Mississippi State is Embracing the Underdog Mentality

The Bulldogs are ready to exceed expectations this fall.

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

Coming into the 2024 season for Mississippi State, there are limited reasons to be optimistic about a successful season from an outside perspective. The Bulldogs are coming off their worst season since 2009 and lost most of their roster, including several productive players.

State will also have a first-time head coach, Jeff Lebby, who will take over the program. The former Oklahoma offensive coordinator understood the overhaul this roster needed and acted appropriately by signing 19 players from the transfer portal. Still, the 40-year-old head does not want to rely solely on that.

"That's not who we want to be," Lebby said. "We're going to be able to sustain as a program because we've got great proximity to players. We're going to be a developmental program."

Not only does the roster overhaul make people weary of the Bulldogs, but so does the brutal schedule. State has one of the country's most demanding schedules, especially for road games as they travel to Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and a tricky road nonconference game at Arizona State.

The most impactful transfer the Bulldogs signed was former Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen, who represented his new school at SEC media days alongside a pair of Starkville veterans, linebacker John Lewis and offensive lineman Albert Reese. Even though nobody could blame MSU players for being a little hesitant to place expectations on the team, the players have quiet confidence.

"We love it," Lewis said. "We can't wait to prove everyone wrong and shock everybody."

Part of the reason the players have quiet confidence is the new culture arriving in Starkville. Lebby is adamant about embracing and not running from the challenge, approaching adversity with a smile.

"We get to do it with the best and against the best every single day," Lebby said. "But I want our people inside our building to have fun in the doing."

At his previous stop, Shapen experienced both the lows and highs of college football. The Shreveport, La. product led the Bears to a Big 12 title in his redshirt freshman season in 2021, but the good times did not last in Waco as they stumbled to a 3-9 record last season.

That experience is invaluable at the quarterback position because playing the position requires a certain level of emotional maturity. Therefore, the veteran uses the low expectations not as an indictment on his team but as a rallying cry.

"I think we all use that as fuel. There is not a lot of expectations at the end of the day for us," Shapen said. "So I feel like that fuels us in a way that makes us want to go out there and prove a lot of people wrong, and I'm excited. We're going to use that as fuel for sure."

Lebby has brought a lot of excitement to the Bulldogs during his short time on the job, whether it be on the recruiting trail or not, shying away from saying we will be successful in year one. The confidence was evident for him, and he had a clear vision of what he wanted the Bulldogs to look like this fall.

"We're going to have every opportunity in the world to show everyone actually who we are as a program and as a football team, and I look at that as an opportunity for our guys," Lebby said.