Will Sammon

The Clarion-Ledger

STARKVILLE – Dan Mullen is set to bring back a familiar face.

Mississippi State will name Brett Elliott as its new quarterbacks coach, a source confirmed.

Elliott, who is regarded by many as one of the top up-and-coming assistants in college football, served as an offensive quality control coach at MSU under Mullen from 2012-14. The hiring of Elliott seems like a good fit for the Bulldogs because of his familiarity with Mullen and previous experience working with quarterbacks with Mullen. For example, Elliott worked with Dak Prescott when they were both at MSU.

Elliott spent last season as the offensive coordinator at Texas State. He was a co-coordinator and quarterbacks coach at James Madison in 2015. While at James Madison, Elliott last coached Vad Lee, who was named the Colonial Athletic Association offensive player of the year. Lee led the nation in total offense with 375.5 yards per game and a 68.3 percent completion percentage. He passed for 2,190 yards and 21 touchdowns, and rushed for 814 yards and eight TDs.

Elliott, 34, will replace Brian Johnson, Mississippi State's quarterbacks coach the last three seasons, who left the school in late December to be Houston's offensive coordinator. Elliott will be the third new addition to MSU's staff for the upcoming season. Todd Grantham was hired last month as the defensive coordinator and Ron English was named safeties coach last week.

Elliott will coach quarterback Nick Fitzgerald, who emerged for MSU last season and set SEC single-season records for 100-yard rushing games by a quarterback (eight) and average yards per rush by a quarterback (7.1, minimum 175 carries). Fitzgerald had a nation-best three 300-yard passing/100-yard rushing games. MSU also signed four-star quarterback Keytaon Thompson to its 2017 class, and the New Orleans native is expected to compete for early playing time after enrolling early.

Contact Will Sammon at 601-961-7091 or wsammon@gannett.com . Follow him on Twitter .