2026 HS/JC Football Recruiting

[StarkVegasSteve]

Is Shay Hodge still coaching there?

No he is not directly working at JA to my knowledge. But he probably trains them and he is extremely sideways with the OM staff right now. He likes ours a little better. Neither he or Espy have much contact with the OM staff right now. But it will always be difficult for him to push kids to State.

Saying that, if we show something positive in the first few weeks, I was told to expect all those kids to end up at State.

[StarkVegasSteve]

I don't think we can completely live off of the portal forever. We need a good core group of players to build around which helps attract players from the portal.

We need some kind of a mix of both.

You need 10-15 HS kids with 6-8 that can play immediately, 2-4 that know they are develop guys, and 2-3 wildcards that could pop. The rest need to be portal guys with a majority being multi year portal guys.

[maroonmania]

I'm thinking (certainly hoping) that we've bottomed out as far as the pay for play environment that has put us at such a disadvantage within the SEC. The settlement which puts everyone paying the 20.5 milllion to disperse as they wish will hopefully even out things a bit. I know there will still be 'approved' NIL deals and under the table money but the straight out pay for play bidding wars will hopefully subside. Actually, as bad as I hate to see it I do agree that we should put most of our 'payout' resources on players already on the team that have shown their worth and portal players that have already shown production at the college level rather than HS recruits. Paying big bucks to HS signees who will likely play little as true freshmen and who, if they do, will likely check out the transfer portal right after the season doesn't make a lot of financial sense when your resources are limited. So as disappointed as I am with our lack of interest from MS HS recruits, I'm trying not to let it bother me much because its a different day and time. If we show improvement on the field we will likely get the opportunity to take another crack at them later in the portal. I really think going forward the number of college football players that never check out the portal will be in the minority.

[R2Dawg]

You need 10-15 HS kids with 6-8 that can play immediately, 2-4 that know they are develop guys, and 2-3 wildcards that could pop. The rest need to be portal guys with a majority being multi year portal guys.

Agree. We need a mix. We also need the good but "want to be MSU" guys (Taylor). Don't sleep on the guys that are very good 3 stars but high character, leaders too. We've had a bunch over the years and these guys are winners. That is how we win. We'll never win the glamor or $$ war and never have.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Agree. We need a mix. We also need the good but "want to be MSU" guys (Taylor). Don't sleep on the guys that are very good 3 stars but high character, leaders too. We've had a bunch over the years and these guys are winners. That is how we win. We'll never win the glamor or $$ war and never have.

Lo'Kavian Jackson is one of those guys this year. We held off some late pushes from Louisville, and I believe Miami, to keep him. I think we'll see him in the rotation before the end of the year.

[Pancho]

please list what position group these guys are expected in since we have little knowledge of their names.