Mike Leach hasn’t been in Starkville long but he’s been with the program long enough to display his ability to recruit quarterbacks to Mississippi State fans.

If you somehow missed the news, Stanford graduate transfer quarterback K.J. Costello has joined Leach’s MSU program after tossing for 6,151 yards and 49 touchdowns in the Pac-12. Now Leach has the opportunity to show that success in the Pac-12 can translate to the SEC in a unique way with a quarterback from the same league the coach just left.

During his recent National Signing Day press conference, most of the questions poised to Leach had to do with Mississippi State’s new signal-caller. Here’s what the Bulldog coach had to say about recruiting Costello.

“Once he got his release and went on to the portal, we contacted him,” Leach said. “We’re very familiar with that high school; he went to Santa Margarita [Catholic] High School in Southern California. I’ve had a number of players from there. I’ve had a center from there, two receivers – and he was very good friends with Kyle Sweet, the receiver that recently graduated from our place. I had a defensive lineman from there. I’m probably leaving out one or two others, but we really had good success with players from that school.

“Part of it, is where he came from. Then, I was familiar with him coming out of high school. As I said, we played against him, and he was looking for a place where he got the chance to throw the ball more, so we feel fortunate to have him. The dialogue kind of happened naturally; we already knew a bunch of the same people, including his head football coach who I thought was a great coach. And so, it went. It was a good deal, and we’re thrilled to have him.”

Long before Gardner Minshew was a name known around the nation and in the NFL, the Mississippi native was a fan favorite for his success on the gridiron at Brandon High School. It wasn’t until Minshew played for Leach at Washington State that the former Mississippi stand out high school quarter really caught the attention of the football world

Without a doubt, Leach believes the success of Minshew helped Mississippi State land Costello.

“He’s pretty familiar with what we did. We played against him twice I believe, and he liked the way we threw it, and of course he knew about three people on our team when it happened,” Leach said. “The last time we played, we had kind of a nail biter when Gardner Minshew was there. They went down and scored what they thought was the final touchdown. Then, we had a heck of a drive and kicked the field goal to win it. We were quite familiar with one another. KJ is kind of a stranger to Mississippi, but he wasn’t really a stranger to most of our offensive staff.”

Finally, when it comes to Mississippi State’s offseason quarterback competition, while many will jump to the conclusion that Costello may have been given assurances when it comes to starting for the Bulldogs, Leach says he has no plans to even name a starting quarterback following spring practice — although it should be noted that Costello will not be arriving in Starkville until the summer.

“I don’t plan to come out of spring with a starter because I think you always compete for your position. So I do not plan to do that,” Leach said. “I plan to figure out where everyone is at and first teach them the offense and figure out where everyone is at. As we figure out who is ahead, we are going to have to channel the reps of the guys who are ahead and go through the spring like that, but we’re going to do the best we can to give them the knowledge and skills as they go for the next offseason after spring to develop those skills to compete at as high of a level as they can during again in camp.

“We’ll check where they’re at there and pair it down until you get down to two. We want to keep it competitive throughout, but then as you compete for reps and perform better, then you’re going to get more reps.”