STARKVILLE — Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen wants to ease Fred Ross back into football shape.
A groin sidelined the senior wide receiver for all of the team’s 15 spring practices. Last month, though, Ross said at Southeastern Conference Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, that he was close to being ready. On Monday, speaking at MSU’s media day, Mullen said Ross isn’t back to 100 percent.
“Fred’s still going to be on a very tight rep count during training camp,” Mullen said. “I might have him on a tighter rep count than the training staff. Our deal when it comes to Fred is making sure he’s ready to play game one. His training camp’s going to be very, very limited in things he’s going to do getting ready to get into the season.”
The trainers have told Mullen that Ross should be at 100 percent two weeks before MSU opens the season against South Alabama at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 3 (SEC Network), at Davis Wade Stadium. However, Mullen said he will continue to protect Ross.
Ross was feeling good in July and felt like he would be ready to go when training camp started.
Ross led the SEC and set a single-season school record with 88 receptions as a junior. He had 1,007 yards and five touchdowns.
He watched on crutches as his teammates go through spring drills on and became another coach they could turn to. With players like redshirt freshmen Deddrick Thomas, Keith Mixon, and Jonnas Spivey, Ross was able to get comfortable in a leadership role.
“I was just trying to tell those guys to stay at it and don’t get down on themselves,” Ross said. “Bad stuff’s going to happen. You’re going to drop a pass, you’re going to fumble or you’re going to miss a block. I just told them to stay level headed and just keep working hard.”
Junior wide receiver Donald Gray missed half of spring practice after hyperextending his right knee. Mullen said he is back to 100 percent and won’t have any restrictions.
In his first season with the Bulldogs, the Copiah-Lincoln Community College transfer had 13 catches for 386 yards and two touchdowns.
Simmons eying football
Jeffery Simmons’ life this summer has been anything but focused on football.
After being charged with simple assault and disturbing the peace after a video surfaced that appeared to show him striking a woman, he and MSU came under fire. He was allowed to enroll before his criminal matters were settled and suspended for one game. He will be evaluated by the licensed professionals at the university’s Student Counseling Services and be required to complete any program they prescribe.
Last week, the former Noxubee County High School standout pled no contest to the simple assault, was fined $175, and ordered to pay $711 in restitution. The disturbing the peace charge was dropped, but he was found guilty of malicious mischief and fined $300 and ordered to pay $175 in restitution.
With the incident behind him, the freshman defensive lineman can focus on football.
“I think it will be a great relief to get out there on the field and get to go play football again,” Mullen said. “All of the scrutiny and pressure he’s been put under, he’s going to strap up that helmet for two, three hours and go out there and play ball. It will probably be a pretty good release.”
During SEC Media Days, the MSU roster listed Simmons wearing No. 36. That number hasn’t been worn on a consistent basis since Nick Bell lost his battle with cancer in 2010. Mullen said in July numbers could change. On the roster handed out Monday, Simmons was listed as No. 98.
First-year defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon doesn’t want to single out Simmons.
“(I don’t want to see) anything else than what I want all the defensive lineman to do,” Sirmon said. “I want the defensive line to be disruptive, I want them to play extremely physical, and I want them to demonstrate great effort on film. I don’t care what the name is or what the number on the jersey is. There’s going to be a standard we ask that position to play to, and he’ll be held to that same standard as everybody else.”
Mullen on Twitter
Under a rule passed by the NCAA that went into affect Monday, college coaches can re-publish (re-tweet and re-post) and endorse (favorite and like) recruits’ posts on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook regardless of their commitment status.
Mullen has taken advantage of the rule by re-tweeting a post from three-star Miami defensive lineman Deandre Jordan, who committed to MSU on Sunday, and a post by Columbus running back and MSU commit Kylin Hill sharing his official scholarship offer.
Mullen is happy with the new rule.
“It makes me a lot less nervous scanning through Twitter,” Mullen said. “If I accidentally hit a button, at least I didn’t create a violation now. It’s a great thing to keep us safe and eliminate needless violations that might occur.”
Coaches still can’t talk about an individual commit or recruit.
Mullen said the rule won’t force him to be on social media sites more than he already is. He said he doesn’t expect recruits to pay that much attention to how he interacts with their posts.
“I guess if some of them said something great about Mississippi State, I’d probably re-tweet them. If they said something great about another school, I doubt I’m going to re-tweet that one,” Mullen said.
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Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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