Good News/Bad News

Which do you want first?

Nevermind, it doesn't matter. You're getting the bad news first.

If you recall, MSU got a commit from one Chris Garrett back in October. I was a little excited about it. Well fast forward a few months, and the 21st ranked quarterback in the country changed his mind and has committed to LSU. . . . Ouch. Hard to compete with national championships I guess. Not that it is over necessarily, February is a long way off and he did grow up a MSU fan, but for now he is gone.

Fortunately, this is the point where the good news comes into play. You see, this is an exceptionally rare year in Mississippi. It's not often that a QB with BCS level potential comes out of Mississippi, and it is even less often that you'll see three high level QBs in Mississippi in the same year. This is one of those years special years though, with Chris Garrett, Tyler Russell, and Clayton Moore being the #21, #32, and #35 quarterbacks in the country respectively.

Soon after Garrett decommitted, Tyler Russell gave a verbal commitment to Mississippi State. Now the consensus is that Garrett is the best QB in Mississippi with Russell being #2 and Moore #3. However, while Garrett was still committed to MSU, I heard quite a few people say they hoped Mississippi State could still land Tyler Russell as he was the better of the two. Only time will tell who's right, but that is encouraging.

Russell is similar to Garrett in that they are both largely pocket QBs, but with the edge in mobility going to Russell. Tyler threw for 2,481 yards and 26 TDs his junior year with just 8 interceptions. Thats nothing to sneeze at. Now once again, it is a long time until February, and I promise you that there will be some big time schools offering Russell before it is all said and done. Hopefully MSU can hold on to him.




*****Since we are on the topic of recruiting, let me say this. I'm not going to make a post every time someone commits. I tried that last year and just didn't like it. Instead, I'm going to just wait until February and go over the entire class all at once. I'm still going to do that for the 2008 class too by the way. It's coming, I promise.

The exception to this rule will be if there are any "big time" commits, I will make a post about it when it happens. For example, we all know QB is probably the most important position on the team, and we all know how much trouble MSU has had at QB under Croom. Thus I consider getting the #32 quarterback in the country big news. Similarly, if a 5 star WR commits, there will be a post about it. Otherwise, recruiting information is going to be very non-specific and very infrequent.

Speaking of non-specific, I will say this. The 2009 class is getting off to a very strong start. You can definitely see the impact of the 8-5 season. If Croom can take the team to another bowl, this will likely be his best recruiting class so far.