The countdown to this year’s college football season has begun in earnest with less than five weeks until Mississippi State opens the season on Aug. 31 against Eastern Kentucky at Davis Wade Stadium. The Bulldogs, under first-year head coach Jeff Lebby, will open fall camp on Aug. 1.
Until then, The Dispatch will be taking a look at each position group on MSU’s roster, noting who could be the potential starters, backups and impact players to look out for on the gridiron.
The Bulldogs’ running backs room, like nearly every other position group, looks very different from last year with the addition of Utah State transfer Davon Booth and junior college product Johnnie Daniels. Keyvone Lee and Jeffery Pittman are back in the mix, and MSU is excited about freshman Xavier Gayten’s potential.
All of those backs will try to make up for the absence of Seth Davis, who will miss the entire season following an injury sustained in last year’s Egg Bowl.
The Starter
Davon Booth
5-foot-10, 205-pound senior from North Las Vegas, Nevada
Lebby said after the spring game in April that he was looking to add another running back, and Booth gives MSU big-play potential out of the backfield. He played two seasons at the junior college level in California, then started seven games last year at Utah State, rushing for 805 yards on 120 carries for an impressive 6.7 yards per rush.
Booth had big games against James Madison, Colorado State and Boise State and finished second in the Mountain West Conference and seventh nationally in yards per carry. It’s unclear what kind of volume he’ll have in Lebby’s offense, but the explosiveness is certainly there.
The Backups
Keyvone Lee
6-foot, 225-pound senior from St. Petersburg, Florida
Lee played three years at Penn State and was a solid contributor for the Nittany Lions, but lost playing time in 2022 thanks to the emergence of then-freshmen Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen. That led him to the Bulldogs via the transfer portal, where he also saw limited playing time last year — just 12 carries for 75 yards.
Before Booth arrived, Lee was taking first-team snaps during much of the spring, so he could see an expanded role this fall.
Jeffery Pittman
5-foot-11, 205-pound senior from Taylorsville, Mississippi
Pittman played two years at Hinds Community College, becoming the top-ranked junior college running back in the country. In his first year with the Bulldogs, he started two games and finished with 268 rushing yards and three total touchdowns, including the game-winning score against Arizona in overtime on a screen pass. He broke loose for a 59-yard touchdown run late in the season against Southern Miss.
Johnnie Daniels
5-foot-10, 200-pound junior from Crystal Springs, Mississippi
For the second straight year, MSU has landed the No. 1 ranked junior college running back. Daniels was spectacular at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, rushing for 1,253 yards and 15 touchdowns on 183 carries last fall. He impressed in the Bulldogs’ spring game in April with six rushes for 64 yards.
The Rest
Xavier Gayten
6-foot, 190-pound freshman from Brookhaven, Mississippi
MSU is high on Gayten, a four-star recruit according to On3 Sports. As a senior in high school, Gayten rushed for 2,055 yards and 25 touchdowns on 218 attempts, going over 200 yards in a game five times. Gayten chose the Bulldogs over in-state rival Ole Miss.
Brinston Williams
6-foot-2, 225-pound redshirt sophomore from Suwanee, Georgia
Williams has yet to appear in a game for MSU in two years with the program, though he did rush for 28 yards on eight carries in this year’s spring game.
Wykece Johnson
6-foot, 220-pound redshirt junior from Lexington, Mississippi
Johnson played at Holmes Community College for two years, rushing for 291 yards and two touchdowns, and he did not see the field last year with the Bulldogs.
Javaris Bufford
5-foot-11, 185-pound redshirt sophomore from Charlotte, North Carolina
Bufford made his collegiate debut late in the 2022 season against East Tennessee State, rushing twice for 18 yards. He did not appear in any games last year, though he was impressive in the spring game with 50 yards on eight carries.
Ashtanyrein Duncan
5-foot-10, 195-pound redshirt senior from Lithia Springs, Georgia
Duncan, a former walk-on, has not appeared in a game in his four years with the MSU program. He did rush four times for 31 yards in the spring game, and could get some run late in a blowout game this fall.
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