It feels like just yesterday that Mississippi State walked into Baton Rouge and beat the defending national champions 44-34 to open up the season. Quarterback KJ Costello shattered SEC records with 623 passing yards and five touchdowns, and Mike Leach’s “Air Raid” offense looked poised to take over the conference.

Turns out, LSU is not very good in 2020, and at 2-4, Mississippi State has a lot of work to do before even thinking about contending for the SEC West.

Since that game, there has been a revolving door of players walking out on Leach’s program, whether it be by opt-out or transfer.

Robbie Faulk of 247Sports laid out a full list of the Mississippi State players that have left Leach’s program, and it is lengthy one.

Transfers

  • Stewart Reese
  • Keytaon Thompson
  • Brevyn Jones
  • Jarrian Jones
  • Fabien Lovett
  • Javorrius Selmon
  • Garrett Shrader
  • Jalen Myden
  • Tre Lawson
  • Tyrell Shavers
  • Kareem Walker
  • Nick Pendley
  • Jamari Stewart

Opt-Outs

  • Tyler Williams
  • Kylin Hill
  • Marcus Murphy
  • Nathan Pickering

That’s a long list. In fact, that is 17 players that have elected to leave Mississippi State this season alone. These include quarterbacks Keytaon Thompson and Garrett Shrader, and standout running back Kylin Hill.

Anytime a coach comes in with program-changing concepts to the level of Leach’s offensive system, roster turnover is expected. However, this has been a slow-developing process since the start of the season.

Mike Leach will get time to bring in the right players for his system in Starkville, and deservedly so. But it is certainly rare to see such an exodus of players from one program in such a short time span.