MSU

From page 7 star Brandon receiver Jonathan Mingo. All three went places other than MSU.

Moore, who was verbally committed to Mississippi State for nearly a year-and-ahalf before reneging on that last month, signed with Auburn. Both Ealy and Mingo joined Ole Miss.

There's no question missing out on those prospects wasn't ideal for the Bulldogs, but Moorhead remained pleased with his instate haul as 11 members of Mississippi State's signing class hails from the Magnolia State.

“Going back to day one as it was this year and will continue to be in the future, we're going to do everything we can first and foremost to concentrate on keeping the best players in the state of Mississippi home,” Moorhead said. “We've done everything we could throughout this cycle to try and make sure that happened. I think we signed five of the top 20 (players in the state) if I'm not mistaken. We signed a number of the top 10. We made our 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 it.”

Moorhead admitted recent developments around MSU'S coaching staff likely had some impact on the class State ultimately ended up with. Over the last several weeks, the Bulldogs lost four members of its coaching staff to other institutions. Former MSU tight ends coach Mark Hudspeth became the head coach at Austin Peay. Former State offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach Luke Getsy left to join the NFL'S Green Bay Packers as quarterbacks coach. Former Bulldogs defensive line coach Brian Baker as well as running backs coach Charles Huff both left MSU to join the coaching staff at Alabama. All four of those coaches were heavily involved in the recruiting of this 2019 class for Mississippi State and their departures with just days left before signing day didn't exactly help MSU'S cause.

“I think we did our best to minimize the effect it had on the class,” Moorhead said. “I don't think you can completely kind of just stick your head in the sand and look the other way either. You're talking about guys who had built relationships with guys that we'd 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 having a plan and replacing (the now-former coaches) with incredibly competent and qualified people (helped).

“Certainly with a week and a half or whatever it was (when the former coaches left), to lose guys that had been recruiting people at key positions, it was less than ideal, but I think our response to that and our readiness and having people available and bringing them in quickly, that helped minimize a little bit of the effect on the class.”

While several MSU coaches moved on, one of the main guys to continue beating the drum for State's recruiting purposes of late was actually Pickering. Over the last few weeks on Twitter, he continually promoted Mississippi State. Pickering proved he meant it on Wednesday.

Pickering is just one of several potential stars that are now officially Bulldogs after the last couple of months. Moorhead welcomes Pickering, and the rest, to Starkville with open arms.

“For him to be a guy that could have gone just about anywhere in the country if he wanted to, through thick and thin and high and low and all the changes, he remained steadfast and firm in his commitment to us and was relatively vocal about it through the latter stages of the process,” Moorhead said of Pickering. “There's been a long, long history of defensive linemen in this state who've decided to stay home at Mississippi State and gone on to great success on the field and in the classroom and I believe Nathan will be the next guy in that line.”