When the dust settled after Wednesday’s National Signing Day frenzy, Mississippi State landed 17 signees who joined four other early commits to tally 21 recruits to the 2013 signing class. Some of the biggest signees include Mississippi’s Gatorade Player of the Year Ashton Shumpert and the biggest surprise of the day in Parade All-American wide receiver Fred Ross. Ross committed to Oklahoma State last February and kept to his initial choice until the night before NSD when he flipped his commitment to the Dogs.
The biggest letter of intent came from Houston, Miss., in defensive lineman Chris Jones. Jones is ranked as the best player in the state by multiple outlets and became the topic of interest in the days leading up to Wednesday. Jones supposedly took a couple visits to other schools including Ole Miss that created confusion and drama with the biggest name in the state.
Head coach Dan Mullen said he was never worried about Jones’ decision.
“I think the media created a lot of drama with Chris. With young kids, it’s their first time in dealing with all this stuff, but, like I said, all along he said ‘Hey, Coach, I’m coming to be a Bulldog’ and I trusted him from day one,” Mullen said Wednesday.
Although MSU’s signing class appears promising, I can’t help but question how it stacks up against the rest of the conference. As much as I hate to admit it, there is no question Ole Miss stole the show on NSD, and to quote Rebels coach Hugh Freeze, “I don’t think you could go out and purchase the exposure we got today. It’s unbelievable.”
The Rebels landed five 5-star recruits, including the top two players in the country, and five 4-star recruits to complete ESPN’s No. 5 signing class in the nation.
MSU was given the No. 25 recruiting class according to ESPN, but still trailed Alabama (1), Florida (2), Ole Miss (5), LSU (7), Texas A&M (8), Georgia (10), Auburn (11), South Carolina (17) and Vanderbilt (22).
When looking at rankings, though, this class is the best to come to Starkville since the No. 23 ranked class in 2009.
The Dogs will still be a young team next year. Two of MSU’s biggest concerns for 2013 will be wide receiver and secondary defense. The Maroon and White signed six receivers and three DBs to address those needs, but how quickly those recruits can transition will by key to next season’s success.
Mullen also drifted away from in-state players, only eight of the 21 being from Mississippi. Mississippi has great players, but I believe it will be the out-of-state talent that will take MSU from “our state” to compete for conference championships.