Mississippi State's Cody Kennedy hasn't changed — from bus leagues, Subway sandwiches to SEC

STARKVILLE — Cody Kennedy remembers standing on Division II sidelines and hearing his father shouting from the stands. Coaching in front of a barren sea of metal bleachers, it wasn’t hard for the offensive line coach to pick up what his dad was saying.

Yet as his career has brought him into SEC venues, which will include Davis Wade Stadium when he begins his first season at Mississippi State in August, the simplicity of the game remains.

“You go up there and it ... ,” Kennedy starts but pauses to reflect.

“You’re playing in front of x amount of thousand people ... ,” Kennedy restarts but stops again.

“The game never really changed that much,” he concludes.

Kennedy is in Starkville working under Jeff Lebby leading a key part in the offense that made the first-year head coach a lucrative option for the Bulldogs in November.

Kennedy has an office – though still undecorated after his more from Arkansas − overlooking three practice fields with a state-of-the-art baseball facility sitting adjacent. He has exceeded far beyond his back-up plan of becoming a physical education teacher.

Kennedy was a 2021 Broyles Award semifinalist which is awarded annually to the top assistant in college football. He’s in the sport’s most prestigious conference. But at his core, Kennedy isn’t much different from the ambitious graduate assistant at West Alabama.

“I was in the bus leagues,” Kennedy told the Clarion Ledger. “Golden Corral and Subway sandwiches, man. Having the time of our lives coaching D-II ball. To be honest with you, I was really, really happy doing that. I jokingly tell people this at clinics and stuff. Your job doesn’t change, just more people start watching.”

How Cody Kennedy ended up coaching football

The journey for the live-music-loving Kennedy, who says his taste ranges from rap to The Rolling Stones, started in Virginia. He was born in Norfolk, but he lived there less than two years.

“One of those places where you’re born and you don’t remember it,” Kennedy says.

His family settled there but quickly returned to Alabama, the state they consider home. His mother’s family is from Florence, Alabama, and his dad played football at North Alabama.

Both his parents were public school teachers. He was going to follow a different career path, originally majoring in biology – or, “something like really smart-guy stuff” − at Southeastern Louisiana. However, he eventually switched to physical education.

He wanted to be a football coach.

“She (mom) was obviously not very happy,” Kennedy said. “My pops was, ‘Do what you want to do.’ ”

Kennedy was a grad assistant at West Alabama (2012-13) before coaching offensive line at West Georgia (2014, 2016-17) and UNC Pembroke (2015) – “Google it, it’s no Metropolis.”

After his second stint at West Georgia, he worked at Florida Atlantic for about four months before getting a GA role at Georgia (2018). Kennedy coached offensive line at Tulane (2019-20), Southern Miss (for about 28 days in 2020) and Arkansas (2021-23) before coming to Mississippi State.

Why Mississippi appeals to Cody Kennedy

Recruiting in college football has evolved thanks to technology, giving Kennedy the power to recruit an offensive lineman in Arizona from his desk in Starkville. However, there’s still that old-fashioned approach in Mississippi that appeals to Kennedy.

“It jokingly tell people it’s the last frontier in recruiting,” Kennedy said.

“Mississippi still has the hidden jewels,” he added. “The, ‘Have you heard about this kid?’ ”

In some states, Kennedy says, that still exists but players don’t always live up to the hype.

“You show up, that kid checks out,” Kennedy said of Mississippi.

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His attraction to the state extends beyond recruiting, though. Starkville is a small college town engrained in the university and its athletics.

“That’s the pageantry of college football to me,” Kennedy said. “That’s old-school. Ah! You just get the feeling about it.”

There’s also the food. Between Restaurant Tyler, 44 Prime, Two Brothers Smoked Meats and The Spotlight Cafe, among others, Starkville has delivered.

“I’m an O-line guy, you know what I’m saying,” Kennedy jokes. “… When my wife wasn’t down here yet − and it’s hard to grill a good steak at the Hilton Garden Inn − I made my rounds.”

Stefan Krajisnik is the Mississippi State beat writer for the Clarion Ledger. Contact him at skrajisnik@gannett.com or follow him on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, @skrajisnik3.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Cody Kennedy: Mississippi State football's simplistic assistant coach