In memoriam: The Epic Recruiting Meltdown of 2011

[EAVdog]

It's obvious that with Slay already a 2nd rounder and McKinney probably an early exit that our 2011 class is going to get the upper hand. Or do you count CFL since that is where Snoop is?

Regardless there are reasons Mullen doesn't get lots of 5* players. But the main reason is that he doesn't kiss their you know what. He preaches hard work, sacrifice, etc... He doesn't build up anyone's ego. In fact even from his Florida days he's been known to be a downer on the recruiting trail because he wasn't a huge 'Rah-Rah, your a superstar' guy. I've kept up with recruiting for a while now (247). If you read the interviews of players you can pretty much tell if they are going to fit in at State or not. The team has a personality, and some fit and some don't.

I sort of hate to open this can of worms but the R Nkemdiche/C Jones analogy is a pretty good one. Both are great players with great futures ahead of them. But RK has enjoyed being in the spotlight. CJ tried to stay out of the spotlight during his recruitment. I'm not saying one is better than the other just different. Take a guy like Gerri Green, his interviews he stresses working hard, school, wants to be an Engineer, etc... I'm not worried about him. He'll be a dog (and probably a real good one too).

A lot of these 2 star guys Mullen takes were part of winning teams, which usually meant it was because of them. They're hungry and have a chip on their shoulder to do something great. More often than not being in the right positions with some coaching they can achieve great things.

It all goes back to one of the first thing Mullen said when he got here about Favre/Rice/Payton all being from MS but none of them playing for Ole Miss or State. He's actively been sniffing these guys out.

[Todd4State]

Great article engie! It kind of makes you wonder about the recruiting gurus for each respective site too. It seems to me like Yancy blows up the Ole Miss guys too much and Rosebowl probably undervalues our guys some. As far as Rosebowl, I don't know if that's intentional, or if he isn't all that great of an evaluator, or if it's because he's in Louisiana and he can't get up to Tunica to watch McKinney play. What I do know is I find myself disagreeing with him a lot and then come to find out that what I thought turns out to be right down the road. I imagine a lot of other fans have a similar experience as well.

You also look at where Singleton and Brassell played. Madison Central and South Panola. Both are considered powerhouses in football in Mississippi. If McKinney played there and not Rosa Fort, or Calhoun had played at one of those schools and not Morton- I think they would have been likely identified. And vice versa- if Singleton plays at Ruleville Central instead of MC- does he get noticed? My guess is probably not. The players at the big powerhouse schools in Mississippi are WAY too puffed up by the recruiting services.

But the thing that people have to understand about players from Mississippi is that they are in general going to take time to develop as players. It doesn't really matter so much where their talent level is in high school. If they have the size, speed, and work ethic we will succeed with Mississippians.

[Fred Garvin]

Wasn't it Mullen who said that he wanted to win the right way? Which to me isn't so much about recruiting ethics, but more about the the evolution of the program. This all indicates that he is staying with his "business plan" per se. Avoid the mistakes of the past (e.g., missing out on the Favres, Rices, McNairs of the world), developing the talent and treating the players with respect (e.g., how he's managed Nickoe and Tyler) and, most of all, putting players into the pros.

[BossDawg]

Wasn't it Mullen who said that he wanted to win the right way?

I believe that was Croom.

[ShotgunDawg]

Great article engie! It kind of makes you wonder about the recruiting gurus for each respective site too. It seems to me like Yancy blows up the Ole Miss guys too much and Rosebowl probably undervalues our guys some. As far as Rosebowl, I don't know if that's intentional, or if he isn't all that great of an evaluator, or if it's because he's in Louisiana and he can't get up to Tunica to watch McKinney play. What I do know is I find myself disagreeing with him a lot and then come to find out that what I thought turns out to be right down the road. I imagine a lot of other fans have a similar experience as well.

You also look at where Singleton and Brassell played. Madison Central and South Panola. Both are considered powerhouses in football in Mississippi. If McKinney played there and not Rosa Fort, or Calhoun had played at one of those schools and not Morton- I think they would have been likely identified. And vice versa- if Singleton plays at Ruleville Central instead of MC- does he get noticed? My guess is probably not. The players at the big powerhouse schools in Mississippi are WAY too puffed up by the recruiting services.

But the thing that people have to understand about players from Mississippi is that they are in general going to take time to develop as players. It doesn't really matter so much where their talent level is in high school. If they have the size, speed, and work ethic we will succeed with Mississippians.

Todd,

I agree with much of what you said, but wanted to offer a few thoughts.

