Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen isn’t one to buy into the recruiting rankings. After achieving much success over the years in signing a large number of players few if any other SEC teams were interested in signing, Mullen has led MSU to a 61-42 record in eight seasons and taken his team to a school-record seven consecutive bowl games.

Much of Mullen’s success has come thanks to identifying and developing players such as Dak Prescott, Preston Smith, Benardrick McKinney, Vick Ballard, K. J. Wright, and now Nick Fitzgerald. While these players would not have drawn much excitement from any SEC fan base upon signing, there’s no doubt these players would be a welcome addition to any team.

During a recent radio interview with SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic on his radio program The Cole Cubelic Show, Mullen discussed why he believes the recruiting rankings are not all they are cracked up to be.

“These guys get so much hype in today’s world,” Mullen said. “They get all hyped up, and everyone knows all about them and then when they show up on campus people want to immediately judge them. You gotta see how they pan out.”

It’s Mullen’s belief that you can’t accurately judge a recruiting class until 2-3 years have passed.

“(2017 quarterback signee) Keytaon Thompson is a much, much more highly rated prospect maybe than any other quarterbacks we’ve had come in but it doesn’t mean I expect more or less from him, he was just rated that way out of high school,” Mullen continued. “The ultimate test of these players is their development and once they get on campus.

“When we recruited Fitz, he was a guy that wasn’t highly recruited. We thought he had all the things you need to be successful to be a quarterback for us. He ran a wishbone offense in high school so he didn’t put up the numbers or have all the websites going crazy for him, didn’t go to all these (recruiting) camps, but I don’t know that all that helps you, either. It can almost set you back to where you get overrated in these rating systems and you have to overcome the personal ego of the improvements you need to make to get on campus.”

Based upon his success with developing players, it’s hard to argue against Mullen’s point. While landing highly touted prospects is great, in the end, it doesn’t mean much unless you successfully develop them once they arrive on campus.

Mullen was also asked about his team’s 55-20 Egg Bowl win in Oxford. While the game was cause for excitement for his program, the MSU coach believes it may have led to a bit of a letdown in the bowl game, although the valuable lessons learned throughout the tough offseason proved to be invaluable in the final game of the season.

“For our guys, (the Egg Bowl win) was a great confidence builder heading into the offseason,” Mullen said. “We lost our opening game, lost two plays on the final play of the game, one we miss a field goal, the other (game) the other team makes a 50-plus career-long field goal. We end up on the bad end of both of those games, we lost in a double overtime game.

“I think that confidence bled into the bowl game, I don’t think we played well in that game but the confidence to win the game on the final play of the game, to reverse the fortunes of what had happened (during the season) and win the game on the final play.”