Kamario Taylor Breaks Silence on Mississippi State Future After Nick Saban’s Surprise Statement

Be so good at what you do that even a retired coach starts talking about taking you. Jeff Lebby has Mississippi State sitting at 4-0 ahead of a Top-25 clash with Alabama, but KaMario Taylor has somehow become the bigger story. Nick Saban, who is not even coaching anymore, openly said he would try to get Taylor into the transfer portal. That was all it took to turn a breakout season into a transfer controversy.

“It’s hard because I’m in the season. I don’t like to reply or look at everything like that during the season,” Taylor said about the rising speculation on On3 on September 27. “When people come to me, it’s hard to talk to them how I want to talk to them. But if you know me, you know I bleed maroon and white.”

The transfer noise did not start because Taylor hinted at leaving Mississippi State. It started because Nick Saban decided to say the quiet part out loud on ESPN’s College GameDay.

“If I were coaching right now, I’d be trying to get KaMario Taylor to get in the portal,” the former Alabama head coach said. “I’m taking Mississippi State.”

Saban is retired, so there is no actual recruiting pitch coming from him. Still, openly talking about getting another team’s starting quarterback into the portal in the middle of a season was always going to raise eyebrows. Pat McAfee certainly thought so, questioning the optics of making that kind of comment while Taylor is still playing for Mississippi State.

Then again, Taylor has given people plenty to talk about. While quarterbacks at several blue-blood programs have spent the opening month trying to find some consistency, Taylor has been tearing through defenses. Through four games, he has thrown for 1,192 yards and 14 touchdowns while adding 185 yards on the ground.

Missouri got the clearest look at what that means. Mississippi State jumped ahead 14-0 before Missouri clawed its way back and eventually took a 24-17 lead in the third quarter. That could have been where the Bulldogs folded. Instead, Taylor took over.

Mississippi State scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, with Taylor leading two touchdown drives. The biggest one covered 85 yards and ended with his 24-yard go-ahead touchdown pass to Sanfrisco Magee.

Taylor finished with 360 passing yards and three touchdowns, becoming the first quarterback in Mississippi State history to account for at least three touchdowns in each of the first four games of a season.

So yes, the portal chatter came quickly. But Jeff Lebby was not exactly losing sleep over it.

“I give it zero attention,” Lebby said. “For us, our guys inside our locker room, we know exactly who we got. We know exactly where we’re going. There’s incredible vision. There’s been great vision and a great plan and people love being inside our building every day. Again, we’re far from perfect, but where we’re going is special. (Taylor) is going to be leading us there.”

That is about as dismissive as Lebby could have been. While everyone outside Starkville suddenly had something to say about Taylor’s future, his head coach was already talking as if there was nothing to discuss.

Kamario Taylor and his love for MSU Bulldogs

Taylor’s connection to Mississippi State did not begin with this breakout season. He arrived as one of the crown jewels of the Bulldogs’ 2025 recruiting class after receiving offers from programs including Georgia, Texas A&M and Missouri. But Taylor had already made his choice much earlier, committing to Mississippi State in October 2023.

That decision was hardly random. Taylor is a home-state quarterback who grew up close to Starkville, and Mississippi State was the program he had been around for years. His younger brother, Jaiden “Jayytee” Taylor, later joined the Bulldogs too, turning the family connection into an actual locker-room bond.

The two brothers even live together in Starkville, which only makes Taylor’s ties to the program feel deeper. For a quarterback suddenly being dragged into portal speculation, there is a lot connecting him to Mississippi State beyond football.

Taylor has said as much himself.

“It’s all about being ourselves,” Taylor said. “With me being a home-state kid, I’m from here. I grew up here, so I know what this program could be. Me and Isaac (Smith) brag about the potential of it every single day. We try to just lift the guys up.”

That is what makes the transfer chatter a little ironic. Taylor is not some quarterback who landed in Starkville by accident. He chose Mississippi State early, grew up around the program, has family there and has repeatedly talked about what the Bulldogs could become.

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