Quote Originally Posted by MetEdDawg View Post
I actually think it's smart to start working out of state. The big boys have proven they WILL come into MS and take a portion of the Top 10 guys in state and we have to adjust to that.

The depth of talent in the state is not enough to support the rosters of MSU and OM while also hemorrhaging top tier talent to the big boys.

We need to start doing the same thing if we want to compete. Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana have depth of talent that we can capitalize on.

3 of the Top 10 in the 2023 cycle in MS are committed out of state. Will those 3 stay that way? Maybe not. But MS currently has five 4 stars this cycle. Every surrounding state has at least triple that number.

MS does have a lot of overlooked talent. We know that. But out of state is the way to go when it comes to being able to compete. We still need to find overlooked talent in MS. But we've got to push out of state more to fill our roster because there's a lot of talent to be had there.
The thing is a lot of Mississippi players are raw. But with coaching in college they can become really good players. MSU has a long history of overlooking talented players from Mississippi- Rice, Payton, Favre- those are players that could have changed the complete perception of our program entirely. We don't find those players if we're chasing some three star from Florida and try to pretend that's the equivalent of a four star from Mississippi. We've been better lately- see Chris Jones. He and guys like Benardrick McKinney are probably at USM 20 years ago.

Honestly, I would prefer to build a program with Mississippians and then any out of state four star player we can get. It seems like the out of state guys we get for the most part are just as raw and rarely pan out as much.

After Leach I would like to see us get away from a "system coach" and hire someone more like a Shane Beamer that can recruit really well and clean out the state and has a scheme that is pretty basic and simple and flexible so that we don't have to tell Gardner Minchew to go to Wazzu because he doesn't fit our spread option scheme. Find the best players and fit the scheme around them.