Merlin

I forgot George county was region 3. They would drop to region 4 before Hattiesburg.

For them to drop, 2 times have to go to 7A. Most likely would be 2 of either south panola, Warren central, Hancock or Grenada. Which if it plays out would send meridian and pearl to north state most likely. If Hancock moves up then Hattiesburg moves back to region 4 and that opens slot for most likely pearl to be in region 3.

They sure talked a lot of noise till bout week 3 last year.

I am pretty positive yall had at least 1 lineman in those years. I know one was committed to Usm but the signed elsewhere.

May need to schedule a bad 2A school.

West Jones won 2 with a bunch of juco kids on the rosters. 1 kid in the ‘20 team went straight d1 (Usm) after his high school career was over.

Yes. However a decent portion of the athletes are actually not originally from Laurel. And a number of them as well as done from within Laurel now are trying to get out.

Yep. They have had some internal struggles themselves going back Todd Breland leaving (there are reasons why he left and went to South jones) that have gotten “fiesty” the last few years. Some of it relating to their own recruiting efforts. Some volunteer coaches that think they better than paid coaches (the phrase “too many chiefs not enough Indians” is a good description). They lost 3 long time assistants including the guy doing most of the recruiting and the head coach was said to have interviewed for several other head coach openings, so obviously he may also see the writing on the wall. At least half the returning starters are wanting to transfer to other schools and this comes direct from one of them. But still their district do bad the can get into the playoffs with 2 wins and then who knows.

Yeah laurels collapse will need its own thread. The last 3 years was only the beginning. The weakness of 5A south as a whole has “helped” mask the reality of the situation as they only have to win 2 district games then 2 playoff games to make it look like they are ok. But they really aren’t. If not for the creation of 7A and the resulting split off of Hattiesburg, west jones, picayune. Etc etc into 6A Laurel would have had at most 3 wins and no playoff trips since 2022. Keep in mind since ‘22 they made a run to state in ‘23 and south state last year.

Funny thing here is there have been a couple from Laurel playing for Hattiesburg the last few years. If anyone wants to actually win a title then Laurel under current leadership is not going to get it done.

Yes, but at the same time, no. Now that college recruits get NIL the colleges are offering more money to kids that stand out in larger classifications, on average. There are kids being told directly that they can get 50k a year as is but if they go up a couple school classes and perform the same they can get 75k. That drives a lot of the transfers. There are pending lawsuits in several states now where school athletics governing bodies denied transfers from kids we were told this. Then lawsuits were filed arguing that former coach/school and state athletics body had impeded the kids right to future income. This involves federal income laws. This is precisely why some states are allowing high school nil and school choice laws to pass. MS is too far behind. Or too many people in state legislature and/or the MHSAA are trying to find a plan to have it pass so that they themselves profit off of it first. I’m waiting ti see when the first lawsuit hits and what dominoes fall after that.

I’m sure every single 7A school trying to do so. Tupelo, Starkville, Oxford, Madison central, Clinton, Brandon, petal, oak grove, Gulfport, ocean springs are all big time recruiting from the text groups I have seen. Some schools hide it well, some are blatant and basically dare MHSAA to try to stop it. It will take state legislature passing laws to stop or allow it. MHSAA only cares if it affects their money or if the right person complains. There will eventually be some lawsuits popping up over it. You can about bet on it.

Hattiesburg going after any kid that has any family in Hattiesburg they could live with or use address of. Statewide at that. Other coaches starting to complain. They better stay out of the jackson area 7A schools. Trying to pull to many from there they will get mhsaa on ya.

Taylorsvilles downfall may have been somewhat orchestrated from within its own district.

Laurel been using their youth league the same way to get kids from jones, Wayne and jasper counties. Laurels most recent big 3 o linemen that went to the sec all should have been at west jones. One of their wr’s should have been northeast jones. Couple d linemen from Wayne county. Actually laurels d line/strength coach was their big “recruiter” and he just left them for Wayne county. Corey Reynolds now on Laurel staff as o line coach. Also rumors they hired jack hankins. Kids are trying to bail on Laurel now. As I said earlier, most of the kids are invtext and chat groups with each other. I have seen screen shots of the conversations. They do talk to each other and try to te riot each other. As soon as one finds out they have relatives in the other district whims address they can use its game on. Laurel kids know the stuff that happened behind the scenes at WJ at they are trying to get out of they can. Kids trying to get out of northeast jones as well. I know at least 2 Hattiesburg was after from o saw in the screenshots. A few other specific cases I know of as well. The kids recruit each other more than coaches do