Kyle Cliff joined the MSU staff as Director of Pitching in the fall of 2024 and works alongside pitching coach Deck McGuire in the development of the Bears’ hurlers and took on additional recruiting duties with a promotion and title change to Director of Pitching and Recruiting in 2025.
His first season working with the staff resulted in the Bears ranking 32nd nationally and third in school history with 9.51 strikeouts per nine innings, the program’s best figure since 1969. Tyler Charlton set the school record by striking out 12.87 batters per nine innings.
Max Knight led MSU’s pitching award winners in 2025 with an NCBWA Third-Team All-American nod as a two-way player in addition to claiming Missouri Valley Conference First Team and co-Newcomer of the Year honors. Jason Schaaf added an honorable mention all-league selection and joined Curry Sutherland on the league’s all-tournament team.
Cliff came to Missouri State after a three-year stint as an assistant coach at Emory & Henry College in Virginia, where he served as the Wasps’ pitching coach and recruiting coordinator as well as numerous other duties.
As the pitching coach at Southeastern Oklahoma State for the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Cliff mentored four conference pitcher of the week award winners in two years. Prior to his time in Oklahoma, Cliff spent a season at NAIA University of Rio Grande in Ohio, where he helped the pitching staff break the school record for strikeouts in a season and improve its statistical production across the board with two All-Americans, the conference pitcher of the year and one draft pick.
Cliff played collegiately at Limestone University and Elgin Community College before ending his career at UNC Greensboro, where he graduated with an economics degree in 2018.
