MSU and Ole Miss A.D.s Stricklin and Bjork on leadership, friendship and winning

Last night, the unlikely happened when Ole Miss Athletic Director Ross Bjork traveled to Starkville for the first time, was welcomed by Bulldogs and shared jokes and high fives with Mississippi State Athletic Director Scott Stricklin.

Stricklin and Bjork were the featured speakers Tuesday night for a Boy Scouts of America event on MSU’s campus, both discussing topics of leadership, neither frazzled by the other’s presence.

Stricklin, left, and Bjork, right, at the Boy Scouts of America event

As it turns out, the pair’s history is far more interesting than the mere fact they spoke together.

When Bjork was still the Athletic Director at Western Kentucky, he, Stricklin and Greg Byrne – former MSU and current Arizona Athletic Director – were in a club or sorts with other young A.D.s around the country.

Currently, Bjork is the youngest Athletic Director in the SEC. Before that? It was Stricklin. Before him? Yep, it was Byrne.

Call it a support group, exclusive club or just a few friends helping each other out, those who were members of the fraternity used each other for support, ideas and direction.

Long before Stricklin and Bjork would stand on opposite sides of the field during the Egg Bowl, they were friends. They bounced ideas off each other, joked together and never imagined they’d be fighting each other for the support of those in the Magnolia State.

Then, the Ole Miss job opened up.

“Two days before my first visit to Oxford, I called Scott and asked, ‘What’s it like being an SEC Athletic Director?’” Bjork told the audience Tuesday night.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, Ross must be really desperate to be in the SEC,’” Stricklin joked.

“You can perform at this level,” Stricklin told Bjork before his visit.

Each now knows one of their most important tasks is beating the other not just on the field of play but in the court of public support and opinion.

The dynamic, certainly, has changed from when the pair were young A.D.s leaning on each other for support. But as the two easily ribbed each other and spoke together Tuesday, the term enemies would clearly be far too strong.

“We want to beat each other when we play,” Bjork said, “but we know we can shake hands and be friends after.”

However, as each spoke, the message was not about winning. Leadership and success, they say, is not just about having more wins than losses.

The best example of leadership, Stricklin said, is a 300-pound man.

“[Kentucky athletic director] Mitch Barnhart once said, ‘Leadership is not about getting where you want to be. It’s about getting others where they want to be,’” Stricklin said. “Offensive linemen are a great example. Most of them are faceless and nameless. There’s not a lot of glory there, but you’re still leading. You’re getting others where they want to be.”

“I look at things as a thermostat,” Bjork said. “Are we controlling the temperature or taking it? Attitude and effort are all we can control. I can’t control a 21-year-old pitcher on the mound. But I can make sure our department, coaches and players have the best attitude and put forth full effort.”

“Our core mission is to promote the success and well-being of our student-athletes,” Stricklin said. “In the SEC, it’s very easy lose to track of how important winning is. Sometimes it’s too important.”

Of course, the preferred endgame is to have prosperous student-athletes who then go out and win.

Both Stricklin and Bjork, when asked in a question-and-answer session, described the type of players and coaches they like to have around.

“I like people to have a little juice to them,” Stricklin said. “Because of our intensity and competitiveness, I want the other team to be ready for the game to be over with as soon as it starts.”

“Attitude, toughness, discipline,” Bjork said, “none of the above take talent. Everybody is good in the SEC. It’s not the talent factors that can provide a winning advantage in this league.”

The similarities between the two – youth, energy, creativity and a passion for people – are not hard to spot when they’re put in a room together. Nor is it difficult to understand the friendship the pair formed before becoming rivals in the state of Mississippi.

When each was introduced Tuesday night, a list of accomplishments was shared by Bill Kibler, the emcee of the event and the vice president of student affairs at MSU.

“I’m surprised you mentioned the Egg Bowl,” Bjork said.

“Yeah, I am too, Bill,” Stricklin said meaningfully as he turned his eyes to Kibler.

The jokes come easy. They’re friends destined to try and beat the other, but friends nonetheless.

After each answering a question on the soon-to-be-announced SEC Network, moderator Sid Salter looked at the pair and said,

“To your credit, those were the best non-answers I’ve ever heard.”

Stricklin and Bjork just laughed and high-fived each other.

Catching up with former Bulldog and new Buccaneer Johnthan Banks

Unless you didn’t get on Twitter, watch TV, check Facebook or get on the internet in any capacity over the weekend, you know Johnthan Banks was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second round of the NFL Draft Friday night.

