Jeff Lebby explains why Mississippi State coveted Blake Shapen

Mississippi State picked out QB Blake Shapen from out of the transfer portal for their debut season under Jeff Lebby. That’s because the head coach saw him as a clear fit for them in Starkville.

Lebby spoke about the addition of Shapen during an interview with On3’s Andy Staples while at SEC Media Days. He said it was a recruitment that went very well on both ends because the Bulldogs wanted Shapen and he wanted to be a part of their program.

“Yeah, there was excitement on both ends, you know,” said Lebby. “I knew that Blake was going to be an incredible match for us and a guy that I wanted to be able to go get. The other side of that coin is Blake wanted to be a part of the offense and get coached the way that he’s getting coached.”

“It was incredibly natural,” Lebby said. “There was great familiarity. It was really, really smooth.”

Shapen spent the first four seasons of his collegiate career at Baylor. Over the last three years, he made 27 appearance for the Bears with 23 of those being starts while in Waco.

In those games, Shapen has thrown for 5,574 yard for 36 touchdowns and 13 interceptions on 63.3% completion.

An injury limited his senior season there last year to just eight games but he still threw for 2,188 yards, 13 scores, and just three picks while completing 61.7% of his passes. He also doubled his total career rushing touchdowns in those games with four.

Following the year, Shapen entered his name into the portal. He did so as the No. 29 QB and No. 275 overall transfer per On3’s 2024 Transfer Portal Top Players. Amidst interest from other schools, he eventually landed at Mississippi State to be Lebby’s first quarterback there.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of player that Shapen is for the Bulldogs in his last year of eligibility. If nothing else, though, he is very clearly their guy based on how Lebby and their building approached their selection of him from the start.

More from Lebby on Shapen: ‘We got the right guy’

 Jeff Lebby is very excited for QB Blake Shapen in 2024.

The Bulldogs welcomed the senior transfer in to command the offense. In doing so, Lebby says they got the right guy. For a first-year head coach, that’s a big sigh of relief to have that position figured out.

He explained what Shapen brought to the table during SEC Media Days.

“Yeah, I think, when you look at it, the biggest piece is for us to get off the ground the right way,” Lebby said on SEC Network. “We needed to go get a quarterback that can get it done. I’ve talked about that nonstop today. We got the right guy. That’s a guy that’s going to have the opportunity to engineer an offense that’s going to be to the standard that we want it to be at. And, without that piece, I think things look a little bit differently.”