Mississippi State eyeing Buccaneers OC Todd Monken
Roy Cummings
November 26, 2017 CHUCK COOK-USA TODAY SPORTS
ATLANTA – The whirlwind of coaching changes throughout the college football world may not stop spinning before a prominent Buccaneers coach gets swept up by one of the teams now on the lookout for a new mentor.
The word out of Starkville, Mississippi is that current Bucs offensive coordinator Todd Monken has been pegged as a target by Mississippi State, which just lost Dan Mullen to the University of Florida, sources have told FFI.
Monken, who has been the Bucs OC for the past two years under head coach Dirk Koetter, has ties to Mississippi as he spent three years as the head coach at Southern Mississippi, where he guided the Golden Eagles to a 13-25 record.
That included a 9-5 overall finish during the 2015 season in which the Golden Eagles went 7-1 in Conference USA play and went on to the Heart of Dallas Bowl, where they were beaten 44-31 by the Washington Huskies.
Monken is no stranger to the SEC either as he was the passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach at LSU for two years before becoming the wide receivers coach for the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars from 2007-10.
Monken returned to the college ranks in 2011, spending that season and one more at the University of Oklahoma, where he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Mullin became the choice of the Gators on Sunday and is expected to be officially introduced as Florida’s new head coach during a press conference on Gainesville at 3 p.m. on Monday.
Monken, who is really the Bucs offensive coordinator in name only, is also the Bucs receivers coach and has been credited with aiding the development of Pro Bowl wideout Mike Evans.
Evans was a raw talent before Monken showed up and began to hone the skills of a player who was prone to drops and had a tendency to lose his cool when plays didn’t go his way.
The level of Monken’s desire to return to the college ranks is not known, nor it is known if he’s anxious to take on a head coaching gig again, but the timing of State’s interest may prove beneficial.
The Bucs are about to enter the home stretch of a season in which they have underperformed on both sides of the ball and as a result, Koetter’s future as head coach is in doubt.
The Bucs are not expected to make a decision regarding Koetter until after the season but a coach such as Monken might want to seize an opportunity to move on now before that decision is made for him.