The Thorpe Award winner and now-former Mississippi State cornerback joins an organization he’s liked for years and who showed a fair amount of interest in him leading up to the draft.

I caught up with Banks Sunday evening to talk about his weekend and the future, a conversation you can read the entirety of here.

Question: Did you have much of an indication Tampa Bay might draft you?

Answer: I really knew they had a good bit of interest in me. One of their scouts, me and him became really good friends. We always talk. He texts me or I text him just about every day. Down at the Combine, I just had it click with the corners coach. We just clicked. At the Combine he was giving me little hints, how to get set, lean forward, stuff like that. I feel like I’m at home. It’s an honor and a blessing from God to get to be around people who really want you.

Q: What have they said they like about you that made them want to draft you?

A: They know I can play. I can do pretty much anything. They know I’m a mature guy. They know I’m a hard-working guy. They know I can be a leader on and off the field and I think they know they can trust me. It’s the little things that matter, I think that’s what they like about me.

Q: Both head coach Greg Schiano and general manager Mark Dominik like drafting guys who were captains of their team in college and didn’t have much trouble off the field. You were, obviously, a captain, and when other people might be out partying, you were at home riding horses.

A: That’s just being raised by my grandparents here in Mississippi. If I got out of line, I got a whoopin’, a good whoopin’. Everything happens for a reason and I’m glad I was in the situation I’m in to be a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. I couldn’t be more excited. I wanted to go there from the jump. I want to go live in Florida for the next 10-15 years.

Q: What is it that made you like Tampa Bay? You mentioned as far back as last fall they’re a team you’d like to be drafted by.

A: It’s just everything. For one, it’s Tampa, Florida. I think it’s a great organization. Coach Schiano, he’s done a great job there. They won the division championship back in ’07. The program is on the rise. I really wanted to be there, then they got Darrelle Revis, got Dashon Goldson. Everything was a wild moment when I got that phone call. It was very exciting.

Q: Since you’ve been drafted, have you heard from any of your new teammates?

A: Yeah, I talked to Revis the same night I was drafted. He just said, ‘Welcome to the family. Let’s go, let’s get ready to work.’ Then Eric Wright hit me up on Twitter, Mark Barron, all those guys. I’ve established a great relationship with those guys and I’m gonna have fun.

Q: The Bucs had the lowest-ranked secondary last year, but with the additions of yourself, Revis and Goldson to go along with Barron and Wright, it becomes a pretty loaded group. Is that a fun thing to be a part of?

A: It’s very exciting. Tampa was the last-ranked pass defense in the NFL. But getting to know our secondary, we’ve got the best corner in the NFL, some of the best safeties in the NFL, it’s crazy. It really hasn’t hit me yet that I’m living a lifetime dream and I’m honored to be in the situation I’m in, because there’s some kids that would love to be in my position. It’s a blessing from God and I’m just happy.

Q: Several of your MSU teammates are headed to the NFL, as well, as Darius Slay and Josh Boyd were also drafted, along with several others signing undrafted free agent deals. Have you caught up with any of them yet?

A: Oh, those are my brothers. I’ve talked to every one of them. All of them, I talked to them, told them I’m so happy for them. It’s something we all set out to do as kids. For something like this to happen, this big, it’s life-changing. It’s something you grow up watching. Some of the guys we’re getting to play with, we grew up watching. It’s crazy, it’s a blessing. That’s all I can say.

Q: What all do you know about your new division, the NFC South? It’s a pretty stacked group.

A: It’s a tough division. You have Julio Jones, Roddy White, Matt Ryan, shoot, Drew Brees, Cam Newton, all those guys. It’s gonna be tough, but that’s the thing about it. I’ve been in the SEC for four years. Every week was tough. Nothing is gonna be easy in the NFL, no matter who you play. I’m just gonna try to learn from all the older guys, all the vets, and try and help my team win a championship.

Q: I know there are a lot of Saints fans in Mississippi. What will you say to the MSU people when Tampa Bay and New Orleans play if they’re Saints fans?

A: My MSU family, I know they’re gonna be behind John Banks 100 percent. They may be Saints fans, but I think they’ll all convert. They’re all loyal. It was a blessing to play in front of all of them for four years and I really appreciate the support they’ve shown me throughout my four years and even now.

Q: What’s your schedule going forward?

A: I’m gonna get a couple more workouts in this week then I’ll head to Tampa on Thursday for the rookie minicamp. I’m excited about it. I haven’t played football in forever. I’m excited. I’m ready to go down there Thursday to Sunday, enjoy my time, come back home and enjoy time with my family. After that, I’ll be ready to go full-swing.

