Football Lands Top 25 Signing Class

February 04, 2019 | Football

Joe Moorhead NSD Press Conference HailState.com/MoorDawgs19 2019 Signing Class #MoorDawgs19 Photo Gallery

by Brandon Langlois, Associate Director/Communications

STARKVILLE – National Signing Day is in the books for 2019, and Mississippi State head football coach Joe Moorhead and his staff solidified a consensus top-25 class on Wednesday.

The Bulldogs welcomed eight signees who joined the group of 14 that signed during the early period last December. MSU's class finished ranked 24th nationally by 247Sports, ESPN and Rivals.

Of the Bulldogs' 22 total signees, 11 are natives of Mississippi, while the others hail from Alabama (3), Florida (2), Tennessee (2), Georgia (1), Louisiana (1), New Jersey (1) and North Carolina (1). The class features 11 offensive players, 10 on defense and one specialist.

State's signees on Wednesday included four-star Under Armour All-American defensive tackle Nathan Pickering (Mount Olive, Miss. / Seminary HS). Pickering is considered the sixth-best defensive tackle in the nation and the fifth-best prospect in the state of Mississippi by 247Sports.

With Pickering and five-star offensive lineman Charles Cross, MSU landed two of the top five players in Mississippi for 2019 per 247Sports. Cross, who signed during the early period and enrolled at MSU last month, is the No. 1 overall player in the state and the first five-star offensive lineman in program history. In addition, Cross is the highest-rated offensive prospect to sign with the Bulldogs since running back Jerious Norwood in 2002.

The Bulldogs also hauled in a pair of junior college transfers on Wednesday in running back Kareem Walker (Irvington, N.J. / Fort Scott [Kan.] CC) and wide receiver JaVonta Payton (Nashville, Tenn. / Northwest [Miss.] CC). Walker is the No. 3 ranked junior college running back according to the 247Sports Composite, while Payton is the No. 2 rated wide receiver.

MSU welcomed another offensive lineman in four-star offensive tackle Brandon Cunningham (St. Martin, Miss. / St. Martin HS).

State also added defensive backs Collin Duncan (Montgomery, Ala. / St. James School), Martin Emerson (Pensacola, Fla. / Pine Forest HS), Dylan Lawrence (George County, Miss. / George County HS) and South Alabama graduate transfer punter Corliss Waitman (Milton, Fla. / South Alabama).

For more information on National Signing Day, follow HailState.com/MoorDawgs19.

Below are quotes from Moorhead's press conference.

