News and Notes was going to be a Friday posting from now until football season, but the abundance of news regarding MSU athletics over the last week - and more specifically last 48 hours - dictated that we share with you what's going on in the world of MSU sports a few days earlier than scheduled. Let's get right down to it, shall we?
- The biggest news for MSU fans has to be the recent surge of football commitments. It all started last week when Gadsden WR B.J. Hammond committed, and continued through yesterday when State picked up another two HUGE commitments: West Bolivar RB Kalio Moore and Clay-Chalkville WR DeAndre Woods. Sandwiched in between those commitments were pledges from the likes of South Panola's Deon Mix, Manatee (Fl)'s Cord Sandberg, and Starkville's own Gabe Myles. You can argue for pretty much all of those guys that they are the biggest commit so far in this class, but I'd have to say Sandberg is the biggest. Cord Sandberg is the prize QB that Coach Mullen has been looking for since he stepped on campus. Cord's ability to run as well as throw makes him a perfect fit for a Dan Mullen offense, and some say he's cut from the same cloth as one Tim Tebow. Although it's too early to celebrate yet - these kids cannot sign anything until February 1st - it is still very encouraging to see this many talented young guys that want to be a part of the Bulldog family.
- Obviously adding all of this talent will have an effect on MSU's recruiting class rankings (not that ANYONE pays attention to that sort of thing). Last week prior to the Hammond commit the Dogs sat at a paltry 66th in the rankings. After yesterday's commits from Myles, Moore and Woods? The Dogs have rocketed up to 20th in the 24/7 team rankings. And there's rumor that we're not done yet. Obviously there are more kids out there that Dan Mullen and his staff are interested in bringing aboard, including 5 of the top 10 in the state of Mississippi.
- Real quickly, I want to point out how good of a job the MSU recruiting guys do in following this sort of thing. Guys like Paul Jones, Logan Lowery, Michael Wardlaw and Steve Robertson do a fantastic job at keeping us informed as to what's going down in the world of MSU recruiting. Even for a guy like me who doesn't typically follow recruiting (SECRETLY DOES), it's nice to have the information available to you easily and quickly, and these guys make that happen. Thanks to all of them.
- Switching over to baseball news, we found out last night that MSU assistant coach Lane Burroughs has taken a position as the head coach at Northwestern State in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Burroughs previously coached there under John Cohen when Cohen was the head coach there from 1997 to 1998. Congrats to Coach Burroughs, and best of luck!
- In other baseball news, we found out yesterday that MSU Jr. RHP Chris Stratton has signed with the SF Giants, officially ending his career at Mississippi State. Stratton reportedly signed for $1.85 million, which was the money for the slot in which he was selected. Obviously a HUGE congrats to Stratton, who just immediately become richer than about 98% of us (except Croom Diaries, just because he was born the son of a Spanish King).
- Here's a picture of new MSU commit Gabe Myles, his father Eddie who played at MSU, and Coach Mullen:
Great picture of MSU's newest commit, Starkville High's Gabe Myles with his Dad, Eddie (MSU DE '87-'90) & Dan Mullen. twitter.com/RobbyDonoho/st…
— Robby Donoho (@RobbyDonoho) June 12, 2012
- Paul Jones reports that new MSU commit DeAndre Woods plans to graduate in December in enroll at MSU in January. Always great news to hear that a recruit wants to get on campus early to start putting in work.
- Via Marcello, here's the tentative 2013 MSU baseball schedule (click tweet for larger image). You'll see some familiar names on there (Samford, Purdue, Central Arkansas), and also you'll see a pretty good non conference foe scheduled to come to Starkville next year (Fresno State). What's bad about that schedule though? The SEC portion. State travels to Kentucky and Arkansas in back to back weeks, and also visits Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.
Wanna see a tentative Mississippi State baseball schedule for 2013? twitter.com/bmarcello/stat…
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) June 7, 2012
That's all we have for news and notes today. If we missed anything, please leave it in the comments, and we'll try to do better next time!
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