Recruiting hasn't been particularly pleasant for Mississippi State football lately. Last week, the Bulldogs saw a pair of priority prospects make the call for other programs. 4-star linebacker TJ White from Jackson committed to Tennessee, and 3-star cornerback Iverson McCoy from Tupelo, previously an MSU commit, flipped to Ole Miss.
They were the latest blows in what's been a mostly frustrating 2026 cycle for MSU, whose class ranks No. 31 nationally according to 247 Sports. The Bulldogs have struggled to generate much traction at all with high-quality prospects, and those problems start in their own backyard.
None of the top 13 players in the state of Mississippi are committed to MSU. They've only landed two of the top 20. It's an inexplicably bad year recruiting in-state for MSU.
Now these issues recruiting in-state players aren't just present for the Bulldogs. Ole Miss, despite their recent success, also has just two top 20 in-state commits. Clearly, the best players in Mississippi have little interest staying home.
The Rebels, however, seem to be able to overcome this. They have a small high school class currently (not surprising given Lane Kiffin's portal-heavy approach), but 1/3 of their commits are blue chips and the 14th-best average player rating in the country. While they aren't dominating in-state and aren't racking up a ton of commitments, they players they have landed are of high-quality.
The same cannot be said for Mississippi State, unfortunately. The Bulldogs have a big class with 25 commitments but do not have a single blue chip commitment, and they're all the way down at 46th nationally in terms of average player rating. They are loading up on players (which is why their overall class rank is higher), but to say those commitments are of questionable quality is putting it lightly.
Truthfully, State' offensive class is mostly fine. While they lack blue chips, most of the Bulldogs' offensive commitments are players with legitimate power conference and SEC offers outside of MSU. They're players that are viewed as actually good prospects who are quality pieces for the class, and a handful of those commitments are worthy of 4-star ratings. Jeff Lebby and his offensive staff have been solid on the recruiting trail this cycle.
The problem lies with MSU's defensive class. State currently has 12 commitments from defensive players in their 2026 class. For six of those commits, the Bulldogs are their only power conference offer. And of the six that do have a power conference offer besides MSU, those offers aren't exactly from high-level programs.
It's a group of players that, in years past, would never have received an offer from Mississippi State, much less a committable one. Is that to say that none of them have any shot at ever becoming a star in Starkville? No, there are always underdog success stories. In fact, MSU specifically has seen plenty of them.
Taking a chance on a handful of lowly-rated recruits each class because you see traits worth trying to develop is fine. The problem is that nearly the entirety of the Bulldogs' defensive class consists of those types of prospects, and despite fans loving to claim that recruiting rankings are bogus, the odds of success tend to be a whole lot higher with the higher-rated players. For as much as we like to talk about MSU being a place that's turned nobody recruits into big-time talents, it should be noted that the many of the program's studs on defense over the last 15 years were highly-rated coming out of high school.
Landing blue chips matters, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and right now, State can't even get in the game with those types of prospects. But it's hard to blame top recruits for not showing interest. MSU is coming off a 2-10 season under an unproven head coach, with an unproven defensive coordinator, and a defensive coaching staff that's done nothing of note in quite some time.
If you're a talented offensive player, you can at least sell yourself on playing for Jeff Lebby, putting up crazy numbers, and being developed to the next level. But if you're a defensive guy with real options to go elsewhere, why on earth are you choosing State right now? Even if the NIL offer is good (and yes, the Bulldogs do have the money to be competitive in that space), a quality prospect is going to see the situation as too risky to step into.
So as a result, MSU is loading up on commitments from defensive prospects that, no offense to them, are not SEC caliber athletes. It's shaping up to be the worst defensive class in decades. I'm not entirely sure the reasoning for taking these commitments other than to simply have bodies in the class. If you can't get contributors in the high school ranks I'd rather wait for the winter portal cycle, which State had some success with at the start of the offseason.
Regardless, the talent is going to have to be upgraded on the defensive side of the ball. Recruiting like this is not at all sustainable, and at this point, there's only one real answer for fixing the issue.
The only way to get good defensive players interested in Mississippi State is to win football games
There's no simpler way for Mississippi State to right the ship on the recruiting trail, and that's to win football games. I know, I know. Real ground-breaking analysis. But it's quite literally the answer to the Bulldogs' defensive recruiting woes.
Quality defensive prospects need proof of concept right now. They need to see that Jeff Lebby isn't just a great offensive coordinator but is someone that lead a winning program. They need to see that Coleman Hutzler can call a defense that puts them in the best position to succeed. They need to see that the defensive staff will develop them into NFL players.
The only way you're providing that at this point is to put a winning product on the field. There's no other solution to getting those prospects to suddenly care about Bulldog football and see Starkville as an option worth considering. If State starts to look like a competent SEC program again, better players will show interest.
Of course this presents a bit of a conundrum for Jeff Lebby and Coleman Hutzler. In order to get better players, they have to win football games. But the clearest path to winning football games is to have better players. It's quite paradoxical.
So how do they work their way out of it this fall? One, Lebby has to get the absolute most out of his offense. It's got to be a unit that can consistently put points on the board and give MSU a chance. Two, Hutzler needs several of his transfers to prove to be impact players that can raise the Bulldog defense up from the abyss. Don't be one of the worst defenses in the entire country again. And three, State really needs to hope that murderers' row of a schedule doesn't end up being as brutal as it looks on paper so they can actually have a chance.
If that happens and Mississippi State contends for bowl-eligibility, there's a good chance some quality defensive prospects make the call for the Bulldogs by Signing Day. They could at least salvage the 2026 class. If not, the program outlook will continue to be bleak.