ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

Les Koenning is making his third tour through the SEC and his second tour through Mississippi State.

As the Bulldogs' offensive coordinator, he will be Dan Mullen's point man in putting in a version of the spread offense this spring that best suits Mississippi State's personnel.

Eventually, Mullen wants to do a lot of the same things at Mississippi State that he did at Florida. But it's an offense that will grow as the Bulldogs continue to recruit to it.

	John Albright / Icon SMI
	Les Koenning returns to Starkville for another stint, this time as offensive coordinator.

Koenning was at Mississippi State the first time from 1986-89 as a running backs and receivers coach under Rockey Felker. He was the offensive coordinator at Alabama from 2001-02 under Dennis Franchione and then followed Franchione to Texas A&M.

It was at Texas A&M where Koenning was first "introduced" to Mullen, who was then at Utah working as quarterbacks coach on Urban Meyer's staff. Texas A&M and Utah played each other in 2003 and 2004. The Aggies escaped 28-26 in the first game, but the Utes rolled 41-21 the next year and piled up 582 yards of total offense.

Koenning was intrigued by some of the things Utah was doing with the spread and made it a point to get to know Mullen better. It's a relationship that came full circle earlier this year when Mullen hired Koenning away from South Alabama to be his offensive coordinator at Mississippi State. Mullen also hired Carl Torbush to be his defensive coordinator. Torbush was on that same staff with Koenning at Alabama and Texas A&M.

The Bulldogs open what should be an eventful spring practice on March 24. Koenning took some time recently to talk about his goals for the spring and the challenge that awaits the new staff in Starkville.

What specifically do you remember about Mullen and the Utah spread offenses?

Les Koenning: Dan had put some things into it that people weren't doing with the option and shovel pass. Everybody runs the shovel pass, but do they run it the right way? You look at it now, and every kid in America wants to play in some form of the spread offense.

How much will your version of the spread this fall resemble what Florida did the last two seasons?

LK: The beauty of the system is that you can get into different personnel groupings and different personnel systems very easily. You're going to see us in different formations. We'll find out in the spring where different guys fit in the system. The flexibility allows us to be creative and adapt to our personnel. What we've got to find this spring is that 11 to work with.

How much tape have you watched of Mississippi State's offense from last season, and how much does that influence your thinking?

LK: We haven't made a lot of judgments. We have watched tape, but we haven't made judgments on whether this guy can play or that guy can't play. We've put them through the offseason program, and our weight coach (Matt Balis) has done a heck of a job. We're finding out the guys who will compete, the guys who will get after it, and we want to put them in the best positions for spring. Spring will be really big for us, because we'll find out who our playmakers really are. But the most important part of the whole spring is finding out what your players can do and build from there. You don't want to just put in a system to put one in.

It looks like Tyson Lee is the front-runner at quarterback. What has been your impression of him?

LK: Well, we've got Chris Relf back, too. Cameron Lawrence is another freshman who came in as a linebacker that we moved over to quarterback for the spring. But Tyson is the one who's played. He got beat up at the end of last year, so we've got to do stuff offensively that he can do. When you watch him and watch him move around, it's going to be interesting to find out what he can do in our system. He looks a little bit like a Chris Leak kind of guy. Is he that guy? I don't know. Chris Leak was a heck of a football player. Tyson has to go out there and show us.

How realistic is it that freshman quarterback Tyler Russell can be a factor even though he won't be on campus in time to go through spring practice?

LK: We're really excited about him and will know more when he gets here this summer. We've got plans for him coming in here this summer. If there was any way, I'd love to get him here even sooner.

Florida's offense under Meyer has evolved as the Gators have added players. How much will this offense evolve over the next couple of years?

LK: We signed some really good receivers, and that gives us a chance to spread the field. But we'll come out in the spring, and we've got to be a little different. We really do. When you're at Mississippi State, lining up in the I-formation and handing off the football is not always going to be the best thing. Dan has been out at Utah, where they had to do creative things to move the football when they played those bigger teams. Having the opportunity to have been through Mississippi State before, you realize what you have to do. You have to be a little different at times so that people have to prepare for you and they can't say, "Oh, he's doing the same thing, so we can do this."

What kind of shape is running back Anthony Dixon in?

LK: Watching him in the offseason and the things he's done there has been really impressive to us. Again, we're going to go through spring and put him out there and see what he can do. I think he probably played at 230 or so last year. I think he's right around 220 now and moving really well. I've been really impressed with the way he moves. He's a big back that can make things happen.

The feeling at Texas A&M was that Franchione didn't allow you a lot of freedom when it came to calling plays. Will you be the primary playcaller at Mississippi State?

LK: Yes, but again, the one thing I've been very fortunate to be around is coaches that want to be a part of it. If Dan wants to run something, we're going to run it. With his experience and the things he's done, the two national championships, that's not going to bother me. One of the things you learn as a coach and as a player is that there's no reason to be selfish. It's a team sport. It's the same thing we teach our kids. If Mark Hudspeth or John Hevesy want to call a play, that's not going to bother me, either.

How much has the SEC changed since you were last coaching in the league?

LK: It's a speed league now more than ever. You've got people who can go, and I mean everywhere on defense. You look at this league on film and it's pretty impressive. To combat that, you've got to have some speed, too. I was over in the Big 12 and it's a good l
eague. There's some good football teams over there, but the thing I noticed in this league more than I did over in the Big 12 were the defenses. Texas Tech has done an outstanding job, but when they went over and played Ole Miss ... that was a pretty eye-opening deal.