I'm about to head out of town for a long weekend, but before doing that, I sat down with Mississippi State offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Les Koenning this morning. I asked him several questions about the offense, his boss (Dan Mullen) and other topics for a story I'm working on for later.

Some excerpts from today's conversation:

• On Mullen's involvement in the offense: "He’ll be involved heavily. Dan’s had such a great career as an assistant coach at Utah and Florida. We’d be absolutely foolish not to have him involved. "

• On why Texas A&M adopted the spread when Koenning was there: "No. 1, it was easy to recruit to. Most kids wanna pay in a wide-open offense."

• On the QB competition: "The best player plays. I know that Tyson (Lee), Chris (Relf) or Tyler (Russell), they want the best player to play. Our football team wants the best player to play, and that goes for every position."

• On how easy/difficult it is for a freshman to pick up the spread offense: "It depends who the freshman is. … You don’t give them the whole playbook. You give them the things that they can obtain."

• On RB Anthony Dixon's finding an identity: "I think he’ll develop his identity as the year goes on. ... I’ve seen the hard work in the weightroom pay off for him."