Saying goodbye to Stick and how Preston Rogers got his new name

In his final year of school, Preston Rogers is one of the few to have earned the explicit trust of Dan Mullen. Mississippi State’s coach arrives at Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday’s wearing whatever Adidas gear Rogers put in his locker.

Each practice, while run by Mullen and his coaches, is kept by Rogers, whose stopwatch never leaves his hand, entrusted with the task of keeping time, keeping practice on schedule and knowing when and where everything is supposed to happen.

Nine years before, when people actually knew him by his given name, Rogers was a Chicago native and high school senior on the Mississippi coast with no intentions or ideas of ever setting foot in a college classroom. The thought just hadn’t occurred to him.

Then, Stick, as Rogers is now known, saw Sylvester Croom on TV, MSU’s new head coach.

“I told my teacher, ‘I really like this guy. He’s kind of cool,’” Stick said.

The teacher grabbed him by the arm, took him to an empty room and set a freshly-printed pile of papers in front of him.

“You’re not leaving until you’ve filled out an application for Mississippi State,” she said. “That’s your job today.”

The application he filled out that day was the only one he signed his name to. It was MSU or nowhere.

January 5, 2005, Phil Silva roamed his equipment domain on the opposite side of MSU’s locker room. In walked a tall, skinny freshman, looking one part eager and two parts afraid.

‘Hi, I’m Preston Rogers.’

‘Son, do you eat?’ Silva replied in his gravelly Cajun voice.

‘Yes sir.’

‘You look like a damn stick.’

“And that was it,” Silva now says with a laugh. “It stuck ever since. Everybody knows him by Stick. You just look at him.”

Every now and then, Stick says, Silva will call him by his given name just to mess with him, but even his mom doesn’t call him Preston.

He’s been branded as Stick by MSU equipment.

Receiving the new name was appropriate for the guy who got to school with thoughts of maybe becoming a coach, and now leaves eight years after his re-christening knowing exactly what he wants to do. He’s going to work in equipment. It’s what he knows now.

The draw for Stick isn’t necessarily the ins and outs of the job, but the same thing that got him to MSU in the first place. People.

He was attracted to the school because he liked Sylvester Croom the man. He enjoys his job because he’s a people person. He spends all day talking to co-workers, players, coaches and the like, cracking jokes, offering encouragement and doing his best to make everyone around him smile.

His infectious attitude is a part of what makes him so good at what he does for Silva now. In a nutshell, he takes care of the coaches. The head coach, whoever that may be at any given time.

Stick earned the position in the spring of 2007, but the trust from Croom came the first time they met when Stick was working with the receivers in practice in the spring two years prior.

“A ball sailed a little bit over the receivers,” Stick said. “Coach was sitting a few yards away from me and it almost smoked him. I barely deflected it.”

Stick looked at Croom, worried the worst was coming, a public berating of a then-young student.

“He looked back at me said, ‘Hey, that was pretty good.’”

One of Stick’s first experiences with Mullen was similarly incidental, though this time, the ball did hit the coach, metaphorically speaking.

Stick’s job was to keep the team on pace during practice in two-a-days, the point man for where in the rigid practice schedule the players and coaches were.

“I had a horn and stopwatch, every five minutes,” he said. “Very first two-a-days, I made the guy switch up the cards on the tower. Coach Mullen looked at the tower, looked at me, said, ‘Stick, what period are we in?’

Stick knew he had messed up. He knew Mullen was only asking him because he, too, recognized the error.

“He wasn’t too happy about it,” Stick said with a guilty smile.

But that moment, in some way, started a bond between the two.

“To this day we still joke about it. Every time we hit that period I tell Coach and he gives me a little smile.”

“He’s very comforting for me to have around,” Mullen said. “I got a level of trust with Stick. Stick’s been with me since day one here.”

He’s been around far longer than Mullen, in fact, and certainly, charging him to keep practice time requires trust, but it isn’t Stick’s only task.

Mullen’s maroon visors at practice, his white jackets on the sideline of games and his polos in press conferences all come from Stick.

17-year-old Preston Rogers, when he spoke in awe about Sylvester Croom, wouldn’t have guessed he’d have a new name and a part-time job as a fashionista within three years.

One of his chief duties is to dress the coach.

“Coach always walks in and says, ‘Stick, what am I wearing today?’”

Adidas, Stick says, likes to showcase Mullen as the face of Mississippi State football. The responsibility of making that face look good falls on the skinny kid in Silva’s office.

