STARKVILLE — For a program that had just 16 players selected in the NFL Draft between 2000 and 2010, Mississippi State’s recent production of professional talent is profound.
Since Dan Mullen took over the program in 2009, 36 former Bulldogs have been selected to play at the next level — including 12 first and second round draftees.
But for all the NFL talent MSU has churned out over the past few years, the Bulldogs haven’t reached the heights fans and administrators have hoped.
Over the past three years, 14 former Bulldogs have been selected in the NFL Draft — including three first rounders in 2019. The program is also one of just six teams in the country in the past two drafts to have at least seven players selected in the first three rounds. Despite that, MSU compiled a meager 23-16 record and a 1-2 mark in bowl games during that span.
By comparison, the other five schools to record seven or more players in the first three rounds over the past two years were Alabama, LSU, Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma — a group that combined for an 119-13 record and each of the past two national championships.
So why has MSU so consistently struggled to piece together winning seasons with ample professional talent in its arsenal? The answer is complex.
For one, the coaching change from Mullen to the now-departed Joe Moorhead is a major component of the Bulldogs’ perpetual underachieving over the past three seasons.
After spending nine years in Starkville, Mullen parlayed his extended stay at MSU into the head coaching job at Florida where he notched 10-win seasons in each of his first two years in Gainesville.
As for Moorhead, he came to MSU lecturing on ring sizes at his first Southeastern Conference Media Days after spending two years guiding a record-breaking Penn State offense. But instead of championships, his two years overseeing the Bulldogs were met with underperforming records and a decade’s worth of off the field controversy.
An academic misconduct scandal in which a tutor completed coursework for 10 football players, among others, left those involved suspended for eight games last season — including starting linebacker Willie Gay Jr. and defensive tackle Lee Autry. A reported fight between Gay and freshman quarterback Garrett Shrader also left the latter with a broken nose and unable to play in MSU’s lowly effort against Louisville in the Music City Bowl, further muddying Moorhead’s future in Starkville.
“I coached long enough myself to know wins and losses matter — Joe did win 14 games,” MSU Athletic Director John Cohen said of why he fired Moorhead back in January. “In this case, it goes a little bit beyond just wins and losses. Although, I want to state for sure that wins and losses matter. There were some other issues at stake here that we had to consider.”
And while coaching is a major component of MSU’s failure to rack up wins with its NFL talent, strength of schedule helps to paint a broader picture of where the Bulldogs stack up against teams that churn out a similar number of professional players.
Since 2019, both MSU and Oklahoma have had seven players selected in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. Over that same span, OU’s strength of schedule has never dipped below 14, and averaged out to No. 11 nationally as the Sooners compiled a 24-4 record according to TeamRankings.com.
In MSU’s case, it averaged a strength of schedule of 14.5, aided massively by its No. 6 ranking in 2019, while finishing a meager 14-12 in that time.
If not Oklahoma, take Clemson. The Tigers have reached the national championship in four of the last five years and have become a stalwart at the top of the polls under coach Dabo Swinney during his tenure. But for all the maligning the Atlantic Coast Conference receives, Clemson still hasn’t had a strength of schedule worse than No. 4 nationally since 2018.
In the nearly four months since Moorhead’s firing, former Washington State coach Mike Leach has taken the helm in Starkville. Long known for his ability to win with less, Leach has perpetually outkicked his coverage in the wins column at both Washington St. and Texas Tech — a trait Cohen lauded in his introductory press conference.
“We didn’t solely hire Mike Leach because he’s a visionary and a pioneer in the modern game of college football, but indeed he is,” Cohen said on Jan. 10. “We hired Mike Leach because he’s a disciplinarian. We hired Mike Leach because he’s a brilliant tactician. Most of all, we hired Mike Leach because he’s a proven winner. He’s won in some places, quite frankly, that are very difficult to win.”
To date, Leach’s tenure has yet to really begin given the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, but it will be his task to take the NFL talent MSU has produced in recent years and prove that the program is more than just encouraging numbers on draft night.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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