SPORTS EDITOR BLOG —ESPN’s Jamie Newberg, who many remember from his TV show ‘Countdown to Signing Day,’ has been evaluating recruiting classes for close to 20 years. His knowledge on how schools are doing on the recruiting front is well respected and he feels like Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt and his staff have done a great job so far.National Signing Day is less than a week away and Newberg talked about the Rebels success the last month and how he could they could finish up in an interview Thursday. He took some time out of his busy schedule to talk about Ole Miss,Mississippi State and the SEC. Here a few snippets from the interview that will run entirely in Friday’s EAGLE:
On Ole Miss’ 2011 class as it stands now:
“It’s a deep group. They’ve had a great month of January. The last four or five commitments solidifies this group which was already a good group. Now it’s a really good group,” Newberg said. “In terms of rankings within the conference, it’s an incredibly deep year in the SEC. You could theoretically have 11 teams in the Top 25, Top 30 before it is all said and done.”
On Nutt’s ability to land more top prospects than he did at Arkansas
“I don’t know what the difference is because he seems to be different in Oxford than he was in Arkansas. For whatever rhyme or reason, they’ve had explosive closes two of the last three years. The year before last year they had an unbelievable January and run up until National Signing Day,” Newberg said. “I don’t want to say it’s remarkably different, but it’s different than what I remember him doing with the Hogs. Whatever they are doing seems to be working. Them and Georgia seem to be the two hot teams in the league right now.”
On MSU and how head coach Dan Mullen and his staff have done:
I like the class. I liked it a lot more a couple of weeks ago, but I like the class simply because there are a lot of dynamic athletes in that group. You don’t have to be four- and five-star players to be great players and bring something to the table. I think they’ve gotten a lot that, a lot of skill with this group. I think they’ve done pretty good on the front and I like the quarterback (Dak Prescott) they got from Louisiana,” Newberg said. “He kind of fits what Dan Mullen looks for in quarterbacks and let’s face it, the guy knows how to coach quarterbacks. His resume is as good as anybody for that young of a coach out there.” (January 27, 2011)
