Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Dan Mullen has a little more than three weeks to go until his first game at Mississippi State, and he still doesn't know who his quarterback is going to be.

Mullen said following the Bulldogs' first full scrimmage Thursday that it was dead even at this point between senior Tyson Lee and sophomore Chris Relf.

Mullen went on to say that it would probably be a three-man race had true freshman Tyler Russell been enrolled in time to go through spring practice.

"Just the fact that he's mentally behind everybody else hurts him a little bit," Mullen said. "It will be a wide-open race until the end."

And, honestly, Mullen didn't see it going this way coming into the preseason. He thought Lee would have separated himself by now.

"I thought he would have been crisper, more consistent," Mullen said. "He's done some good things. He just hasn't done enough of them."

Relf's strength has been his athleticism, and he's made enough plays to hang around in the race. Mullen said it's all the other intangibles, such as being a leader, that he has to get better at if he's going to win the job.

Russell's suffering from paralysis by analysis right now because everything is so new. Mullen's not ruling out, though, that he can be ready to play at some point this season.

"Sometimes that light just clicks with a freshman, and he gets it," Mullen said.