Several months into the post-Dak Prescott era in Starkville, Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen doesn’t appear any closer to naming his next starting quarterback.

Exiting the spring, the Bulldogs four-man competition — between junior Damian Williams, sophomore Nick Fitzgerald, sophomore Elijah Staley and freshman Nick Tiano — appears to be static after each player was given an opportunity to win the job before entering the summer months.

During his visit to the ESPN campus for the SEC’s carwash event, Mullen spoke with ESPN’s David Ching and declared all four players still in the race to start.

“I also asked all four of them, ‘Do you feel you won the job this spring? Do you feel hands-down you are the guy?’ And all of them said, ‘You know what, certain days I think I did’ – which I said, ‘I agree with you’ – and ‘certain days I didn’t’ – which ‘I agree with you again,’” Mullen said.

While none of the quarterbacks were able to consistently outperform the others, Mullen also wouldn’t rule out playing more than one quarterback and rotating them in-game, as he has done in the past – both in Starkville and as Florida’s offensive coordinator.

“I’ve played multiple quarterbacks before. I have no problem doing that,” Mullen said. “I think it’s much easier to play multiple quarterbacks when they do different things. Back at Florida, you have Chris Leak and Tim Tebow. That’s an easy combination. At Mississippi State when you had Tyler Russell and Dak Prescott, kind of as a young guy coming in as a little bit of a runner, that’s a lot easier than trying to play quarterbacks who do the same thing.”

Mullen also touched on when he would prefer to make his final decision on this season’s starting quarterback, however he claims to be willing to take the competition well into the season.

“I would love to know within the first 10 days of training camp who the guy is, only because they’ve separated themselves over the summer,” Mullen said. “Who’s the one that just outworked the other three guys this summer to be the guy?

“If that didn’t happen, it could go to Game 1, it could go to Game 3, it could go all season.”

Considering the Bulldogs open at home Sept. 3 against South Alabama before opening conference play against South Carolina in Davis Wade Stadium the following week, MSU should have the opportunity to all four quarterbacks plenty of live reps if need be before traveling to Baton Rouge Week 3.