Quote Originally Posted by 5049 View Post
I agree it?s a good formula for those schools but we are not them. I disagree that it?s a good formula for us. We can?t offer the extra money.

As for the JUCOs, I did not list them to talk about each one specifically. The point is that it is a pot of talented players right under our nose within our state borders
We do offer extra money- it's just that Ron Polk conditioned many of our fans into thinking that we couldn't. We've been doing it for years. We just use it in the form of scholarship money and grants and waivers depending on the player.

The money issue is incredibly overrated. I always laugh at people that come to the conclusion that guys that go to school and intend to leave after three years without a degree to play a sport are somehow at the same time enamored with Vanderbilt education. The reason they are going to Vanderbilt is because their coaches have shown that they can get them to MLB- that's really all they want to do. They had a pitching coach named Derek Johnson who is now the Brewers pitching coach who started everything for them. Now they have another elite pitching coach in Scott Brown who has shown that he can get players to MLB.

We absolutely can recruit like them- Cann was well on his way to doing that. We are probably going to hire someone else that uses that same formula. The problem has been that we've been doing what you suggested- go after a ton of JUCO's- and it has caused us to be fairly unstable- terrible 2015, win the SEC in 2016. What Cohen did was essentially the same thing Jackie did with JUCO's.

I didn't list those players to run them down- just to illustrate what the Mississippi JUCO leagues produce because those guys that you listed were some of the better players in that league. A team of mostly MS JUCO players is going to get us a USM/La Tech level squad but in the SEC which would translate to middle of the league at best with a team like what USM has now and what La Tech has had recently.

We already get the best in Mississippi out of the high school ranks- and we develop them into quality SEC players more times than not. Look at the list of players that we have had that have gone to MLB recently:

P- Graveman, Holder, Girodo, Lindgren, Stratton, Hudson will likely be up this year and was a first round pick, Pilkington will likely be a first round pick this year, Easley, Moreland, Tyler Moore, Adam Frazier, Hunter Renfroe, Rooker was a first round pick and may make it up this year, Woodruff, and Jake Mangum is a consensus top 100 prospect.

Out of that group- ONE MS JUCO player and actually only ONE overall that we've recently sent to MLB and that's Tyler Moore. If I remember correctly he went to Meridian because of grades and was a Dandy Dozen player so he was hardly in the class of players you listed. Every other player that I listed regardless of what state they were from came to MSU directly from high school. And that includes some guys that have some impressive accolades- Johnny Bench winners, SEC Triple Crown winners, All-Americans, and several first round picks.