Is Freeze's recruiting class falling apart?

[smootness]

The recruiting style of Orgeron/Freeze lends itself to decommitments. All along, though, a lot of Ole Miss and State fans have just assumed they would close like they did last year, and that's just not realistic.

First, it's a lot easier to sell a kid on, 'I'm a new coach, and we're going places now. I just took a terrible team to a bowl game, and just wait until you see where we will be,' than it is on, 'Well, I've been here two years now and we're in the Music City Bowl but I promise that we are going places if you give us time'.

Also, last year was a perfect storm, as many have pointed out. They were always getting Conner, but Nkemdiche, Treadwell, and Tunsil mostly went to Ole Miss together because they were all thinking about playing together and it developed a lot of momentum. Ole Miss sold them all on being a package and taking Ole Miss to new heights.

Well, it helped that it was already a great fit for Nkemdiche and Treadwell because of family/friends and that they had Conner, too. Now, they don't have any ready-made 5-stars from South Panola, and they don't have connections with the top guys they had last year. So it's a lot harder to get several top guys to buy in when it's just them and there doesn't seem to be as much momentum among elite prospects.

ETA: They also used up their official visits on some of their top guys early, presumably to get them in the boat earlier, but it may have backfired. They banked last year's class on everybody coming in for the same weekend, and it helped promote that feeling of momentum and that they could have so many top guys actually go to Ole Miss. But that's not an option this year; they swayed guys like Tunsil and Golson late almost solely based on that last visit, and it won't happen the same way this year.