2026 HS/JC Football Recruiting

[Todd4State]

Are academics still a thing with scholarships?

Reason I ask is it amazes me that 4 of the State's best high school football programs are within 40 miles of Starkville and we cannot build any momentum with signees from these schools. Starkville, West Point and Louisville combined have more State Championships than any other 10 schools combined. Noxubee County has become a serious Class 4 contender. Choctaw County(formerly Weir and Ackerman) also have great history as HS football powers. Tupelo should be evenly split between Ole Miss and State as should Grenada. Either we didn't offer the kid from Choctaw County enough money and Miss MSU as a girlfriend, or these guys just DONT WANT to play at State for any reason.

How many players has MSU lost from Starkville, West Point, or Noxubee over the years really? Sure we remember AJ Brown and Caleb Cunningham but the reality is we have gotten the lion's share from there. Willie Gay, Stonka, Aeries Williams, Justin Cox, Jeffrey Simmons, Kamario, and etc. It's the vast majority that we have gotten over the years. Louisville to me is sort of like South Panola in terms of distance from Starkville/Oxford. Yes, both are in the area but they also aren't super close. Ole Miss has gotten some players from Louisville and we have gotten our share of players from South Panola. And then you have a guy like Luke Altmeyer who almost every MSU keyboard warrior poo poo'd on and said that they didn't want him and he has turned out to be pretty solid at Illinois.

You have to think about it from the lens of a high school kid as well. They just see what MSU is now which is a 2-10 program. Most of them don't think "well if I go there I'm going to be an upperclassman with Kamario and the schedule is going to flip and they're going to be good when I'm an upperclassman." Plus with the portal it makes it different. Conceivably a player could go to Ole Miss while they're hot and then when we get our stuff together transfer in. Back in the day that wasn't an option. You would have to go to EMCC for a year and then transfer somewhere else. And that's only if you were a freshman that you had that option. The other option was Jackson State or Austin Peay.

We've already seen WR's transfer between MSU and Ole Miss already both ways- Malik Heath and Ayden Williams. And that's just at that one position group. I'm sure we'll see it from other position groups as well.

If you want to talk about something being disproportionate- how come we have so many of these powerful boosters in Madison and we rarely ever get players from Madison Central?