re: 2014 Mississippi State Recruiting thread.

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And after what they pulled off this year, taking players away from the likes of Georgia, FSU, AL, etc. nobody can deny that whatever they are doing its working.

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I'd hold off awhile on this assumption...

They won't go into places like Starkville, West Point, etc... and take players that we want. Philadelphia isn't strongly MSU territory and hasn't been traditionally. People just think that because that HS coach is an MSU alum and it's geographically closer to MSU. Since 2002, MSU has signed one kid from Philadelphia HS(Josh Boyd), OM has signed one, Memphis has one, and USM has one...

Ultimately, they flipped CJ when his position coach and DC left(Diaz) AND his lead recruiter and primary contact with MSU(Hud) left. That's a pretty big piece to the puzzle that people leave that out of the equation in the meltdown. Was he bought? Sure. But it still took extreme circumstances to get him away from us. There have been ALOT of organizational changes in our booster network and even our coaching/recruiting system because of the loss of that player. People that think otherwise just aren't peeking behind the curtain at all -- and refuse to see how things actually went down with Chris Jones.

Last I checked, we held onto Chris Jones...and we almost flipped Lavon Hooks from them despite only recruiting him starting in late November(after THEY placed him in JUCO).

They are not "playing the game" better than us in MS. If they were, they would have actually gotten Chris Jones. Lord knows they threw everything they had at him. He was the only recruit there on the 25th weekend that didn't sign with OM. They are like the drug dealer that buys 5 houses rather than sitting on the cash and properly laundering it. When you flaunt it, you draw unnecessary attention. We'll see what kind of heat they've got coming down the pipeline.

Regardless, over the last decade, we've won every bit as many in-state recruiting battles with them as we've lost. People need to approach it as such instead of being scared of what big, bad OM is doing. Fanbase attitude projects onto players directly and indirectly -- and that effects their recruitment on some (maybe small) level. At this point, they come off as the carefree badass, and we come off as the insecure, needy weakling -- That's the perception -- although in reality, that is bullshite.