Mississippi State to promote Courtney Williams to assistant GM

Mississippi State is set to promote Courtney Williams to assistant general manager of the football team, Matt Zenitz of 247Sports reported. Williams was the director of scouting for the Bulldogs the past two seasons.

Prior to arriving in Starkville, he was the assistant director of player development at Memphis. Williams helped Mississippi State bring in the No. 22 recruiting class in the country this past season according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Additionally, the Bulldogs brought in 24 players through the transfer portal to rank No. 39 according to On3. They are coming off of a 2-10 finish in the inaugural season of coach Jeff Lebby, and this recent staff change will hopefully improve their roster construction moving forward.

Williams will work with Marc Votteler, who is the Mississippi State general manager, to oversee recruiting and roster management.

Jeff Lebby’s first year at Mississippi State graded by Greg McElroy

Greg McElroy barely passes Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby for his first season in Starkville.

McElroy gave out an average grade to Lebby for the work in his coaching debut on ‘Always College Football’.

“Year one? Not a success though I’ll give it a C for Jeff Lebby,” McElroy said last week.

On the positive, Lebby brought the offensive mind from his time as a coordinator at Oklahoma, Ole Miss, and UCF. It wasn’t one of their better units as of late or where it was at its best under Mike Leach but was better than they had the season prior under Zach Arnett as they averaged 25.8 ppg. from 377.2 yards of offense.

“We knew the offense was going to be exciting. That was the reaction when Jeff Lebby got the job – ‘Well, he’s going to score but what will things look like on the defensive side?’” said McElroy. “If anything, he’s going to put together a really compelling and exciting product for Mississippi State fans. That was the reason why he was hired. That’s what they said when they hired him – like, hey, he’s going to score points and be fun to watch. It was too. There are a lot of things that were fun to watch last year with Mississippi State.

“They had an interesting season…Their first-year record was just 2-10. It wasn’t great. It was about where a lot of people expected them to be, at least in the SEC. They were picked to finish 15th out of 16. So it’s not a massive surprise that they went just 2-10. …They had a massive overhaul offensively with what they brought in the portal. They lose their quarterback…I don’t know. Either way, it was not a great start. Losing to Toledo the way they did? Losing to Arizona State the way they did? Not great. But really tough schedule.”