there's absolutely no one with a bad word to say about the guy and he's an offensive genius. Let's see how he puts together a staff and recruits now. He did well at Penn State and building Fordham from nothing to FCS power. They're going to miss him at Rape State.
Mullen opened some interesting pipelines to Miss State that didn't previously exist. He has a few kids from Florence who play for them there and they'll have a few more coming down the line. One thing I thought Mullen did really well in Alabama was take these kids who were dying to go to Alabama and swoop in early to offer them while showering the with the attention these kids today need. He seemed to recruit the athlete and not the athletic service. This new guy will have to do more of the same. If he can't keep hitting up Bessemer, and the Tennessee Valley the way Mullen did, as well as owning the state of MS, he should be okay.
Miss State type of jobs are always a challenge, you not only have to be on the go with recruiting but you have to really be good at talent evaluaton. That is what made that Old Man at KState so successful, he probably never even talked to a 5 star kid and damn few 4 star kids, but he was great at evaluating JUCO's and overlooked players and built KState into an excellent program.
As JOCO can tell you, this area is loaded with athletes and players. It's also a growing area so a lot of the 'old recruiting guard' can be rather dismissive about it all. If you guys think local product Kerryon Johnson is something to watch, just wait until Asa Martin enrolls early to play TB (another local). I saw both of them play many times in HS, Asa is actually one of my son's good friends, and Asa is much better at this point than Kerryon was... and KJ was no slouch. Auburn will be getting another early enrollment from my son's best buddy Josh Marsh. He's the one who got invited to their camp and pulled down a 40 time so fast that Kevin Steele came down out of the tower, stopped the entire practice, held the watch himself and made sure what he saw wasn't a fluke. It wasn't, and Marsh was offered that day. The kid led the state in tackles as a Jr with something like 220. How was he a 3 star whose best offer was Memphis coming into that day? I'll tell you, lazy recruiters. At local Austin, Alabama will, as they do, nab the big time 5 star OL and he'll go on to play for the Tide. In the past, the other guys on the line would wind up kicking around after school and bagging groceries. Now thanks to guys like Dan Mullen and Justin Fuentes, they're going DI as well. As I mentioned, this area in the TN Valley is exploding and football is the #1, 2 and 3 sport up here. Smart programs will do well to join Alabama, Auburn, Michigan, Miss State and Tennessee in scooping these kids up.
Corey, agreed! Alabama and Auburn will always get their share and there is a lot of sympathy for Tennessee as well, but there are real gems in a lot of schools in Huntsville, Decatur and the Shoals that are ripe for the picking.
:idea: :arrow: I agree that the talent level in northern Alabama is excellent and it's improving in terms of numbers of prospects.
It's quite possible the best QB in next year's class is Bo Nix. He's from Pinson Valley. In Alabama we have this idiotic regional seeding method rather than seeding the teams by actual ranking. The end result was Austin playing Pinson Valley in the quarter finals this past Friday. Bo Nix led Pinson Valley over Austin in overtime 51-50 when they went for 2 in the 1st OT and got it. In the game Asa Martin (Auburn) cranked out something like 340 rushing yards. Bo Nix threw for 7 TD passes. It should be mentioned that both of these defenses are quite good and neither could slow down the other team. Austin lost the game basically when their 20 yard FG as time ran out was blocked by Pinson Valley, sending the game into OT. The rumored leader for Nix is Ohio State. The question isn't should Notre Dame be in the Tennessee Valley where God and football are everything, the question is, why are we so late to the party? Also, the 7A Division which was supposed to be Hoover and no one, has been won 2 of the past 3 years by a Catholic school called McGill Toolen. They're down in Mobile. http://www.mcgill-toolen.org/