Rick Stansbury won the offseason

I doubt you will find any coach that earned his salary more than Rick Stansbury did this summer.

He managed to help convince Renardo Sidney to get back into shape. He threw a Roy Halladay curveball to the NCAA, convincing them to reinstate his star point guard Dee Bost. And now, he's managed to rig Mississippi State's schedule so that he will play every single SEC game at full strength.

Rick Stansbury won the offseason.
(photo credit: The State)

Renardo Sidney is going to miss the first nine games of the season regardless of when they are played. Dee Bost is academically ineligible for the first semester, but if he gets his act together in the classroom, he will become eligible Dec. 11th. Well, that's not exactly true, as Bost will be begin to serve his nine-game suspension on that date.

So what did Stansbury do?

He moved a game against Alabama State from Dec. 4th to Dec. 14th so that it will count against Bost's suspension. Then, he landed a date with St. Mary's in Las Vegas on Dec. 29th, which will be Mississippi State's last game before SEC play begins, doubling as the ninth game of Bost's suspension. The end result: Mississippi State will play the bulk of their schedule with Sidney on the roster (their first nine games are against a bunch of low-majors schools at home) and will be at full strength for the duration of SEC play.

Stansbury also added a scrimmage for Dec. 15th so that Sidney will play some game minutes before kicking off his collegiate career against a top 25 team in Virginia Tech.

The schedule changes did make things difficult, however. By moving the Alabama State game to Dec. 14th, Stansbury's club will be playing four games in four games. The scrimmage, then, will essentially create a fifth game in five days. Their game with St. Mary's comes on the back end of a trip that takes them to a Dec. 18th date with Virginia Tech in the Bahamas, to Honolulu for the Diamond Head Classic, which takes place from Dec. 22nd-25th, and finally to Vegas for their Dec. 29th date.

It won't be easy, but Stansbury certainly put his team in great position to make a run at the SEC West title.