1. I don't blame the recruiting sites all that much, but we give them way to much influence over how we feel about our class or a player. One of the main problems that these recruiting guys have is lack of staff and travel budget. These recruiting websites don't have massive travel budgets that allow them properly scout an area, and therefore must rely almost solely on grainy video, in which the players play against different levels of competition, measurements, and camps. You can't evaluate makeup, work ethic, football IQ, and leadership ability from a highlight video. I can't blame the recruiting sites for this. The only way it gets better is if they start charging a ton more for memberships, so they can add staff and travel expenses, or their membership enrollment drastically increases.

As I've said before, this is why players from Atlanta and Texas will often times be rated higher than kids from Mississippi. Most of the recruiting gurus live in Atlanta or Texas, understand the local competition level, and don't have to accrue massive travel expenses to see the players live. Therefore, kids from these states have longer track records with the recruiting sites, have been seen live more often, possibly have more money to attend camps, and are playing against known quantities. Furthermore, these player will have more offers because college coaches only have so many days to recruit and evaluate players live. Therefore, they are much more efficient going to heavily populated recruiting grounds that allow them see more prospects, in less days, and for less money. Kids that live in Rosa Fort, Independence, Tylertown, ect. are completely inefficient to see play live, unless they are known quantity. Simply put, most school can't waste a day on a non-sure thing prospect that will probably go to MSU, if offered, anyway.

2. Are Mississippi players really more raw? Seems to me that it didn't take to long for McKinney, Chris Jones, Gabe Jackson, Preston Smith, Market, Calhoun, Justin Malone, Clayborne, and D Williams to make an impact and show that they are good players.

No doubt our coaches are developing talent well, but we knew most of these guys were going to be really good players during their true freshman year or redshirt freshman year. It's really tough for someone to drastically improve from a 2 star to an NFL draft caliber player in 1 year or less.

This may sound cliche, but the more and more I look at what our staff is doing, the more and more I see the similarities to the Oakland A's. Our staff has found an recruiting arbitrage in scouting and acquiring under valued prospects, and they are getting better at it the longer they are running this program and make more connections.

Our staff has found a way to hunt down and properly evaluate the best players in Mississippi, regardless of their star ranking. They are taking high floor/low risk prospects that are ranked low, but would probably be solid 3 stars to mid 4 stars if they were from Georgia or Texas.

Also notice how few of JUCOs we are recruiting now. Why? because Mullen and staff are hitting so much on high school prospects, that there simply aren't many holes on the roster that a JUCO can just come in and start.

Mullen could certainly improve with his gameday coaching, but he is a really good GM. His organization has a wonderful scouting department that finds and properly evaluates undervalued prospects, develops players, and creates a team first attitude organization.

Simply put, as an organization or if we were a business, we are really well ran with the resources we have.

[The Croom Diaries]

Good stuff. Well done Engie.

[Percho]

You have some facts wrong in there. Zach Jackson was one of our first commitments and a Dandy Dozen himself, he was highly recruited no matter what Johnson did. C.J. was a huge loss, and one that I lay on the feet of our coaches. There's no covering that up. Brassell and Singleton were never coming to MSU. But Johnson was, and we blew it. I know people close to this situation.

I'd say at best, the classes are about even now, with ours being better than expected and theirs not quite as good. They signed a good class that year, but like someone else said, OL is killing them. We obviously did something wrong that year, not sure if we got lazy or what. Sort of carried over into Mullen's demeanor the following season.

In fifty words or less would you explain how out coaches lost CJ? Thanks in advance.

[Todd4State]

Todd,

I agree with much of what you said, but wanted to offer a few thoughts.

1. I don't blame the recruiting sites all that much, but we give them way to much influence over how we feel about our class or a player. One of the main problems that these recruiting guys have is lack of staff and travel budget. These recruiting websites don't have massive travel budgets that allow them properly scout an area, and therefore must rely almost solely on grainy video, in which the players play against different levels of competition, measurements, and camps. You can't evaluate makeup, work ethic, football IQ, and leadership ability from a highlight video. I can't blame the recruiting sites for this. The only way it gets better is if they start charging a ton more for memberships, so they can add staff and travel expenses, or their membership enrollment drastically increases.