“Coach puts a lot of trust in me. All his stuff goes through me,” Stick said. “Mullen wears it, then it hits the stores. Coach doesn’t even look. He just puts the visor on and goes.”

Mullen has never told him no, either.

While his primary responsibilities fall with Mullen, no one at an MSU practice doesn’t know him.

The shuffling of the bag hanging at his waist as he runs by, the fist bumps down the sideline, the screeching of the air horn at the end of every period and the loud laugh following frequent jokes let you know Stick is there.

Everybody loves him, even if something goes wrong.

At the end of one practice, Mullen called for Stick and told him to stand near the goal-line. He then sent a punter to the other end of the field. If Stick caught the punt, bag still hanging around his waist, the team didn’t have to run. If he didn’t catch it…

“All I had to do was reach out and grab it,” Stick said. “I was trying to be fancy back there and I dropped it. The team had to run.”

Despite the extra bit of running, he still got pats on the back and plenty of laughs.

“He’s got a great personality,” Silva said. “He’s one fine young man. He’s a really appreciative young man. I’m gonna miss him, just having him around, knowing he’s here.”

Finally, after nearly a decade, Stick’s time in Starkville is at an end. School is finished and the real world awaits. Silva and Mullen both say they wished they had a way to keep him, an extra position or some manner in which they wouldn’t have to lose the guy they trust so much.

Stick doesn’t want to leave either. He’s still a people person. Asked what he’ll miss the most, his voice drops to a whisper, eyes red and unfocused, looking ahead,

“The best part about the job is being around these guys. It’s like one big family and Phil’s the father.”

He finishes his time his time in Starkville with at least a handful of opportunities he’s still finalizing his choice on.

If nothing else, he’s got plenty of experience.

“Most people that are in college for eight years leave and start doing surgeries,” Mullen joked.

Spring football positional review: Offense

College football is never really “over,” but with the conclusion of spring practice, we can at least call it dormant as it hibernates for the hot summer months ahead.

Mississippi State’s football team finished the spring with its annual Maroon-White game in Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday afternoon in front of 21,000 people who are likely all sporting red foreheads and farmer’s tans at work today, so now seemed like the appropriate time to offer a spring review.

I’m going to do this by position group, breaking it up into offense and defense in two separate posts. I’ll offer my thoughts, along with my paraphrasing and summarizing what coaches have said the last few weeks, so if there’s a Star Wars reference calling a defensive linemen an angry, indestructible Chewbacca, those are my words, not Dan Mullen’s.

We continue with the offense.

Quarterback

Coach’s Take: Dan Mullen and offensive coordinator Les Koenning said going into the spring that A) they were giving Tyler Russell more control of the offense and B) he was taking it. In addition to his command and leadership as a senior, the coaches have worked on tailoring the offense more to fit his strengths, implementing two tight end sets and even putting Russell under center, getting him more comfortable with a pro-style offense before he heads to the NFL next spring.

Bob’s Take: As the only healthy scholarship quarterback in the spring, Russell was naturally pretty busy, and he seemed to like it. The upshot of his heavy workload is getting time to build chemistry with his new receivers. Perhaps it’s a function of the spring practice atmosphere, but the most noticeable thing about Russell was his comfort and command in practice. He was in charge and he knew it, and so did his teammates. His accuracy and anticipation is unchanged, but the mental side of his game appears to have taken another step up, at least a little bit.

Running Back

Coach’s Take: Greg Knox loves the depth he has at running back with all four guys from 2012 returning, plus the at least partial addition of slot receiver Brandon Holloway to the backfield. When LaDarius Perkins and Josh Robinson had to sit with minor injuries, the coaches moved Holloway to his old high school position just to have someone back there, then they realized they might want to keep him there.

Bob’s Take: Perkins was out for probably half of the spring, but MSU knows what it has in him and got a chance to look at the younger guys. Sophomores Josh Robinson and Derrick Milton are about as fun a pair of reserves to watch as any. Milton is the bigger of the two and one of the faster guys, running with a striding gallop not unlike Jerious Norwood. Holloway’s addition was a great surprise for the position and one I’m expecting will stick in at least some capacity. He’s one of the fastest – and smartest – guys on the team and MSU has to find a way to get the ball in his hands and let him do fast person things. Running back seems to be a good place for that. The offense made a point of getting the running backs into space throughout the spring, throwing passes to them regularly, which seems to play to the strengths of this group.

