Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
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?
I guess I'm thinking more of the Diamond in the Rough McKinney type guys that play for those high schools. 1 or 2 players may make a high school basketball team great but it ain't making a football team great. Going back to South Panola and Meridian days of dominance, they just needed roadgrader offensive linemen to block for the 3 "Runners" in their backfield.

West Point, Louisville and Starkville have to have under rated fire plugs that are getting over looked by D1 schools. No way they could be that dominant year after year. Louisville may not play as tough a schedule during the season but when the whistle blows in playoff time those guys bring the lumber. Starkville and West Point play tough schedules and still dominate, some times beating each other. Takes more than a few high 3 and low 4 stars to do that year in and year out. Kids are being overlooked who may have developmental skills waiting to explode.