As I've said before, this is why players from Atlanta and Texas will often times be rated higher than kids from Mississippi. Most of the recruiting gurus live in Atlanta or Texas, understand the local competition level, and don't have to accrue massive travel expenses to see the players live. Therefore, kids from these states have longer track records with the recruiting sites, have been seen live more often, possibly have more money to attend camps, and are playing against known quantities. Furthermore, these player will have more offers because college coaches only have so many days to recruit and evaluate players live. Therefore, they are much more efficient going to heavily populated recruiting grounds that allow them see more prospects, in less days, and for less money. Kids that live in Rosa Fort, Independence, Tylertown, ect. are completely inefficient to see play live, unless they are known quantity. Simply put, most school can't waste a day on a non-sure thing prospect that will probably go to MSU, if offered, anyway.

2. Are Mississippi players really more raw? Seems to me that it didn't take to long for McKinney, Chris Jones, Gabe Jackson, Preston Smith, Market, Calhoun, Justin Malone, Clayborne, and D Williams to make an impact and show that they are good players.

No doubt our coaches are developing talent well, but we knew most of these guys were going to be really good players during their true freshman year or redshirt freshman year. It's really tough for someone to drastically improve from a 2 star to an NFL draft caliber player in 1 year or less.

This may sound cliche, but the more and more I look at what our staff is doing, the more and more I see the similarities to the Oakland A's. Our staff has found an recruiting arbitrage in scouting and acquiring under valued prospects, and they are getting better at it the longer they are running this program and make more connections.

Our staff has found a way to hunt down and properly evaluate the best players in Mississippi, regardless of their star ranking. They are taking high floor/low risk prospects that are ranked low, but would probably be solid 3 stars to mid 4 stars if they were from Georgia or Texas.

Also notice how few of JUCOs we are recruiting now. Why? because Mullen and staff are hitting so much on high school prospects, that there simply aren't many holes on the roster that a JUCO can just come in and start.

Mullen could certainly improve with his gameday coaching, but he is a really good GM. His organization has a wonderful scouting department that finds and properly evaluates undervalued prospects, develops players, and creates a team first attitude organization.

Simply put, as an organization or if we were a business, we are really well ran with the resources we have.

Those are good thoughts.

1. I'm sure they are limited and it's impossible to evaluate and rank every high school player- which is basically what they are trying to do. If I was a recruiting guru, I would definitely try to have some type of a relationship with the coaching staff because the way they are set up- they have specific areas and can evaluate more players more efficiently since there are 8-9 of them or whatever the number is. They could help me out immensely as far as who to look out for throughout the year. Every single year there is some guy that comes in out of the blue like Calhoun and somehow the web site gurus miss the guy. I think that goes back to burning bridges at times in the name of providing "the scoop"- which Rosebowl has been guilty of in the past more than once. You can tell that Yancy has a much better rapport with their coaching staff. I think living in Louisiana hurts him as well. If I worked for a MSU site, I'm going to probably live in Jackson where I am centrally located and can get around, or Starkville. Heck- Memphis would be better than Louisiana.

But you are right about us having too many fans that put too much trust in the recruiting gurus.

2. I do agree with the Oakland A's anaology.

[engie]

My thing is -- if you were a recruiting guru and a "fan" of the school that you are covering -- would it not then HELP that school in many ways by underrating guys and hoping that they don't get seen much or talked about? While it hurts public perception -- does that not ACTUALLY help your team on the field? Dez Harris is a pretty good example of this...

Or does it help the school more to hype the hell out of guys and overrate them where you can -- leading to a heightened public perception that can potentially lead a self-fulfilling prophecy with other higher-rated guys?

[ShotgunDawg]

My thing is -- if you were a recruiting guru and a "fan" of the school that you are covering -- would it not then HELP that school in many ways by underrating guys and hoping that they don't get seen much or talked about? While it hurts public perception -- does that not ACTUALLY help your team on the field? Dez Harris is a pretty good example of this...

Or does it help the school more to hype the hell out of guys and overrate them where you can -- leading to a heightened public perception that can potentially lead a self-fulfilling prophecy with other higher-rated guys?

Good question

I think most schools would want to boost their recruits ranking because it creates a positive perception and momentum with the class. I guess it just depends on how solid the player is with your school.

Just take Chris Jones for example: Would MSU have wanted him to stay a two star and thus OM and Bama would've stayed away, or would MSU have wanted to Jones to be widely publicized as the best player in the country in order to attract more recruits, but also open the door to every school in America to come recruit him?

I guess it just depends on how solid you think the kid is with your school. However, if you think a kid like Jones is going to get discovered at some point anyway, like he was, and recruited by everyone, then your probably better off just getting the word about him out early so that you can capitalize with other recruits.

[smootness]

I'm not trying to just be a d-bag or anything but Preston Smith is from GA and Damian Williams from LA. Just wanted to clarify that.