2023 MSU FOOTBALL RECRUITING Discussion Thread

[Todd4State]

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.

[MetEdDawg]

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.

I get your thought here and I want to recruit MS hard. We have to.

But here's what I will say. Everyone uses the example of Favre, Payton, and Rice. Do we have have any examples over the last 20-25 years of overlooked guys that made an impact in the league from MS that's anywhere close to the impact they made? Certainly we've had some make a huge impact for us. McKinney is a big one.

I struggle to find someone using modern day scouting and evaluation that just gets overlooked. Chris Jones is the closest comparison, but he was a 5 star by the time his recruitment ended.

I want in state 4 star guys. They pan out a good percent of the time. But we aren't talking about not taking MS 4 stars for out of state 3 stars. I'm talking about spots 15-25 of a class. Are we really getting the bang for our time and efforts out of the MS guys that are the last 7-10 guys of a class? Go back and look over the last decade and you will see a lot of not great both at MSU and other schools.

The Top 25 in Mississippi every year doesn't have 25 SEC caliber players. The Top 25 in AL, TX, TN, FL, GA, and LA does. We've got to dig into the depths of other states. There's a reason other decent schools aren't coming into MS and taking players outside the Top 15 in the state. Lowest ranked MS player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was ranked 13. Lowest ranked AL player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was at 42.

We've got to go out of state to fill out more of class. Can't abandon MS completely, but the data has always shown the state of MS can't support the talent for 2 SEC teams to be competitive year in and year out.

[BrunswickDawg]

I get your thought here and I want to recruit MS hard. We have to.

But here's what I will say. Everyone uses the example of Favre, Payton, and Rice. Do we have have any examples over the last 20-25 years of overlooked guys that made an impact in the league from MS that's anywhere close to the impact they made? Certainly we've had some make a huge impact for us. McKinney is a big one.

I struggle to find someone using modern day scouting and evaluation that just gets overlooked. Chris Jones is the closest comparison, but he was a 5 star by the time his recruitment ended.

I want in state 4 star guys. They pan out a good percent of the time. But we aren't talking about not taking MS 4 stars for out of state 3 stars. I'm talking about spots 15-25 of a class. Are we really getting the bang for our time and efforts out of the MS guys that are the last 7-10 guys of a class? Go back and look over the last decade and you will see a lot of not great both at MSU and other schools.

The Top 25 in Mississippi every year doesn't have 25 SEC caliber players. The Top 25 in AL, TX, TN, FL, GA, and LA does. We've got to dig into the depths of other states. There's a reason other decent schools aren't coming into MS and taking players outside the Top 15 in the state. Lowest ranked MS player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was ranked 13. Lowest ranked AL player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was at 42.

We've got to go out of state to fill out more of class. Can't abandon MS completely, but the data has always shown the state of MS can't support the talent for 2 SEC teams to be competitive year in and year out.

Met - I think this is pretty spot on. It was real easy to overlook those guys in the 70s and 80s because scouting was so limited. The internet, staff sizes, 7v7 camps, etc have ended that. Farve was really the last one - but Farve was kind of the Nick Fitzgerald of the 80s. He ran QB in a wishbone offense and rarely threw more than 5 times a game. Southern was his only offer. Even McNair wasn't exactly overlooked, teams wanted him on defense instead of QB. People forget McNair was All-State as a QB, but All-American as a Safety in HS. He bet on himself as a QB and won.

The thing about MS high schools vs. AL, TX, GA etc is money. MS schools for the most part can't match the investment in development that kids in those states get. I look at the high school here that took our old middle school gym and converted it into a football only facility with nutrition area, state of the art weight room, a small IDP, training room with ice pool and sauna, film rooms for each position group, tutoring rooms, and pay the Head Coach $140,000 a year and think "damn, this is nicer than some FCS schools have it". Kids on the team practically live there year round. We don't have fat kids playing OL/DL like when I was in school, they are chiseled athletes at 16.
And we are small time compared to some of the Metro ATL schools and legendary south Georgia programs like Valdosta, Colquitt, Lowndes or Camden. And Glynn Academy doesn't even put as many kids in D1 as our cross-town rival Brunswick High - who seem to have a D1 OL or DB every single year. So, unless MS high schools can start matching $ with schools in surrounding states, we are going to have to focus much broader than in the past because we can't take the time to red-shirt the entire Freshman class of MS kids anymore so they can get in shape and learn the game.

[Todd4State]

I get your thought here and I want to recruit MS hard. We have to.

But here's what I will say. Everyone uses the example of Favre, Payton, and Rice. Do we have have any examples over the last 20-25 years of overlooked guys that made an impact in the league from MS that's anywhere close to the impact they made? Certainly we've had some make a huge impact for us. McKinney is a big one.

I struggle to find someone using modern day scouting and evaluation that just gets overlooked. Chris Jones is the closest comparison, but he was a 5 star by the time his recruitment ended.

I want in state 4 star guys. They pan out a good percent of the time. But we aren't talking about not taking MS 4 stars for out of state 3 stars. I'm talking about spots 15-25 of a class. Are we really getting the bang for our time and efforts out of the MS guys that are the last 7-10 guys of a class? Go back and look over the last decade and you will see a lot of not great both at MSU and other schools.

The Top 25 in Mississippi every year doesn't have 25 SEC caliber players. The Top 25 in AL, TX, TN, FL, GA, and LA does. We've got to dig into the depths of other states. There's a reason other decent schools aren't coming into MS and taking players outside the Top 15 in the state. Lowest ranked MS player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was ranked 13. Lowest ranked AL player taken by a good out of state SEC school in 2022 was at 42.

We've got to go out of state to fill out more of class. Can't abandon MS completely, but the data has always shown the state of MS can't support the talent for 2 SEC teams to be competitive year in and year out.

Those three are among the top 25 players of all time- two are easily top 5. That's a really high bar.

I can think of a few that we had that were overlooked- Eric Moulds, Jonthan Banks, from back in that era of Payton and Rice we had Kent Hull who was overlooked out of high school, Fred Smoot, JT Gray who Dan should have started- he's a pro bowler. Darius Slay came from a Mississippi JUCO even though he is from Georgia. We may say the same thing about Walley who was underrated one day.