Mississippi State football is officially starting over

Mississippi State football is at its lowest point in a very long time. The Bulldogs are off to a 1-3 start to the season with blowout home losses to Toledo of the MAC and a Florida team with a lame-duck head coach. They don't have talent, and the jury is out of what they have in terms of coaching. And with a brutal schedule remaining, a 2-10 type season seems to be the most likely outcome.

It's about as bad as it can get for a SEC program, and the current situation is hard to grasp given where this program was at just a few years ago.

The Mississippi State football program of the last 15 years is gone

2009 sparked the beginning of an incredible run for Mississippi State football. First-year HC Dan Mullen injected life into the program with an upset over a ranked Ole Miss team to end the season. From that point on, State would become an annual bowl team, win numerous big games, and even find themselves ranked as the #1 team in the country for the first time ever.

Even in the years following Mullen's departure, the program managed to hold on to some of what he had built. There was a dip under Joe Moorhead that Mike Leach then had to build out of, but after an 8-4 regular season with an Egg Bowl victory in 2022, it seemed State was destined to keep the fun seasons going.

But since Leach's tragic passing, things have quickly collapsed. And now seven years after Mullen's final season in Starkville, it's almost as if he was never even here. Outside of the football facility upgrades that occurred during his tenure, the foundation laid by Mullen is almost nonexistent. Instead, it's as if we've gone back in time to the early-2000s when the program was in total disarray.

The team name and colors might be the same as the last 15 years, but it's not the same program.

How did Mississippi State end up here?

There's a culmination of factors that have contributed to the program's steep decline. Recruiting in recent years, particularly on defense, was beginning to fall-off. Add in a total lack of stability that comes with having three coaches in three years, and the reality is that no coach would be set up for success this season. No amount of "portaling" could fix that.

And there's probably some truth to the fact that having a first-time head coach paired with a first-time defensive coordinator isn't helping things. That's not to throw blame on Jeff Lebby (although it sure seems as though he'll need to make some changes to his defensive staff), but with any first-time coach, there's going to be a learning curve.

This is a rebuild in every sense of the word. The reality for a program like Mississippi State is that the margins between success and struggles are extremely thin. Dan Mullen got this program to a great place, but when you don't have the talent and built-up resources of bigger programs, you're just a few wrong steps away from sinking back to abyss.

That's where the Bulldogs are at now, and we're going to find out whether or not Jeff Lebby can get them back afloat.

What is it going to take to get out of this mess?

So where does MSU go from here? If you're someone already calling for Jeff Lebby's head, save your breath. There's no way you can move on from him right now. Regardless of what happens this season, he will be back next year and likely the year after that. He inherited a bad situation, and you have to allow him the chance to build out of it.

There's no magic formula for fixing things. It's very simple - get better players. The overall roster talent is the lowest its been in years. And if you want to find reasons for optimism, recent momentum on the recruiting trail and in the NIL-sphere suggests that the right moves are being made to address that issue.

Beyond that, Jeff Lebby is going to have to show that he can hire a real defensive staff to cultivate improvement on that side of the ball. While a lack of talent is the primary issue, the players aren't being put in the best position to succeed. I trust Lebby to get his offense rolling. He needs a veteran DC running the other side of the ball.

In the short-term, a youth movement is the best possible thing for Bulldog football. Outside of just playing for pride, Jeff Lebby can make sure the future faces of the team are getting as many valuable reps as possible to prepare themselves for the coming years.

This is going to be a slow and painful build for Mississippi State football, but there's no escaping it. Hopefully, Jeff Lebby is the right guy for the job.