Offensive Line

Coach’s Take: John Hevesy is excited about returning what is basically the entire starting line for the first time since he got to MSU and he’s hoping to see the fruits of that experience. He appears very happy with the left side of the line from left tackle to center, but wants to see sophomore Justin Malone get a bit more aggressive at right guard. And while Charles Siddoway returns as last year’s starter at right tackle, Hevesy isn’t just giving the senior the job. Damien Robinson, entering his junior year, got plenty of rotation at both tackle spots and for the better part of two weeks ran with the first team at right tackle while Siddoway practiced with the second team.

Bob’s Take: The key to the whole idea of returning starters is the expectation that they will all improve and grow. Left guard Gabe Jackson is an All-American candidate who could’ve left early for the NFL and center Dillon Day has consistently improved with every year, game and practice, becoming one of the top centers in the SEC. At those two spots, MSU is as strong as anyone in the country. The hope is to improve enough at the tackle spots to allow Russell the time and room to run the type of offense the coaches would like. Certainly the chemistry and experience are there and MSU’s running backs had great numbers in the spring game, but with no live-tackling of quarterbacks and mostly vanilla defenses, the offensive line may be the toughest position to judge in the spring.

Tight Ends

Coach’s Take: Mullen and positional coach Scott Sallach told us before the spring how they planned on employing a now-healthy and deep arsenal of tight ends by using two tight end sets and finding a way to get them involved. Not that I thought they were, but neither was lying. As long as he’s been at MSU, Sallach has had injuries prevent him from having a ton to work with at the position. Now, he’s got almost too many weapons with a good combination of big bodies and athletic pass-catchers. MSU used tight ends in a similar role to slot receivers, controlling the middle of the field with quick passes aimed at moving the chains. The heaviest usage, however, came in the redzone, with far more short-yardage touchdown passes going to tight ends than any other position.

Bob’s Take: Sallach has tight ends split into the bigger, blocking group and the more athletic pass-catching group, but just about everyone among them has the ability to run routes and has shown good hands. Over the course of a few months, the tight ends somehow went from one of the most horribly depleted positions to perhaps the deepest unit on the team. Junior Malcolm Johnson is the kind of mis-match weapon Mullen covets, while Christian Holmes – who switched from linebacker – plays the Marcus Green role nearly perfectly, providing a short-yardage and redzone threat who is unafraid of contact. Sophomore Brandon Hill has proven himself a reliable threat over the course of the spring and sophomore Rufus Warren is, by a fair bit, the biggest non-lineman on the team standing around 6’6” and 265 pounds, with far better hands than you’d expect.

Wide Receivers

Coach’s Take: New receivers coach Billy Gonzales has said he wants “mean” receivers, and that style seems to fit. His group is severely lacking on experience, but it has something MSU hasn’t had in years: size. Between Robert Johnson, Joe Morrow and JUCO transfer Jeremey Chappelle, Russell and the coaches have a bevy of big targets on the outside, while Jameon Lewis has had one of the best springs by any individual player as he replaces Chad Bumphis in the slot. Lewis and Chappelle have been the stars of spring, catching pass after pass and scoring touchdowns seemingly on repeat.

Bob’s Take: MSU lost all of its starters from last year, including perhaps the best receiver to ever play for the Bulldogs in Bumphis, but despite the lack of experience, this group has the potential to be better than any Mullen has had in Starkville. That said, it also has the potential for serious growing pains. Early returns suggest chemistry is building quick between Russell and the receivers, and while few have had significant game action, most have been in the program for several years and have a full working knowledge of the playbook and system. Three of MSU’s top four receivers stand 6’3” or taller, while Russell’s biggest starting target last year was 6’2” and he was the only one over 5’11”. Combined with the tight ends, MSU will have a full array of speedsters, downfield threats and reliable chain-movers, presuming they’re ready to play in real games.

Spring football positional review: defense

College football is never really “over,” but with the conclusion of spring practice, we can at least call it dormant as it hibernates for the hot summer months ahead.

Mississippi State’s football team finished the spring with its annual Maroon-White game in Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday afternoon in front of 21,000 people who are likely all sporting red foreheads and farmer’s tans at work today, so now seemed like the appropriate time to offer a spring review.

I’m going to do this by position group, breaking it up into offense and defense in two separate posts. I’ll offer my thoughts, along with my paraphrasing and summarizing what coaches have said the last few weeks, so if there’s a Star Wars reference calling a defensive linemen an angry, indestructible Chewbacca, those are my words, not Dan Mullen’s.

