to the lack of talent on the roster. When you get bullied at home by Toledo, you've clearly got a talent problem.
Putrid NFL Draft showing highlights precarious situation Jeff Lebby inherited at Mississippi State
While it was painfully obvious to anyone that watched MSU last fall that the program was in need of a complete roster overhaul, this showing (or should I say "absence") in the 2025 NFL Draft only hammered home the point that Jeff Lebby inherited a total rebuild in Starkville.
He did not have SEC-caliber pieces to work with, at least not a roster full of them. There's a harsh reality that there were far too many missed evaluations in prior signing classes by prior staffs. Some hits for sure, and some talented players who went elsewhere. But plenty of players expected to be contributors at this time completely flopped.
Only 10 players from the 2021, 2022, and 2023 signing classes remain on the roster (plus an 11th who finished his college career at State). There are also only 10 players from those classes that have transferred out and are currently on power conference rosters. Only two are at other SEC programs.
The MSU roster heavily lacked SEC talent. The result was a 2024 team led by Jeff Lebby having to rely heavily upon transfers and freshmen. 14 of State's 2024 starters were new faces to the program. Rolling out that lineup in the SEC, especially when the caliber of transfers was hurt by the lack of an established coaching staff, and expecting positive results would be foolish.
That's not to say the Bulldogs should have gone 2-10, but it is to say that a bottoming-out year was nearly inevitable. Lebby essentially had Mississippi State starting from scratch, and building up from that is going to be a multi-year process.
The bright side, however, is that State is no longer starting from square one. A foundation has at least partially been laid in Starkville, and efforts on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal have been much better. With further work being put into rebuilding the roster, the Bulldogs are getting closer to having a capable team. In some ways, you can argue that not having a single player drafted was a good thing; it means the losses from the roster weren't all that significant.
It already feels safe to say that Mississippi State will be significantly upgraded from a talent standpoint in 2025. The NFL Draft was just a final wave goodbye to a low-point for the program that State is happily moving away from.