Head Coach Joe Moorhead
February 6, 2019

Opening Statement …
"Good afternoon. It's great to see everybody. Welcome to Signing Day Part Two. You can feel the excitement in the air. I hope you guys are as excited as I am. It's certainly a combination of a year's worth of work to add these eight guys to the 14 that we signed in December. I certainly feel it's important that we express our thanks to the people who made this thing happen, including Mike Villagrana and our recruiting staff. They worked tirelessly to identify our prospects, organize all of our recruiting weekends, and set up our travel on the road. Those guys have done an unbelievable job with our assistant coaches getting to know these guys, cultivating relationships with the families and coaches for over two to three years for this class. And certainly, thank you to the high school coaches in Mississippi and the surrounding areas for allowing us to recruit their student athletes. Lastly, most importantly, thank you to the families and the players for their belief in us and our vision and our culture and the things we have to offer at Mississippi State, academically and athletically. We are certainly very grateful to them. We're very excited with the 22 guys –11 from Mississippi, three from Alabama, two from both Florida and Tennessee, one from Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and North Carolina. It's a pretty good balance. Eleven on offense, 10 on defense and then one specialist. When you look through, there's always a delicate balance in roster management and recruiting in making sure that you're addressing positional needs, while at the same time, recruiting the best available players regardless of position. I think that we did a good job along those lines, when you look at it and we talk specifically about those guys we added today, but also mention the guys in the first class, starting with quarterback Garrett Shrader, who is a four-star consensus top-300 player. He could have gone to play at just about anywhere in the country. He's a mid-year enrollee and doing a real nice job for us right now. I'm excited to see him in the spring. At the running back position, we were planning to add two with the departure of Aeris Williams and Dontavian Lee, and we did. We added a junior college prospect today, Kareem Walker. I've known him since his days in New Jersey. He kind of took the path from there to Ann Arbor, to Kansas and now here. I believe he was the No. 2 or 3 ranked running back in the country when he came out of high school. He's done a good job there and I'm excited to see a more mature and seasoned version of him. Certainly, if you all read the Bleacher Report article yesterday on Lee Witherspoon, I think that is something that we're going to have to continue to do at Mississippi State. We're striving to achieve our goal of a championship team. We may not always get the five-star prospects, but we're going to find guys who are a little bit under the radar. For a guy that averaged 19.2 yards a carry and scored almost 16 touchdowns in his first year as tailback, I think we're all going to be excited about the things Lee brings to the table. At the receiver position, today, we added JaVonta Payton from Northwest Community College in Mississippi. He's the No. 2 junior college prospect in the country at his position. I think he's going to come in and have the opportunity to compete right away. I think he brings a unique skill-set of speed, size and athleticism. Adding to that, another in-state prospect Kyziah Pruitt did a great job in the Mississippi-Alabama game. He was banged up with injuries a little bit early on in the year but finished very strong. Quinton Torbor from Destrehan, Louisiana, competed for the state championship down there and came real close to it. He really improved as the season went on. We didn't add any tight ends today. We added one offensive lineman today, Brandon Cunningham from St. Martin, Mississippi, an in-state product who could probably play tackle or guard for us. On top of that, we added Charles Cross, one of the top-ranked players in the state, five-star and early-enrollee. There's Nick Pendley, who's recruitment heated up at the tail end as much as than anyone in the country. LaQuinston Sharp is a local junior college product, and there's Brevyn Jones from the state of Alabama. At defensive line, obviously, today's big addition was Nathan Pickering out of Seminary High School. He's a four-star, top-10 prospect in the state. He could have gone just about anywhere. He's a longtime commit, and we're excited to keep him on board. We're very excited about what Nathan brings to the table. We didn't bring any linebackers in. Obviously, Jack Harris out of Oak Grove High School. Ani Izuchukwu is enrolled and De'Monte Russell, another guy out of Provine High School in-state is a top-100 guy. We're really excited about his future. Then, at the defensive back position, where we were hit hard with graduation, I think we did a great job with safeties. Fred Peters is already enrolled. We're expecting him to compete. J.P. Purvis is a guy who I think was one of the more underrated prospects in the country. We added Collin Duncan today, a guy with great intelligence, a great football IQ and a lot of mobility. He had a lot of people chasing him down in the tail end, so we're excited to add him. At the corner position, Jarrian Jones is an in-state prospect from Northwest Rankin. Martin Emerson was a huge get today. We had to fend off some schools in Florida and a bunch of other people for him. He has a lot of length, a lot of size and a lot of athleticism there. Dylan Lawrence is a guy we listed as a corner, but we're not quite sure what he's going to play. He brings a lot of height, speed and athleticism with a 6-4 frame. I think his best ball is ahead of him. And then, the last guy in the class, Corliss Waitman, a punter graduate transfer from South Alabama who special teams coach Joey Jones was with [when he coached at South Alabama]. I think he's going to come in with one year of eligibility and do a great job, compete and give us an opportunity to upgrade at that position. We're certainly very excited. I love the guys we brought in today, a great addition to the 14 we signed early. Depending on what service you subscribe to or believe in, it's another top-25 class for us. It's certainly one for us to build on heading into the future with our 2020 class. We already have six commitments in that class and we're headed in the right direction there."

On recruiting rankings when assessing a signing class …
"I think it's a barometer. I think it's a piece of information. I don't think it necessarily makes or breaks you by any means. I do believe that the people who run those services put in an inordinate amount of time to try to get it right and be accurate. Certainly if you're keeping score, I, and we, want to be the best. There's a competition aspect to it. I don't think it's something where you look at it and say, "We need to be ranked in this area." Certainly, there is a correlation between recruitment ranking and success, as much as you want to admit or not admit it. For us to be in the top 25 now for the second straight year, with a number of four and five-star guys we added, in addition to some under-the-radar prospects, I think it's a good piece of information. Those guys work hard and I think they do a good job with it."

