Jackson Free Press

National Signing Day in college football is close to the draft in the NFL. Most every coach will say that his team got some of the players that it needed to win in the next season or in the near future through that event.

Just like the NFL Draft, football fans won’t know the true winners and losers from Signing Day for a couple of seasons. The high-school and junior-college players that signed with teams yesterday, Feb. 1, still have to live up to the potential that made them worth taking a chance on.

Most recruiting rankings, including Scout, Rivals and ESPN, only look at the Division 1 FBS teams. There are few sites that rank FCS teams, but 24/7 Sports ranks 250 teams across the nation. The website has Alcorn State University with the 186th-ranked recruiting class and Jackson State University with the 206th-ranked class.

Mississippi Valley State University wasn’t ranked in the top 250 schools in the 24/7 Sports rankings, but interestingly, Mississippi College ended up at 218th on the site.

While the recruiting rankings are somewhat lacking for FCS schools, there are plenty of options for FBS-school rankings. Some look at every FBS schools, and some have a cut-off point at the top 75 or 100 schools.

The top-10 national recruiting classes, no matter which ranking service you are looking at, feature mostly blue-bloods of the sport. The University of Alabama, the University of Southern California, Florida State University, the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Oklahoma all finished in the top 10 in the four ranking lists used for this article.

Alabama finished as the top class in every ranking, and the SEC finished with three teams in the top three. The Big Ten placed two teams, and the ACC, PAC-12 and Big 12 placed one team each.

Mississippi State University ended up with the best ranking out of the three FBS schools in our state. The Bulldogs had the 24th-ranked class for 24/7 Sports and ESPN, 25th class for Scout and 27th for Rivals.

The University of Mississippi finished with the 29th-ranked team on Scout’s list, 30th for 24/7 Sports, 36th for ESPN and 39th for Rivals.

In the SEC recruit rankings, MSU finished ninth according to 24/7 Sports, Scout and ESPN, but finished 11th for Rivals. The Rebels ended up 12th in the SEC for ESPN, 24/7 Sports and Rivals, and11th for Scout.

The University of Southern Mississippi finished with the 71st-ranked class according to Rivals, 79th for 24/7 Sports and 81st for Scout. ESPN didn’t have the Golden Eagles ranked among its 75-team rankings.

USM finished with the second-best ranking in Conference USA according to Rivals and the third best in the conference for 24/7 Sports and Scout.

These …

The day after the regular season ended, Monday, May 22, turned out to be a great day for Mississippi State University first baseman Brent Rooker. He is in the midst of one of the greatest offensive seasons in the history of college baseball in our state.

Rooker became the first MSU player to be named SEC Player of the Year. He is leading the conference in batting average at .415, total bases with 179, hits with 85, RBI with 73, doubles with 28 and home runs with 20.

The Germantown, Tenn., native is second in the conference in stolen bases with 18 steals out of 23 attempts.

But it isn’t just the SEC that Rooker is leading or near the top with his statistics.

He is first in the nation in slugging percentage at .873, total bases and doubles, second in batting average, third in RBI, fourth in home runs and on-base percentage, and seventh in the nation in hits.

Rooker was named First Team All-SEC and is the second MSU first baseman to be named All-SEC in the last two seasons. Last season, Nathaniel Lowe earned First Team All-SEC at first base.

Short stop Ryan Gridley joins Rooker on the First Team All-SEC, and outfielder Jake Mangum landed on the Second Team All-SEC. Mangum landed on the All-Defensive team as well.

Rooker beat out a trio of players from the University of Southern Mississippi and one from Delta State University for the 2017 C Spire Ferriss Trophy. He is the sixth MSU player to win the award in the 14 years it has been handed out.

Every winner for the Bulldogs has come in back-to-back years. Thomas Berkery was the first MSU player to win the award in 2006, and Ed Easley won in 2007. Chris Stratton took home the trophy in 2012, and Hunter Renfroe won in 2013.

Rooker’s current teammate, Mangum, took home the award last season. The University of Mississippi has produced five winners, Southern Miss has two past winners, and Belhaven University has one winner.

Taylor Braley, Matt Wallner and Dylan Burdeaux of USM, and Zack Shannon of DSU of were the other 2017 Ferriss Trophy finalists. Rooker led the fan-voting with 1,728 votes, Burdeaux ended up second with 987 votes, Braley ended up third with 548, Shannon landed in fourth with 197 votes, and Wallner came in fifth with 57 votes.

At one time, it seemed like as many as four baseball teams from our state might end up in the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament. That’s not how things worked out in the end.

Mississippi Valley State University failed to make the SWAC Baseball Tournament, and their year ended after the regular season. Both Jackson State University and Alcorn State University made the tournament but couldn’t win the title and the conference’s lone bid.

The University of Mississippi made the SEC Baseball Tournament but lost a single-elimination game to Auburn University. That ended up holding the Rebels, who were seeded ninth, back from the NCAA Tournament since the Tigers were seeded eighth, and the top eight seeds from the SEC made the NCAA Tournament.

It is possible that the Rebels might have been in the field if they beaten Auburn. Upsets, such as Rice University winning the Conference USA Tournament and Brigham Young University winning the West Coast Conference Tournament, didn’t help UM’s chances, though.

The Rebels are missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011.

Late Sunday, May 28, the NCAA announced that the University of Southern Mississippi would be one of the 16 regional host sites. That assured the Golden Eagles that they were in the tournament and hosting a regional for the first time since 2003.

USM scored a school-record 48 wins so far this season and won the C-USA regular-season title. In the conference tournament, Southern Miss made the championship game but came up short against Rice. The Golden Eagles are the No. 1 seed in the regional.

On Monday, May 29, the NCAA announced the full 64-team field, with Mississippi State University also playing in the Hattiesburg Regional. The Bulldogs are making their 36th NCAA Baseball Tournament appearance.

MSU is the No. 2 seed in the regional and received an at-large bid into the tournament. The Bulldogs will open the regional against the No. 3-seed University of South Alabama, which earned an automatic bid by winning the Sun Belt Tournament.

South Alabama lost two of three games to MSU during the regular season but won the last meeting 5-2. This is the second meeting between the teams in a NCAA regional; the Bulldogs got the win in the only other meeting.

Meanwhile, USM will open regional play against the No. 4-seed University of Illinois-Chicago. The Golden Eagles didn’t meet the Flames in the regular season. UIC earned an automatic bid into the tournament by winning the Horizon League Tournament.

The Bulldogs and Golden Eagles clashed in the regular season at Trustmark Park, with USM coming out on top 7-5. The two schools played once in a 2011 regional, which the Bulldogs won 3-0.

MSU hasn’t faced UCI in program history. USM defeated South Alabama twice in the regular season this year and won …