STARKVILLE — Three recruiting targets delivered the news the Mississippi State football coaching staff wanted to hear this weekend.
Three days prior to National Signing Day, MSU received verbal commitments from Holmes Community College defensive back Tee Shepard and Clarksdale High School prospects J.T. Gray and Elgton Jenkins.
Rivals.com rated Shepard a five-star cornerback in 2012. After academic issues forced him to sit out his senior season and the NCAA declared him ineligible before he signed with Notre Dame, Shepard landed at Holmes C.C., where he finished his career as the eighth-best junior college player in the nation. Shepard chose MSU over offers from California, Kansas State, Ole Miss, Baylor, and others.
“I always knew I was coming here, and I was just being quiet about it,” Shepard said 247Sports.com. “But when I told all of them, they all got pretty excited and the room got real loud.”
Shepard, who is expected to wear No. 1 and to play cornerback, had 54 tackles, five tackles for loss, one interception, and two forced fumbles at Holmes C.C.
Gray, a three-star prospect according to 247Sports.com, had offers from Iowa State, Ole Miss, Cincinnati, USC, Washington, and others. The 6-foot cornerback played his junior year of high school in Coolidge, Ariz., where MSU cornerbacks coach Deshea Townsend was first started to recruit him in the spring.
“I have a strong relationship with him, and we can talk about anything,” Gray said to 247Sports.com. “At first, I didn’t know much about him that spring when I was in Arizona and he came to see me. But I knew right away that he showed faith in me. It’s been a good bond ever since.”
As a senior, Gray had 58 tackles, five tackles for loss, three interceptions, and two forced fumbles for Clarksdale High.
Jenkins pledged his services during their official visit to the MSU campus once he received the scholarship offer.
“We already knew where J.T. was going,so it was just me waiting on that offer,” Jenkins told 247Sports.com. “It’s great because we’ve been playing football together since we were 7 years old. Now we will be teammates at the next level, too. We can motivate each other to stay focused and to keep going hard.”
Jenkins, a 283-pound offensive lineman, is the state’s 21st-best prospect. He also had scholarship offers from Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, UAB, and Temple.
The three verbal commitments helped MSU’s 21-player recruiting class rise four spots on the 247Sports.com team rankings to 36th nationally and to 12th in the Southeastern Conference.
With National Signing Day on Wednesday, MSU is waiting on the decisions of three-star offensive lineman Jordan Sims, of Birmingham, Ala., three-star Clinton defensive end Grant Harris, and three-star Bellevue, Wash., defensive tackle Marcus Griffin.
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