HOOVER, Ala. — Without initially being aware what he’d accomplished, Mississippi State University football coach Dan Mullen immediately realized the significance of the three players he brought to the 2012 Southeastern Conference football media day.
Or more accurately the bond in which the trio of Tyler Russell, Johnthan Banks and Gabe Jackson had as they all approached the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover, Ala., as products of the Magnolia state. All of them were from Mullen’s first recruiting class at MSU and what they hope is proof that SEC football titles can be won from talent inside the state lines.
“I did walk up here looking and saying we have one from Maben, and one from Amite County right here,” Mullen said. “So there is probably more media here than there are people in their hometowns. Then Tyler is a good ‘ole Mississippi country boy with how much he hunts and fishes.”
Mississippi is just the 31st-highest populated state and has three Division 1 football programs (MSU, University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi) vying for high profile prospects every year. So it begs the question: does a market like that in the nation’s poorest state in the union allow for the possibility for one of the college football program’s to compete for a championship in arguably the best league in America?
While it may be one of the few unifying agreements among athletic administration, coaches and fans of all three schools seem to agree on — the consensus answer inside the state lines is a resounding yes — with a major but in the response.
“I think there was always some hesitation of what we could accomplish, maybe not just Mississippi State, but the state of Mississippi at times of how people viewed themselves,” Mullen said. “What we wanted to do is go up and insert a little bit of a swagger, confidence, belief in everybody.”
Jackson and Banks come from the same background as MSU’s first-round draft pick in the 2012 National Football League draft in Fletcher Cox from Yazoo City. A two or three-star prospect from a very small community to becoming one of the more dominant players in the SEC and the entire country last season.
“You look at a Fletcher Cox and what he was able to develop into once he received the kind of weight training and instruction that an SEC program like Mississippi State can provide,” 247Sports.com writer and recruiting expert Paul Jones said. “The one thing I’ve always said about recruiting Mississippi is you have to project what a kid can be more than any other state I can imagine.”
Jackson, who is on the preseason Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award watch lists, given to the nation’s best lineman in college football, is from the small-town of Liberty located in Amite County and had a population count of just 633 in the most recent 2000 census.
“I’m not trying to badmouth my town because it’s home and I love it but we might have two stoplights and well, that’s it,” Jackson said Wednesday. “It’s not a place you try to search for and find.”
As a senior at Amite County High and being coached by his father Charles, Jackson was rated by Scout.com as the third-best offensive lineman product in the state. This forced powerhouse college programs like Louisiana State University, Auburn University and Ole Miss to flock to the Class 2A school that some of current MSU teammates aren’t sure how to get to even now.
“I know I’m from a small community but I’ve grown up in Mississippi my whole life and I couldn’t tell you today how to get to Amite County, no way,” Banks said Wednesday. “I’m okay with that though because I know I’m not the only one that doesn’t know that.”
Banks, a potential All-American candidate this season and member of the Jim Thorpe Award watch list — given to the best defensive back in the country, had one scholarship offer coming out of Class 1A East Webster High School.
Growing up in Maben, Banks admitted to being overlooked and somewhat unassuming mystery as a recruiting prospect.
“Because you still can’t find Maben or East Webster High School on a GPS system so how were these big programs and coaches supposed to find me?,” Banks said. “I still try to beat that school up north (referring to Ole Miss) every time though because they didn’t offer me.”
Compared to Banks and Jackson, Russell is a city slicker being a former Parade All-American from the near 40,000 population town of Meridian. His final game at Meridian High School was a Class 5A state championship over annually dominate South Panola High School in the state capital of Jackson.
“There’s a young man that came in with so much hype surrounding him,” Mullen said Wednesday. “With all those expectations to come in, for a young man to handle it, not just he, but also his family, I give them tremendous credit.”
Seventy-two members, 62 percent, of MSU’s 116-man preseason roster are from the state of Mississippi and it’s a philosophy that Mullen has instilled in Starkville that dominating the borders of the home state is the only way to get the Bulldogs to the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.
“I think if you get a four or five-year stretch of getting eight of the top 10 or 12 prospects in the state then you can certainly start thinking about an SEC title at either MSU or Ole Miss,” Jones said. “The problem is getting that type of recruiting success year after year because it’s always seems to be a one or maybe two-year cycle.”
As MSU prepares for its annual Big Dawg camp for highly-touted prospects at Davis Wade Stadium today, the Bulldogs program is expected to have five of the top seven uncommitted prospects in Mississippi attend. Add those five uncommitted to already in-state prospects committed to MSU and the Bulldogs have the potential to take 11 of the 17 premier players inside the state border.
“If they get everybody that’s uncommitted right now, then it’s the best class of in-state talent to MSU since that (2009) class of Tyler Russell, Banks, LaDarius Perkins, Fletcher Cox class for sure,” Jones said.
But is that enough? With schools in recruiting powerhouse states like Texas, Florida, Georgia and even Alabama, the pair of Mississippi schools in SEC seemingly need to run the table of top prospects in their area to compete at a high level.
In his first SEC media days experience Thursday, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze couldn’t wait to paint the community his school is located in as the mecca of everything a student-athlete would want, as he tries to rebuild the Rebels program from as he referred to it “the wilderness”.
“People like Eli Manning and Michael Oher, Kendrick Clancy, Derrick Burgess, are great ambassadors for not only Ole Miss (but) they choose to make that their living when they’re not involved with their teams,” Freeze said. “Where else could you go in the state of Mississippi where you find a town and university that is the home of three national championships, six SEC championships, 13th all time in bowl wins (and) 20th in bowl appearances?”
However, it was not lost on the media that of the three players brought to the Wynfrey Hotel only one of them (wide receiver Donte Moncreif) was from the state of Mississippi.
Freeze will start with only 47, 37.9 percent, of his 124-man roster in the media guide as in-state products. The Rebels actually have more players on this preseason roster from the combination of Florida, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee than the total from Mississippi.
“I think you there would be enough talent in that (200-mile) circle around the campus to compete but in order to win SEC championships, I just think you need to cherry pick from other state’s too,” Ole Miss junior defensive back Charles Sawyer said. “You have to remember that in order to beat Alabama and LSU out on the field, you have to get guys to sign with us and away from them first.”
Freeze seems to be executing the system that Sawyer, from Miami, was laying out to the media Thursday. Of the 16 players Ole Miss has committed to its 2013 class, only five of them are from the state of Mississippi.
“When (former Ole Miss coach) Ed (Orgeron) was here, we had 18 NFL players in those three classes that are currently still playing in the NFL, it worked for whatever reason,” Freeze said. “So I’d be foolish not to try to copy that in some, way, shape, form or fashion.”
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