We’ll start with the defense.

Defensive Tackle

Coach’s Take: This is an entire position of potential, which as defensive line coach David Turner said, is a fancy way of saying they haven’t done anything yet. That said, both he and the other coaches see a lot of talent, capable of producing as much inside pass-rush as MSU had when Fletcher Cox was still roaming the line of scrimmage, if not more, presuming everyone is mentally prepared by August 31.

Bob’s Take: Potential is certainly the right way to put it. Junior P.J. Jones and sophomores Quay Evans and Nick James are uber-talented, were top recruits and were good enough to play as true freshmen. To use a scouting term, all three have burst and are surprisingly nimble for their size. But, Turner’s definition of the P-Word arises, as none of the three has done much yet while guys like Cox, Josh Boyd and others have been in front of them on the field. Somewhere in the middle of potential and production is junior Kaleb Eulls, who switched from end to tackle this spring. He’s looked comfortable and impressive at tackle, but all of his experience the last two years is as a starting defensive end.

If the potential turns into production as coaches hopes, MSU could end up with one of the best and biggest defensive tackle rotations in the SEC, providing a ton of pressure up the middle. Honestly, just getting two of the four to take that next step would go a long way, but getting all on board would mean big things.

Defensive End

Bob’s Take: MSU lost a starter here, in a manner of speaking, with Eulls moving to tackle, but for the first time in a while, MSU looks like it may have good depth at the position. Junior Preston Smith actually led the team in sacks last year as backup to Eulls, and now in the spring he’s even being pushed by sophomore Ryan Brown who played as a true freshman last year. Denico Autry had an adjustment period last year arriving from junior college, but played his best as the season went on. Sure, it’s spring, and I hate to use hyperbole, but Autry seems like a new man. Last year, he was just running around. Now, he’s confident, loose and comfortable. He knows what he’s doing, basically, and is shooting for double-digit sacks in his senior campaign.

Coach’s Take: The coaches seem to have noticed Autry’s boost in confidence, too, as they’ve talked about him as a leader on defense, both in the locker room and on the field, at his position and elsewhere. They finally seem happy with the numbers and rotation they have, and that rotation ought to be pretty heavy if the substitution patterns new defensive coordinator Geoff Collins talks about remain in the fall. Redshirt freshmen A.J. Jefferson and Torrey Dale have both made significant jumps in their year of learning, offering Turner and Collins plenty of options.

Linebacker

Coach’s Take: Perhaps more than any other position, this is where Collins’ rotation is the heaviest. Over the course of spring, he put a baker’s dozen different groups of three on the field, switching people in and out of action as well as trying them out in different linebacker positions. Collins, also the linebackers coach, wants to play as many as he can. As many linebackers as he has prove themselves SEC-ready, he’s going to play, he says. Might be five, might be eight.

Bob’s Take: This is where MSU’s defense takes the biggest loss (not corner) with the graduation of Cam Lawrence. From my viewpoint, it looks like Collins is giving everyone a fresh start. Benardrick McKinney was a freshman All-American last year at middle linebacker, but he has occasionally sat in favor of senior Chris Hughes, who had typically played on the outside. The lean, long junior Matt Wells has been the most consistent “starter” at the other outside linebacker spot, replacing Lawrence. On the opposite side, senior Deontae Skinner has been his usual self, while redshirt freshman Beniquez Brown did a stupendous job filling in when Skinner sat out a scrimmage with a minor injury. Brown managed to pick off Tyler Russell twice and has been one of the young stars of the spring, as has fellow redshirt freshman Richie Brown. I have no clue who the starting three will end up being, but I don’t think it matters much as at least six will be seeing significant time and Collins will mix and match based on the opposing offense, which he certainly has the personnel to do.

Cornerback

Bob’s Take: As a group, MSU’s corners have proven next to nothing on the field. But even departed big-timers Johnthan Banks and Darius Slay have said the current collection may be even better than what they had last year. May be better one day, that is. JUCO transfer Justin Cox is as impressive a combination of size, speed and smarts as anyone, he just has to figure out what he’s doing. Cedric Jiles has been called by teammates a “three-year guy” because they think he’s good to enough to be in the NFL, Will Redmond was one of the top recruits in last year’s signing class and earned frequent first-team reps, while junior Jamerson Love is likely the fastest member of the defense and has the most game experience of anyone.

Coach’s Take: Like Turner’s tackles, new corners coach Deshea Townsend’s group is full of potential and lacking on production. A combined zero starts among the group is a cause for concern, while the clear talent offers plenty of hope. For now, Townsend’s main concern is technique. When August comes, he says, he’ll worry more about making sure they’re mentally up for primetime games.

