Lost another top in-state recruit
- Thread starter Cooterpoot
- Start date
We will be fine. The last time we got some dudes from Gautier, they were a bit overrated. Ray Ray and Hargro
Our class doesn’t look great, but let’s not forget we had like three 4*s commit and immediately get the state bump down to 3*.
They are on Percy Lewis now. He is committed to Oregon but I guess they think he might flip. And yes...I try to follow this closely and both of those dudes were 4 star by 247 until they committed to us. **** sucks. But seems like they always have a back up plan
Exactly. Commitment lists in August are fluid. I've never really understood the recruiting meltdowns anyway. We'll be fine, and if we aren't it's our own damn fault.
No reason to think this class won't end up being similar to 99% of the classes we've signed in the modern era of recruiting. We are what we are in recruiting and it's going to take A LOT for me to get worked up over a class. Especially in August when most of these kids haven't even played a game in their senior year of high school. We have a long enough history of hidden gems who ended up being stars and highly ranked prospects who ended up being busts where I'm very rarely phased by anything that happens in recruiting.
So our recruiting has hit a 20-year low mark right after all the NIL stuff kicks in? I’m absolutely shocked.
Agreed, but it's also August. Let's see how it shakes out. There were meltdowns last year and we ended up with Plan B's that were better than our Plan A's.
We have a commitment and a likely commitment from two really, really good linebackers for next year. I'd rather have that than Hurst. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have Hurst, but Leach is going to find OL, so I'm not overly concerned about it.
True, but we also to continue to get the same results we always got. The hope with Leach was that his name carried enough cache to help us in recruiting, especially QB and WRs. And it has, for the most part I guess.
After our tier 3 sport baseball victory the new plan in Oxford is to go all in and finish 4th in west in the REAL tier 1 sport behind Bama, LSU and Auburn.
I'm definitely not getting worked up over it. If this is a 1-time blip in recruiting, it's not that big a deal long-term, depending on what he can replace them with. But we can't miss out on 8 of the top 10 in MS multiple times or we're going to be in for some long autumns.
And that's the problem. State fans are ok with that ****. Bottom of division recruiting every year will get you what our history shows us. A good year here and there, but crap a lot of years.
We only signed 3 of the top 10 the last 2 years. 2 of 10 in 2019. 5 of 10 in 2018.
This is a better than average class in MS. So, while it would be great to sign these top guys, the numbers will be about the same as they always are. And let's not act like this has never happened before.
It's not the 1980s anymore. Croom isn't around anymore, either.
State has been largely competitive over the last 13-14 years with a couple of exceptions. I don't see 7 wins per year (average) as crap seasons. Last year was a crap season but it was also a covid season. Moorhead had a couple of crap seasons but that was because of where our expectations were. We didn't have a shortage of talent those years.
We need to recruit better, but what is this about getting dominated by OM on in state recruiting?
By my count, they have five guys committed instate that we wanted (Dortch, Hurst, Clayton, Harris, and Simmons). We have five guys committed that they have offered (Moore, Moss, Miller, Jordan, and Russell). By all accounts, Stone Blanton is going to end up here, and he is a guy OM wants.
It’s okay to say we need to do better and it sucks to miss out of guys we though we led with- while also not acting like the sky is falling. We are going to sign a good OL class, and there are always guys who pop up during their senior seasons. This time a year ago, Cannon Boone was committed to VT and nobody even knew who Albert Reese was.
By my count, they have five guys committed instate that we wanted (Dortch, Hurst, Clayton, Harris, and Simmons). We have five guys committed that they have offered (Moore, Moss, Miller, Jordan, and Russell). By all accounts, Stone Blanton is going to end up here, and he is a guy OM wants.
It’s okay to say we need to do better and it sucks to miss out of guys we though we led with- while also not acting like the sky is falling. We are going to sign a good OL class, and there are always guys who pop up during their senior seasons. This time a year ago, Cannon Boone was committed to VT and nobody even knew who Albert Reese was.
Nothing about our average recruiting level is going to change until we put our money where our mouth is, and that includes the fanbase. We only have something like 12,000 Bulldog Club members when the minimum membership fee is $100 a year. We also have one of the smallest recruiting budgets in the Power 5. You haven't heard much about our football players and NIL deals to this point either.
Blame the coaching staff as much as you'd like but there's a reason that our recruiting rankings have pretty much stayed the same for years no matter who the coach is. It will take a much larger financial commitment for anything to change noticeably about our recruiting.
In the meantime, I will continue to take our program for what it is and not freak out about recruiting in July and August.
Outside of 2019, you’d be hard pressed to find a year since Croom’s 2004 “still in Green Bay” class where we only signed 2 of the Top 10 in MS (which we don’t even have yet). And the early returns on that 2019 class aren’t great, which is why so many of the 2020 guys saw the field as true freshmen. Cross / Emerson were solid pickups, but you also have 2 of the top 6 guys from that class already gone (Shrader, Jones), 2 more in Russell and Ani who are struggling to find PT, etc. Then Pickering has been a wild card who we still don’t know about.
