2024 Mississippi State Position Preview: Quarterbacks

First-year coach Jeff Lebby hopes transfer quarterback Blake Shapen is next in the line of great quarterbacks he has coached

Mississippi State quarterback Blake Shapen speaking at Omni Dallas Hotel. / Brett Patzke-USA TODAY Sports

STARKVILLE – College football fans usually have more questions than answers headed into a new season. The amount of questions is doubled when the program has a brand new coaching staff and overhauled roster.

That’s the position Mississippi State fans find themselves a little more than a month until the start of the 2024 season. But one question Bulldog fans shouldn’t have is how will their quarterback perform this year. New coach Jeff Lebby may not have any head coaching experience, but has plenty experience guiding quarterbacks to big seasons.

As offensive coordinator at Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Central Florida for the last five years, Lebby’s quarterbacks have thrown for more than 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns. His offenses have consistently ranked inside the top 10 nationally.

Here's how quarterbacks under Lebby have performed the last five seasons, dating back to his time at UCF:

2019, UCF offensive coordinator

Dillon Gabriel: 3,652 yards, 29 TDs, 7 INT, 59.3 completion percentage, 156.9 QB rating

2020, Ole Miss offensive coordinator

Matt Corral: 3,337 yards, 29 TDs, 14 INT, 70.9 completion percentage, 177.6 QB rating

2021, Ole Miss offensive coordinator

Matt Corral: 3,349 yards, 20 TDs, 5 INT, 67.9 completion percentage, 155.26

2022, Oklahoma offensive coordinator

Dillon Gabriel: 3,163 yards, 25 TDs, 6 INT, 62.57 completion, 154.42 rating

2023, Oklahoma offensive coordinator

Dillon Gabriel: 3,660 yards, 30 TDs, 6 INT, 69.27 completion, 171.99 QB rating

So, when Lebby said at SEC Media Days last week “we’ve got our guy” at quarterback, Bulldog fans should feel good about the sport’s most important position. One of Lebby’s goals in the offseason was to find the right quarterback and he did just that in brining former Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen to Starkville. If Shapen continues the trend of successful quarterbacks under Lebby, Bulldogs will at least get an exciting offense.

Shapen spent the last four seasons at Baylor, where he was 2021 Big 12 Championship Game MVP against Oklahoma State. The Shreveport, La. native threw for 5,574 yards in three seasons he played with a 63.7 career completion percentage.

“I think when you talk about what we're going to look like from a team standpoint, it's real similar to what we're going to look like at [quarterback]: Toughness, physicality, edge, being able to go inspire your teammates to go play better every single day, and that's what Blake has done,” Lebby said at his media day appearance last week in Dallas.

However, football is a contact sport and while quarterbacks are untouchable during practices, they’re the main target for opposing defenders. Having a good quarterback is essential to a team’s success and the nature of the game requires teams to have backups that can perform just as well as a starter.

Fortunately, the Bulldogs have some talented arms behind Shapen. Redshirt freshman Chris Parson is the only quarterback on the depth chart with experience playing for MSU. He played in two games last year and threw for 103 yards and completed 11 of his 26 pass attempts.

Also on the depth chart are two juniors, Asher Morgan and Jake Weir, neither of whom saw any playing time last season and freshman Michael Van Buren Jr. who played last season at Baltimore St. Frances Academy in Maryland and could be redshirted this season.

Right or wrong, whether MSU’s upcoming season is deemed successful or not will largely depend on how the quarterback plays this season. But if Lebby feels confident in the guy lining up under center, Bulldog fans should too.

Project Quarterback Depth Chart

1. Blake Shapen (Senior)

2. Chris Parson (RS Freshman)

3. Asher Morgan (Junior)

4. Jake Weir (Junior)

5. Michael Van Buren Jr. (Freshman)

2024 Mississippi State Quarterbacks

Blake Shapen, 6’1” 210 lbs.

Last season in Waco, Texas, Shapen played in eight games for Baylor, throwing for 2,188 yards and 13 touchdowns. He also ran the ball 67 times for 29 yards and four touchdowns and was named to the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award Watch List. In 2022, Shapen was named to the All-Big 12 Honorable Mention team after throwing for 2,709 yards and 18 touchdowns while averaging 214.6 yards per game. In his redshirt freshman season in 2021, Shapen led Baylor the Big 12 Championship with a 23-for-28, 180 yards and three touchdown performance against Oklahoma State. He set a championship game record with 17-straight completions in the first half.

Mississippi State Bulldogs quarterback Chris Parson (16) in action during the first quarter against the Texas A&M Aggies at Kyle Field. / Maria Lysaker-USA TODAY Sports

Chris Parson, 6’1” 215 lbs.

The Brentwood, Tenn.-native made his collegiate debut last season in a November game against Kentucky and made his first career start the following week at Texas A&M to become the fifth true freshman quarterback to start an SEC game since 2021. Replacing an injured Will Rogers, Parson didn’t find much success, completing less than 45 percent of his passes for 103 yards and three interceptions.

Asher Morgan, 6’4” 225 lbs.

Morgan did not make appearance in his first year in Starkville last year after transferring from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. He played in just four games in that 2022 season, completing eight passes for 83 yards and one touchdown. Morgan chose Samford University after completing his high school career at Philadelphia High School in Mississippi. He threw for more than 5,000 yards and 48 touchdowns in his junior and senior seasons.

Jake Weir, 6’2” 210 lbs.

Weir hasn’t appeared in an official game since his senior season at Tupelo High School in 2020 where chose a preferred walk-on spot with MSU over scholarship offers from Southern Illinois and UT Martin. In his final two seasons in high school, Weir threw for 3,567 yards and 29 touchdowns.

Michael Van Buren Jr., 6’1” 200 lbs.

A four-star recruit, Van Buren picked the Bulldogs over other schools such as Oregon and Maryland. He was a member of the 2024 Under Armour All-American Game and guided St. Frances Academy to two-straight top 10 finishes in MaxPreps Top 25 Rankings. He guided St. Frances to the national championship game in 2022 and led the school to the No. 2 ranking in the nation.