missouridawg said:
Who cares about 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Jesus, that was so 17'ing stupid. Players like Brassell, Singleton, CJ Johnson, and Whitehead are the type of players that have the potential to take a team from the Liberty Bowl to the Gator Bowl... or from the Gator Bowl to the Sugar Bowl. Dan Mullen needs these guys to help us get to the next level. Can we do it without them? Hopefully... but I'd rather try doing it with them in maroon and white.
I can tell you why it matters.
It's part of Mullen's PR campaign to own the state, and a huge part of that has been his focus on Mississippi recruiting. He's made it clear that getting all the top talent in the state was his plan in how he wanted to build a championship program at State.
Not saying you won't still have success. You will. Your combination of OOC scheduling and the fact that Mullen has a clue will keep you in bowl games for as long as he's there, but he's sold his plan from Day 1, and this is part of it.
I've said from Day 1 that his recruiting plan wasn't going to go down the way he planned, because no coach ever dominates this state in recruiting. It may slant heavily one way or the other every so often, but it won't ever be a consistent domination by one program over the other. There are just too many Ole Miss towns/schools and too many State towns/schools that there will always be a good number of prospects that the other side just doesn't really have much chance at landing. Over an extended period under any coach, the in-state recruiting is going to balance out to close to a 50/50 split.
Still, Mullen, for the sake of his sales pitch, needs to win more in-state battles than he loses. If he loses Whitehead, Brassell, Singleton, and Johnson, and he doesn't flip Morris, he'll lose some traction in his sale of the idea that he's dominating the state in recruiting. Last year was right at a 50/50 split of the guys we went head to head over, but he still sold it as domination since you signed about 10 more Mississippi players than we did. This year, he will have a harder time selling that if he doesn't close strong. Landing Jones and keeping Johnson and Whitehead would give him some of that traction. If all he gets is Jones, then it's going to leave a bad taste.