When Dan Mullen was introduced as the 32nd head football coach at Mississippi State University last year, he wanted to make one thing perfectly clear; he said he wanted everyone in Bulldog Nation to know he was dedicated to dominating the state in recruiting.
“The foundation of our program is recruiting players from the high schools of Mississippi,” Mullen said.
At that point it remained to be seen whether he could get the top players in the state to buy in to the program being built in Starkville. In Mullen’s first recruiting class, he followed through by bringing in some of the state’s top talent, which produced immediate results on the field. In year two of the Mullen era, the staff looked to bring every playmaker in the Magnolia State to Starkville.
He said the current staff has a very strong belief in the talent level in the state.
“We need to be in every high school in the state for spring recruiting before we cross the state lines,” Mullen said. “I truly believe that if the top players in the state all join together like they have started to do the last two years and come to one school to represent the people of the state of Mississippi, they will be holding up a crystal ball and Mississippi will be able to call themselves champions.”
Dominating the in-state recruiting is a tall order for the Dawgs, having to face off with a team on the rise in Hattiesburg and another team up north having won back-to-back bowl games.
The team took a big step forward in this year’s recruiting season on Nov. 28. With some of their biggest prospects visiting campus the Dawgs took the field to square off with Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl.
Mullen said that day, the Bulldogs showed their prospects in the stands what it looks like to play a rivalry game in front of a packed house and come out with a huge win.
“They got to see a program that is up-and-coming and I think they definitely got to see a program on the rise,” he said.
Since then it has been a scramble for the state’s best players, and it seems once again the Dawgs have come out on top.
Each year The Clarion Ledger puts out a list of the top 12 players in the state, known as the Dandy Dozen. A breakdown of where these players signed to play their college football seems to show a victory for Bulldog faithful. Six of these players signed a letter of intent to join the Dawgs on signing day while four headed to Oxford and one each to Southern Miss and LSU. The new Dawgs from the Dandy Dozen are Damien Robinson, Matthew Wells, Kaleb Eulls, Michael Carr, Nick Griffin and Robert Johnson.
Along with signing six of the top 12 in the state, the Dawgs also snagged the Gatorade Mississippi Player of the Year for the fourth year in a row. This year the award went to Dylan Favre, a quarterback with an uncle who most football fans know as one of the best to ever play the quarterback position, Brett Favre.
A total of 16 players in MSU’s signing class came out of Mississippi, which was more than Ole Miss and Southern Miss combined.
In Mullen’s two seasons at the helm for the Dawgs he has come through on his promise to win the in-state recruiting battle, signing a total of 32 players from inside the state borders. This total is twice the number signed by Southern Miss and triple the number playing for the Rebels.
At the signing day press conference, Mullen said it took much more than only his own effort to put this class together.
“I want to thank our staff,” he said. “They put in a tremendous amount of work out there on the road. I want to thank our fans for showing these players an environment every Saturday in an electric filled stadium.”
Mullen said the addition of the new players is one Bulldog fans will certainly come to appreciate over the coming years.
“We signed a class full of good students and high character kids that are going to be great representatives of Mississippi State in the future,” he said. “This is a group of young men that is going to make this the premier university in our state for years to come.”