The
Scout rankings are more accurate. Because they lost out on some high-profile guys they were recruiting, Mississippi has dropped to no. 30--not bad, but in the SEC it puts you behind the game.
http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=9&c=8&...49&yr=2007
Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina, and Auburn are all having big recruiting years. Alabama and Arkansas will end the day with good classes as well. Even MSU and Kentucky are doing pretty well this year. Vanderbilt is signing a small class.
Strong and Laurent are good high-school recruits. And they have three potentially very good JUCO players coming in, including LB Tony Fein, who they beat out Washington State for. He's a Seattle-area kid, from Port Orchard, WA, west of Seattle on the Puget Sound. He must really like Orgeron to go all the way to Oxford, Mississippi.
It's very unusual for the SEC to sign Pacific Northwest kids, though they do get a few via JC's. Aside from Erik Ainge at Tennessee, I can't think of many high-school players SEC teams have signed out here. It's too far away for them, not enough good prospects, and they can get all they need closer to home. FSU signed a quarterback from Walla Walla a few years ago, but he was a bust.
The Tigers won't be ranked in the top 50; but I like the class, especially all the linemen. It is true that the Memphis class is going to end up much closer to what Mississippi got than some thought. Some of the Mississippi signees I haven't heard of, and are 2-stars on the recruiting services. Time will tell how they pan out, just as with some under-the-radar Tiger signees.