Safety

Bob’s Take: Last season, safety was sort of a hodgepodge collection for MSU, as Corey Broomfield switched from corner to safety before eventually switching back to corner, Nickoe Whitley was less than 100 percent for the majority of the season and youngsters Jay Hughes and Dee Arrington were getting their first significant and extended play. Now, Whitley looks more like the breakout player he was as a sophomore in 2011 and Hughes, entering his junior year, has made significant strides from the beginning of spring to end. With Whitley sitting out the spring game, Hughes took the role of leader and ran with it. The depth isn’t incredibly, well, deep, but if Hughes and Whitley stay healthy, MSU has a strong duo at safety.

Coach’s Take: More than anything, Whitley’s emergence as a leader of the defense has been the pride of the coaches, everyone from safeties coach Tony Hughes to Mullen himself. Hughes is happy with the stability of having both starters return and hopes it remains. Both Whitley and Hughes (the player and son) offer Hughes (the coach and father) a bit of versatility, as each is comfortable in coverage as well stopping the run.

Reviewing all the Super action from a busy MSU weekend

Mississippi State’s biggest weekend of the year got an early start last week and has now, sadly, drawn to a close. Somewhere between the barbecued pigs, sunburned faces and tailgate tents the Bulldogs ran through more than dozen games and events, both in Starkville and out.

Because I was hardly able to keep up myself and it’s my job, we’ll recap Super Bulldog Weekend here as best we can, with all the links you could ever want.

Baseball

So many story-lines in this series. Game one didn’t finish until the wee hours of the night after game two had already been decided on Friday because the series started Thursday. But, MSU came out of the odd circumstances tied 1-1 with Auburn entering the final game of the series on Saturday when Dudy Noble had its second-largest crowd ever, also the second-biggest in NCAA history. If the list is to be trusted, MSU now has all 10 of the Top 10 biggest crowds in college baseball history. That’s pretty dang impressive.

Oh, and the Diamond Dawgs won the rubber match, taking the series and setting themselves up as they build toward a potential regional host.

Football

With only half of Davis Wade Stadium, 21,000 filled up the east side as the White team beat the Maroon team 38-28. What does that actually mean? Glad you asked, as a full recap with stats and the like is here for your reading pleasure. I’ll have some more extensive reviews of MSU’s spring practices in the coming days.

Golf

Both the men’s and women’s golf teams played in the SEC Championships this weekend, and both managed to earn Top-5 finishes as they now look ahead to the NCAA Tournament. A full recap of the men’s team success is here, and the story of the women’s team led by sophomore Ally McDonald is online here.

Softball

Vann Stuedeman’s team got a huge win over No. 4 Alabama on Friday evening to start the series and nearly knocked off the defending national champs again on Sunday before the Tide put across the game and series-winning run in the final inning in Tuscaloosa.

Track and Field

MSU’s track team was in Oxford of all places during Super Bulldog Weekend, but despite the less-than-friendly locale, did manage to pick up eight individual victories in a successful Saturday of work.

Tennis

The women’s tennis team earned a big victory on Wednesday in the first day of play in the SEC Tournament, hosted by MSU, and finished their appearance in the tourney with a loss to Tennessee.

The men’s team now has turned its attention to the NCAA Tournament after a tough, night-long loss to highly-ranked Kentucky in its first match of the SEC Tourney.

Soccer

Under new head coach Aaron Gordon, the Bulldogs tied 1-1 with Southern Miss in an exhibition on campus, finishing out the spring season of competition.

2013 MSU football schedule posters released

If you’re a glass-half-full kind of person, the picture above is your sign that football season is slowly but steadily creeping closer, waiting for us on the other side of a hot Mississippi summer.

Spring practice, of course, wraps up this weekend with the Maroon-White Game in Davis Wade Stadium, our last chance to watch Dan Mullen’s football team until the calendar hits August.

However, it’s not Mullen you see on this year’s football schedule poster, but the players and leaders of the team. Senior quarterback Tyler Russell and his center Dillon Day, senior running back LaDarius Perkins and his offensive guard Gabe Jackson and a pair of defensive linemen in senior Denico Autry and junior Kaleb Eulls.

The significance of the players is obvious; a group of stars, veterans and leaders.

The understated but quite-important part of the poster is the short, declarative sentence in the bottom-left corner. “Fight for Mississippi State.”

