Odom flips to Lville

[Todd4State]

It's looking to me like they decided the juco's are enough this year, at least that's all we'll be left with come signing day..hope they work out...

They're just missing on targets. Even with the JUCO's- we missed on Hayes, Guidry, and Nixon this year despite the fact that yes it was a good JUCO haul. Again, there is a reason why Dan wants the early NSD more than any other coach in the SEC. For whatever reason, we have struggled past December. Adding Peterson and Austin seems to have helped minimally. Like I said before- the common theme with most of our de-commits if you read between the lines in their interviews is "the other school just seemed to want me more". More than likely that's the real root of the problem- we have to do a better job of letting players know that they are wanted and stay on them until they sign the LOI. Player development is good, but if you lack talent it's only going to take you so far. Missing out on recruits was why we were under the 85 man scholarship limit and had to play two walk-on LB's a good bit in reserve roles.

It also seems like we lack awareness at times with the recruiting situation of certain players. Hiring a certain coach on our staff completely took us right out of the Akers scene right off the bat. Had we recruited and offered Kaleem Reddix, he would have probably helped us with recruiting some of the other in state players like Jonnas Spivey helped us a couple of years ago. Which was one of Dan's highest rated classes to date with Peters and Leo. And not that I think Reddix is a SEC player but if he can help you get 3-4 other legit SEC players and make that process easier, I would definitely trade a scholarship for that.

So, to me those seem to be the two biggest issues that we have in recruiting right now in general across the board without knowing all of the inner workings and behind the scenes things. Heck our best recruiter right now is probably Chris Boniol if he indeed does flip Bulovas to go along with the Army All-American punter we have as a commit. When was the last time we've had Army All-Americans at every position group in a class ever? That's impressive.

[klong-dog]

Malik Heath follows suit, in 3, 2, 1....

[BankerDog]

Something is going on at Callaway. Expect Heath to decommit. He tweeted something today "Thanks to big bro and coach for opening my eyes today". Big bro was Odom. Their coach? Former MSU DL Darius Brown.

[dawgday166]

So out of the top 10 in MS we have only 1, OM has 1, and all of the rest are going out of state. I thought Mullen's strategy was to own MS. I'm sliding back to somewhat hopeful over cautiously optimistic.

Even Rosebowl is bummed out about this one.

ETA: On the bright side ... basketball is definitely trending up. Maybe it will keep trending positive. Since Howland is the coach and his main desire is to win games, not shop for shoes or run marathons, then I believe it will keep trending up. So we have that to look forward to.

[MarketingBully]

Basketball and baseball recruit at an elite level at MSU because those coaches see it as the lifeblood of their programs. Mullen for whatever reason has not held recruiting to that same standard and you get these results. That's why I don't follow football recruiting.

[HSVDawg]

Can someone offer any rational for WTF is going on in our recruiting and how Louisville of all teams is coming into Mississippi and getting players we want?

Is Louisville just replacing OM as the team that buys everyone off? This doesn't make any sense or pass the smell test

I think its a combination of the OM sanctions holding them down, our DC transition costing us some previous commitments, and a generally weak in-state class that is causing lots of kids to look elsewhere.

It should be pretty obvious at this point that we are not going to sign anything close to a full class again, and will be continuing our "self-imposed probation" for the 3rd year in a row. Very disappointing.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Absolutely zero excuse for how terrible this staff is receuiting. None of Mullen's boys (Hev, Sallach, Knox, etc.) are held responsible for their job performance. This will be two years in a row where we've signed two terrible high school classes (save for a few players). Indefensible. Every other sport on campus recruits at an elite level except football so don't give me the Starkville bullshit- because our football recruiting gets worse every year. There are people on this staff who bring absolutely nothing to the table and it is long overdue to make changes.

And all this is with UM being a non-factor in state.

[msstate7]

Just making room for a 5* place kick holder**

[99jc]

sheesh

Who cares really!

[defiantdog]

Who cares really!

Losing Odom means losing Heath, whos going to end up being a 5 star receiver.

[Activated Alpha]

Weren't we told that our coaches are going to end on a strong note? Don't see that happening....

[msstate7]

I see a bunch of spots opening up, but no one to fill them. I'm officially worried about gay... everyone, but us says lsu. South Carolina thinks they have carty. Bulovas still committed to GT. Who we gonna get? Recruiting seems to be about momentum, so if we have someone that will commit, we need it now

[Irondawg]

What is the connection to Heath other than they go to the same school?

[GreenheadDawg]

I see a bunch of spots opening up, but no one to fill them. I'm officially worried about gay... everyone, but us says lsu. South Carolina thinks they have carty. Bulovas still committed to GT. Who we gonna get? Recruiting seems to be about momentum, so if we have someone that will commit, we need it now

Don't worry. Delta state better keep a watchful eye on their class, Dan is coming.

[Dawgface]

Don't worry. Delta state better keep a watchful eye on their class, Dan is coming.

Ain't that the truth. Looks like we will continue camping out at Jr Colleges to fill our needs as we did this year.

[starkvegasdawg]

This is what happens when we let up. As soon as IYOK gets back in the green for rep our class goes to hell.

[Dawgology]

This is sad. I feel sure that our new AD will be weighing in on this situation soon. Cohen was a recruiter. He knows what it takes to win and is much better at evaluating performance in this area than Strick was. I see a fire being lit soon.

[Doggie_Style]

Honestly I think the bottom line is that Mullen doesn't want to be in Starkville much longer and everyone knows it......it creates a tremendous uncertainty. Are we going to hire another Croom or Rick Ray? It scares the kids off. I'll be shocked if Mullen stays past this upcoming season as he has laid the ground-work to move to the NFL.

[Liverpooldawg]

Unlikely, but if we don't actually land the players and they go out of state it's almost the same difference. Things like this and other recent de-commits are why I have been advocating putting a recruiting performance clause into Dan's contract.

Recruiting clause? So you are going to let people like Yancy determine our coach now? That's insane.

[Liverpooldawg]

Honestly I think the bottom line is that Mullen doesn't want to be in Starkville much longer and everyone knows it......it creates a tremendous uncertainty. Are we going to hire another Croom or Rick Ray? It scares the kids off. I'll be shocked if Mullen stays past this upcoming season as he has laid the ground-work to move to the NFL.

I see the UM machine still has a few bullets left.