STARKVILLE — Luke Getsy deserves a lot of credit for the success of Patrick Smith, both the 14-4 touchdown to interception ratio as a college football player and the five-year career in athletic administration that’s happened since. At least, Smith is convinced of it.
Now Getsy will try to do the same for Mississippi State.
MSU announced Getsy as its wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator Friday evening, doubling as the final offensive hire to complete head coach Joe Moorhead’s first staff. Getsy comes to MSU after four years with the Green Bay Packers, the first two as an offensive quality control coach before the last two as the wide receivers coach.
“They’re getting a tremendous coach. I have the utmost respect for Coach Getsy,” Smith told The Dispatch. Smith played quarterback for Getsy for two years at Indiana University-Pennsylvania (IUP), where Getsy was the offensive coordinator in 2011 and 2012. “What he instills in his players, he really demanded perfection; that was his thing and I don’t think I’d be where I’d be right now (without it).”
Getsy will hold the title of offensive coordinator for MSU, but all indications point to his working without one normal duty of coordinators: playcalling. Moorhead has said he will call the offensive plays for MSU; in most cases, coordinators that are not playcallers take on bigger roles in gameplanning and practice planning.
If that’s what awaits Getsy, Smith is confident MSU is getting a good one in that regard, too.
“His process is very detailed. We would sit down and watch so much film,” Smith said. “He taught me a lot about watching the corner’s demeanor, is he cheating, watch the free safeties.
“When he would say something to you, he would want you to be able to rattle it off. He would make it a game-like situation in the film room throughout the week and quiz you on the players you’re going to see, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses. Who plays field corner, who plays strongside and all that, so when you got the game, it was like you’ve been preparing for them for weeks and it made life so much easier. It slowed the game down a lot.”
Getsy comes to MSU with the same small-school background that Moorhead did. Before his four years with the Packers and his two years at IUP, Getsy was the offensive coordinator for West Virginia Wesleyan in 2009. Moorhead has gone the small schools route with other hires in taking his Fordham pupil Andrew Breiner and making him MSU’s pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Smith has a theory for that.
“When you work at a smaller school, you have to wear multiple hats,” Smith said. “At a Division II school, he was the quarterbacks coach, but he was also probably in charge of footballs and other duties, so he had to put his time in.”
Getsy was not alone in his official introduction to the MSU coaching staff.
As The Dispatch reported earlier in the week, MSU hired San Francisco 49ers quality control coach Tem Lukabu as its linebackers coach. Lukabu is not too far removed from college football, having coached Florida International’s linebackers in 2015; he also has two years of Power 5 experience at Rutgers.
“Coaching in the best conference in the country at a place like Mississippi State is exciting,” Lukabu said in the statement. “This is a program I have had tremendous respect for when you look at what has been accomplished here. I look forward to working with Joe and our staff.”
Also announced was the hire of Andrew Warsaw as the director of football operations. Warsaw has been the NFL’s director of game operations for a year; he was Moorhead’s director of operations at Fordham in 2012.
Moorhead completed his defensive staff by retaining cornerbacks coach Terrell Buckley and defensive line coach Brian Baker. Both will be in their third years at MSU.
“We are thrilled to have Brian and Terrell on staff,” Moorhead said in the statement. “When you look at what they accomplished with their position groups this season, they did an outstanding job putting players in a position to succeed. They helped form one of the SEC’s top defenses. Our players have tremendous respect for them, and they continue to develop under Brian and Terrell’s leadership.”
All that is left is the special teams coordinator Moorhead said he would hire once the NCAA’s new rule allowing said 10th assistant goes into effect on Jan. 9.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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