Anyway, we are going to have to absolutely bust our asses and pull some NLI strings like crazy just to maintain the normal Top 25-30 classes we’ve become accustomed to having, and improving upon that standard is now essentially a lost cause. You’re living under a rock if you don’t think the NLI reform puts us at a major disadvantage.
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Would struggle in our scheme. He is a big downhill guard not really an Air Raid ol. We have two others guys we value a little more and a position of need
We've had losing records 3 times since going to #1. That's half our seasons. Things are about to get wild in recruiting too. This isn't even last year in that respect. Been a long time since we got smoked like this in-state. But let's win 6 and go to a crappy bowl and be happy. I prefer we shoot for the playoffs. We won't with this recruiting.
LOL, he's legit & we don't have other HS guys above him. We've got a couple Juco guys, but we're taking a couple those no matter all this.
Well the sky is falling. Looks like another #45 recruiting class. But we should expect that. After all, we all know Leach is an ******* and the Air Raid won't work in the SEC ****
Speaking of Stone Blanton, was able to see him in person last week. I will be pleasantly surprised if he ends up at MSU. He has skills as a LB that are well beyond his age. He can anticipate a snap count and flow before play starts.
His reads and his first step, along with his size and speed….speed both vertical and shuffle are really good. he is special. To me, he would be an animal in our scheme.
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I enjoy recruiting and am really intrigued by how college and pro rosters are constructed by coaches/GM’s. And I can’t help but wonder if Leach isn’t planning on really trying to use the transfer portal heavily? He had a great haul this past offseason with the DB from Texas and the 2 west coast WRs (I think all 3 of those guys will start for you this year). Then he added 2 very legitimate, worst case scenario, backup QBs. Those guys don’t get talked about in recruiting rankings, but they’ll absolutely impact games in 2021.
I know Leach has never been orthodox, and his personality probably doesn’t lend itself to being an elite recruiter. But, I do think he may be seeing the portal as a way to supplement that.
Our biggest problem right now is letting outside schools raid Mississippi’s top talent. I think we’ve got like 5 of the top 12 committed, which would normally seem about right, but then when you realize 4 of the top 6 are committed out of state, it sucks. And Aaron Bryant, who’s a big time DT is going out of state, too. It’s not ideal, for either program.
Edited to add: I left out the DE transfer from UCF. He may be the best of the bunch. I sure wish we could’ve landed him.
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It's December already?
Every year... Like clockwork. You can almost set your watch by it. I forgot. They are all Apple Watches now.
I expect Leach (and Kiffin, and everyone else) to use the transfer portal quite heavily. But the problem for schools like MSU and OM is that is just a form of treading water. If you aren’t at the top of the food chain, the transfer portal is merely a stop gap to stay on the same rung of the ladder, not climb it. You’re either bringing in guys that weren’t good enough to play at a program better than yours (the guys you have to beat to raise your profile), or they excelled at a lower level but at the same time weren’t good enough to cut it at an LSU or Texas A&M or Auburn. And over time, that gain/loss has to be in your favor so that you offset the players you lose to bigger programs.
Every now and again, there may be a rare case of a 5* kid from MS goes off to the bright lights of the wild blue yonder, has a sick relative or something he wants to get back home to see, and maybe an MSU or OM is lucky to get him that way. But that’s going to be rare, and neither school is going to be able to rely on that level of luck consistently. The schools that continue to land the elite talent out of high school consistently are going to continue to be the schools in the hunt for the natty and P4 conference championships. And that is now going to be harder than ever for the non blue bloods.
I've been telling ya'll to be ready for a turbulent few months, if Ole Miss success shakes you up. They've got the momentum, they've got the fun offense and the well-known coach just like we do, but their version worked last year. The only thing MSU can do at this point is hope the Leach stuff works out and we get some momentum going from what happens on the field. We did fairly chalky in recruiting in 2020 (28th overall, 10th SEC) and 2021 (26th overall, 10th SEC), and we seem to be doing well with QBs and WRs. That may be to the detriment of other positions, who knows. But to take another step, which we all want, we need to sign those same QBs and WRs and still hold serve with the others, which would put our classes in the Top 20. That's obviously the goal, but probably not realistic at this point until we prove it on the field.
That's the most intriguing thing about this going forward.....I have no idea how this Leach experiment will go. We are trying to do something that's never been done here, but at the same time we have a good, proven, borderline great coach.
That's the most intriguing thing about this going forward.....I have no idea how this Leach experiment will go. We are trying to do something that's never been done here, but at the same time we have a good, proven, borderline great coach.
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