2024 Mississippi State Bulldogs Guide to What's New in College Football

From the playoff expansion to the new coaching staff, nearly everything is different as the Jeff Lebby era gets under way in Starkville.

Jul 17, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby speaking at Omni Dallas Hotel. / Brett Patzke-USA TODAY Sports

If you're looking for an early-season gauge for what kind of year Mississippi State football will have in 2024, the game to circle on the calendar is probably Week 2 at Arizona State.

Hear me out. Jeff Lebby is in his first season at the helm, and to call this season unchartered waters would be a huge understatement. It's not just what what his team will produce in Starkville, from the expansion of the College Football Playoff, to the revamped conference alignments, the only certainty about the game this fall may be to expect the unexpected.

Last weekend's initial results included a perfect example. The first major game, played on an international stage in Dublin, Ireland, produced the first significant upset. Does that mean the unpredictable landscape might work to Mississippi State's advantage? There's no way of knowing at this point, but the guess here is probably not. Consequently, we're left with new coaches, an unfamiliar roster, and a rough, unfriendly schedule, all things that don't exactly scream optimism for this season.

What would be a good year for the Bulldogs? Achieving the same benchmark as most other teams, playing in a bowl game, is a good place to start. For that a 6-6 record is usually required. To do that, Mississippi State will probably need to go 4-0 against non-conference opponents, including home games against Eastern Kentucky, Toledo and Massachusetts, and Arizona State on the road. The Rockets are good, but they don't have Mississippi-type humidity in Ohio (yet).

The Sun Devils play in the desert, where it'll still be more than hot on Sept. 7. It'll be the late game for TV, but even then a drive down the road is like having a blow dryer in your face unless you roll the windows up and crank up the air conditioning. ASU should be better this season, and this is one of the games it needs to win to gain some momentum for its first season in the Big 12.

With the Western Division division no more, Mississippi State's SEC schedule includes a home game against Arkansas, which should be winnable, and then a bunch of opponents predicted to finish in the top half of the standings: at Texas, at Georgia, at Tennessee, Missouri and at Ole Miss. The other two games are both at home, against Florida and Texas A&M.

If State can go 4-0 against non-conference foes, and beat Arkansas, it would only need one upset to reach six wins. At minimum, that seems very plausible. If it needs two wins, the challenge gets significantly more difficult.

Regardless, there's a lot for everyone to get accustomed to, and on numerous levels. Welcome to the longest season in college football history, starting earlier and ending later, with plenty to fill in between. Here's a primer to get you through the changes minus all the player movement through the transfer portal:

Mississippi State Bulldogs

• Another season, another new head coach. Ok, the coaching turnover hasn't been that extreme for the Bulldogs, but they're on their fourth head coach since Dan Mullen left in 2017.
• New coordinators and schemes. Jeff Lebby will call his own plays, while Coleman Hutzler was the special-teams cooridnator the last two years at Alabama.
• The Bulldogs lost three players in the NFL draft, with Decamerion Richardson the top selection in the fourth round. MSU didn't have any offensive players selected.
• State signed 19 guys out of the transfer portal, many of whom will be counted on to contribute immediately.
• The initial depth chart is so full of new names that there are no returning offensive starters and just three defensive starters.
• An obvious key question is how long will it take everyone to mesh, players and coaches alike.

Re-alignment

• SEC: Added Texas and Oklahoma.
• Big Ten: The 18-team league added Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington.
• Big 12: The 16-team league now includes Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
• ACC: The league goes coast-to-coast after adding Cal and Stanford, along with SMU.
• Pac-12: All that’s left are Oregon State and Washington State.
• Army has joined the American Athletic Conference. However, the Army-Navy game will remain a non-conference game.

No more divisions

The one exception is the Sun Belt, which still has an East and West Division. Meanwhile, the SEC recently announced the following tiebreakers:
1. Head-to-head competition among the tied teams.
2.    Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams.
3.    Record against highest-placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams.
4.    Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams.
5.    Capped relative total scoring margin versus all conference opponents among the tied teams.
6.    Random draw of the tied teams.

Television

• The SEC game of the week is no longer on CBS, those games will now be seen on ESPN and ABC.
• The Big Ten will have three national windows with a game on Fox at 11 a.m. CT), CBS at 2:30 p.m., and NBC for a prime time game.
• Fox is breaking the unwritten rule of leaving high school football along on Friday nights and will broadcast a national game.
• The remaining teams in the Pac-12 have a broadcast deal with The CW, and the Mountain West will have games on truTV.

Saban beiung on College GameDay is great for fans in gneral in that everyhone else gets to hear many of the stories he's been telling in Tuscaloosa since 2007. Another major plus for fans is that kickoff times for most games will be announced well in advance, unlike previous seasons.

Rule changes

• The two-minute warning has been added to college football, during the second and fourth quarters, just like in the NFL.
• Teams have the option to use coach-to-player communications through the helmet to one player on the field. That player will be identified by having a green dot on the back midline of the player's helmet. The communication will be cut off when the play clock reaches 15 seconds or at the snap, whichever comes first.
• Coaches will be allowed to conduct broadcast TV interviews at the end of the first and third quarters of games.
• Video tablets will be allowed on the sideline. Video may include coach's sideline, coach's end zone, and a program feed per play from the current game only and may also display "game circumstances," including down / distance, time, quarter, play-number and score. A team may have up to 18 standard tablets active,
• Horse-collar tackles that occur within the tackle box will be penalized as a 15-yard personal foul penalty. Previously, a horse-collar tackle within the tackle box is not a foul.

Also, the limit on the number of coaches who can do hands-on, on-field coaching during practice and games has been lifted. Previously, only the 10 assistant coaches were allowed (analysts, etc, were banned).

College Football Playoff

• The playoff is expanding from four to 12 teams.
• First round games will be Dec. 20-21 on college campuses. The quarterfinals will be at the Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowls on Dec. 31-Jan. 1. The semifinals will be at the Orange and Cotton Bowls on Jan. 9-10. The National Championship Game is set for Jan. 20 in Atlanta.  
• The first CFP rankings will be revealed on Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The subsequent rankings will be announced on every Tuesday through the Dec. 3, with the selection show set for Sunday, Dec. 8, the day after the final conference championship games are played.

The selection committee members are: 
Chris Ault (former head coach and athletics director, University of Nevada)
Chet Gladchuk (athletics director, U.S. Naval Academy)
Jim Grobe (former head coach, Ohio University, Wake Forest and Baylor)
Warde Manuel (chair) (athletics director, University of Michigan)
Randall McDaniel (College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, Arizona State University)
Gary Pinkel (former head coach, University of Toledo and University of Missouri)
Mack Rhoades (athletics director, Baylor University)
Mike Riley (former college head coach, Oregon State and Nebraska, as well as head coach in the NFL, CFL, WLAF, AAF and USFL; played collegiately at Alabama 1971-74)
David Sayler (athletics director, Miami University, OH)
Will Shields (College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, University of Nebraska)
Kelly Whiteside (professor in Sports Media and Journalism, Montclair State University; longtime sportswriter, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Newsday)
Carla Williams (athletics director, University of Virginia)
Hunter Yurachek (athletics director, University of Arkansas).