On the target number of signees for the 2019 class …
"We made a conscious decision as a staff. We're going to look to address our positional needs. We're going to look to take the best available. With the way recruiting is going now and the availability of players down the road through the transfer portal, we felt it probably benefitted us to have a couple left if we were able to find a guy with experience down the road who could help us address one of our glaring positional needs."

On coaching staff changes over the over last month …
"I think we did our best to minimize the effect it would have on the class. I don't think you can completely stick your head in the sand and look the other way either. You are talking about guys who built relationships with players we recruited for well over a year's worth of time. So, to say it didn't have an effect, to me, would be foolish. I think [it helped] having a plan and replacing them very quickly with incredibly competent, qualified people. Certainly at the running back position, Terry Richardson is a guy I worked with at UConn, who has playing and coaching experience in college and the NFL. He has worked with a ton of pros and done an unbelievable job in recruiting. I think that helped, and certainly Michael Johnson, a coordinator in the NFL and college has developed a bunch of pro guys. And then there's Deke Adams, who's an in-state guy and has coached Jadeveon Clowney. Certainly, with whatever it was, a week and a half or two weeks left in recruiting, to lose guys that had been recruiting people at key positions was less than ideal, but I think our response to that, our readiness and having people available and bringing them in quickly helped minimize the effect on the class."

On the approach to long-time commits in February, who don't sign in December …
"I think that is something we are going to have to continue to look at and address as a staff moving forward. I think that is one of the benefits of the early signing period is that the guys that want to be here, they are going to sign, be a part of the class, and recruiting is over. The thing you need to examine is the guys who are committed, but don't sign. Are they taking other visits to confirm their commitment to the school or are they taking other visits to enjoy the experience, for lack of a better term? That is always a delicate balance and you are never really quite sure. I don't know if there is a greater or correct answer to it, but it is something that merits more discussion by our staff moving forward. I don't know if you will ever have the right answer because it is such a fluid situation. No two kids' situations are alike."

On the linebacker position …
"That is certainly a position that we didn't lose anyone to graduation this year. We didn't think there was an immediate need from a one-year perspective. There were a couple of guys we made a run at but didn't get and I think that goes back to the best available as opposed to positional need. You always look at it as a one-year need and a two-year need, so the 2020 class is one where I would highly anticipate us taking one or more linebackers."

On what the moment was like communicating with Dylan Lawrence on his offer?
"We had been in contact with Dylan, and he had always been around. He had been at a bunch of games and is a guy that grew up as a State fan wanting to be here. There is a part of me that that means something to. He has the ability. He has the upside. He is another one of those guys that is under the radar. I was looking at some of the rankings, and Montez Sweat was the 51st-ranked JUCO prospect in the country and something like 7th in the state [prior to MSU]. It was something ridiculous when you look back and say now, he is a first-round pick. I guess that is the beauty of recruiting. It is an inexact science. There may be a guy that you recruit that has no stars or three stars and ends up being an NFL guy. Then, there are five-star guys that don't always pan out the way they are supposed to. That's our job as coaches to make sure they develop them. I think he has a lot of upside and a lot of potential. I'm not sure what position he will end up at, but I think his best football is ahead of him."

On in-state players who chose other programs …
"Not being able to comment on any of those guys specifically because they are signed with other schools, going back to day one, as it was this year and will continue to be in the future, we are going to do everything we can first and foremost to keep the best players in the state of Mississippi at home. We've done everything that we could throughout this cycle to make sure that happened. I think we signed five of the top 20 if I'm not mistaken. When you look at the numbers, we had a good number in the top 10. We made a run at all the ones we felt would upgrade us as a football team, and I think we hit on our fair share when you go back and look at them."

On four-star defensive tackle Nathan Pickering being an advocate for the program during his recruiting process …
"Particularly, with the late change in coaching there, I think that was huge. Nathan always had a firm belief in myself, our defensive staff, our university and our football program. For him to be a guy that could have gone just about anywhere in the country if he wanted to, through thick and thin, high and low, through all the changes, he remained steadfast and firm in his commitment to us. He was relatively vocal about it through the latter stages of the process. There has been a long history of defensive linemen in this state who have decided to stay home at Mississippi State and gone on to great success on the field and in the classroom. I believe Nathan will be the next guy in that line. I appreciate the heck out of him and his family because they held true to what they said they were going to do."