Assessing Mississippi State's current recruiting class

Mississippi State knew it had a chance to capitalize on last year’s 10-win season by leveraging that recent success into a sales pitch to top prospects on the recruiting trail.

And although National Signing Day is still many months away, MSU’s recruiting efforts seem to be working early in the process. The Bulldogs already have nine commitments in their class, which ranks in the top 20 of the current 247Sports industry composite recruiting rankings, four of which are among the top 15 junior college prospects in the nation.

Each year, a handful of dynamic juco stars arrive in the SEC and hit the ground running thanks to two years of college football experience, albeit at a much lower level. Nevertheless, the state of Mississippi lays claim to perhaps the best junior college league in America, and MSU has feasted on the top talent in that league during the recruiting cycle.

Four-star offensive tackle and potential future anchor to MSU’s line, Tommy Champion, was originally slated to join the Bulldogs program this summer but will spend a year in junior college before transferring to Starkville. He, along with 2015 four-star tackle signee Martinas Rankin, could form a lethal duo in 2016.

But beyond Champion, MSU has also earned commitments from four-star juco athlete Cameron Myers, who could serve as a perfect complement to likely 2016 starting quarterback Nick Fitzgerald at either tailback or receiver, as well as a pair of top defensive recruits from the junior college level in Deshon Cooper and Lashard Durr.

Both Cooper and Durr are mere three-star prospects, but their experience and added maturity at the junior college level gives them a chance to be immediate impact players upon arriving in school next year.

And in addition to all the junior college talent Dan Mullen is collecting, he’s added depth to the class in the form of some appealing three-star high school prospects with major upside. Mullen has a history of developing players to play beyond their star ratings, so simply adding physically fit bodies at positions of need should give Mullen the tools to keep his program near the top of the SEC.

If Mullen can add more players at the skill positions later in the recruiting cycle to complement Myers, he’ll have laid the foundation for future success with this class. It’s likely the Bulldogs will add at least one or two more four-star talents, but quality depth at positions of need is all Mullen and his staff need to extend MSU’s school-record bowl streak.

Take a look at the Bulldogs full 2016 class as it stands in late May:

CURRENT MISSISSIPPI STATE 2016 RECRUITING CLASS

• National Rank: No. 19
• SEC Rank: No. 8
• No. of Commitments: 9
• No. of Commitments by Rating: Two four-stars, 7 three-stars