I totally agree with this ... nicknames are a part of sports but this is just absolutely degrading ... and he's a Bulldog
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I don't have the link anymore, but one of the players on your list claimed that MSU never saw him play very much. He heard from Gautreau after a game, MSU was recruiting Stinnett, then saw him play a bit. "You will replace Rowdey Jordan" is the gist.
Talking pitchers and straight nonsense here - as usual - but why not pay some former SEC/PAC12 Umpires to watch the games, have cats in all regions to watch and scout games for us. Make sure the strike zones have verisimilitude to the SEC and that pitches are hitting locations. It really stinks to collect kids that throw 95 but flat and without control. This would have detected two or three wasted roster spots in 2022. Our pitching recruiting needs a heuristic. Only two spots for Canadian Syndrome players and they must be HS players with a potential multi-year payoff. Transfers must be polished in the JP France or Zach Neff mold.
By the way, we will have company in the Portal Heist. LSU and OM need players. UGA needs a full pitching staff (+7 ERA), without Cannon they are dog meat.
Yeah, if we don't reload with some major talent, we have an issue. We should be able to reload and just rock and roll. Yeager, Hines were good gets last year and maybe a couple of others pan out.
As much as we've struggled this year in various areas, we need to top 3 class this next year that pans out.
I?m not saying go all in on these types of players. But there is room for a few of these a year to created a different locker room mindset. There are plenty of overlooked true players in Mississippi who did not get the coaching in high school or have an opportunity to ply travel ball. Thus the recruiting services over look them. Think the Jonathan Banks types of Mississippi baseball. It?s hard to find these guys but USM seems to do it and develop them.
And whoever said they will get smoked in a regional is not paying attention. They can hit and should have knocked the KlanSharts out last year. They seem to always hit and are scrappy. Something we had up until this year. We lost the scrap.
We probably just need to recruit the Cape. There are a few mid major players playing there that we can accurately evaluate along with our current players. Including a couple from USM and La Tech. If there are coaching changes we may even be able to get some players with SEC experience. Especially with Florida and South Carolina being possibly in the mix for a new coach. Ole Miss too.
Our strategy is to usually see who pans out in JUCO. Like Preston Johnson, Peyton Plumlee, Spencer Price, and Tanner Leggett.
Part of the issue with the USM guys is because of the recruiting cycle a lot of them commit early like our guys do. But then there is that gentleman's agreement about flipping recruits. And yes, I realize we did that with Ross Highfill this year.
That said I would say that we probably have more Mississippians in our lineup than they do. They have guys from all over. Including two from Guatemala. Their top two guys in their rotation are out of state guys. The other they got from Delta State. I think they're really only starting three Mississippians regularly in the lineup but they are three of their best players too. But we start way more Mississippians than they do. I wonder how much of that was because of the coaching changes we were going through as far as our misses?