You’ll recognize the words from the final line of the fight song. “Fight for Mississippi State” is the theme for the team in the 2013 season, as chosen by those in the new Seal Football Complex, and you’ll likely be seeing it elsewhere as the season nears and arrives.

The other theme is that of the style for the poster and accompanying pocket schedules. An MSU graduate and my former co-worker from our days at The Reflector, Blake McCollum has been the go-to photographer for these types of projects.

Over the last many months, marketing has strayed away from the typical action shots and cut-outs of players catching a ball or diving for a quarterback.

Instead, they have opted for the more serious and seemingly in-your-face style of players staring straight into the camera, fully aware the photo is being taken with, in my mind at least, a mixture of both embracing and defying the lens.

The idea is to be clean, simple and hopefully intimidating with players appearing larger than life.

In a new twist this year, MSU is sending out four different versions of the pocket/wallet schedule. Each one has a different player on it, all seniors, with Russell, Perkins, Jackson and Autry varieties.

Points for anyone who collects all four. Imaginary points, but points nonetheless.

International MSU golfers on adapting to (and enjoying) Mississippi culture

Going off to college, generally, is an exciting time, though not without some level of trepidation. Moving hours away from home without mom, dad or whoever in the room down the hall, knowing a family is an afternoon’s drive away instead of a few moments, can be, at times, a struggle.

Then, there’s Mississippi State golfers Axel Boasson and Joe Sakulpolphaisan, both juniors at MSU.

A round trip visit home to Iceland nets Axel nearly 8,000 miles.

It would take more days than Easter weekend has for Joe to complete the 20,000-mile there-and-back to see his family in Thailand.

Joe Sakulpolphaisan following through with a swing

More than language barriers, new cuisines, college classes or SEC athletics, being so removed from family and childhood friends is the hardest part for international student-athletes like Joe and Axel. Relying on Skype and the internet to maintain contact with parents and siblings is the best they can do during the months and sometimes years between breaks.

“I miss my family,” Joe said. “I’ve been back once in three years.”

And given the resources of time and money needed for a family to take such a trip, they haven’t made it to the United States yet to see him.

“The Americans here,” Axel said, “they always have their moms and dads. I haven’t seen my mom for so long, it feels like. It’s different to not be able to go after school and meet your grandparents. That’s been the most difficult. You don’t get that privilege of doing what you would probably do back home.”

But, Axel said, “It’s worth it. Every day.”

In their words, they’re living the dream.

Axel Boasson, named the SEC Player of the Week on April 3

Wake up at 7, work out, go to class, eat lunch and then play golf until the sun goes down and studying begins.

“You’re here for one reason and one reason only, that’s my thinking,” Axel said. “You’re here for golf and school. Even though you wanna go home, we love it here. Great people. Good weather all year, pretty much.”

While they certainly miss family, most of the transition for these guys is fun.

Despite hailing from a big city near Bangkok, Joe is a self-proclaimed “Country Boy,” having learned the ways of southerners at junior college in Georgia.

His favorite food now: barbecue, he says.

“Back in Georgia, all my friends liked the country stuff,” Joe said. “I like it, it’s kind of chill. I don’t like the big city anyway, traffic everywhere. You go anywhere in like five minutes here.”

Without his preferred spicy Thai food around, Joe’s second choice now is steak. He’s in the right part of the country for both.

Axel, on the other hand, isn’t big on beef.

Luckily, he has access to what he considers the best food on the planet by way of his Mississippian teammate Chad Ramey.

“The best food I get is in Fulton, Mississippi, from Chad’s dad,” he said. “Duck, deer. That’s some of the best food I’ve ever had in my entire life and it comes from Mississippi.”

“I don’t like too much of that burger thing,” Axel continued. “I like a lot of sandwiches and good meat. Lamb, sheep, all that stuff.”

One of the primary adjustments, Axel said, is the one he makes with himself whenever he goes home for the summer, then again when he comes back.

Spending so much time in Starkville, he picks up on the colloquialisms and local etiquette, then realizes how much he’s changed when he gets back to his hometown in Iceland, a city not much bigger than Starkville.

“Every time,” Axel said. “I have to switch. It takes two or three weeks to stop saying what I say here and stop saying what I say there. “

“People here, in Mississippi especially, have better manners, I would say. They’re both nice, I’m not saying that. When you walk in a store here, you’re acknowledged. ‘Good day, how are you,’ all that. When you start doing that back home, people don’t take that as well.

“After my first semester, I came home after Christmas and I tried it in a bakery. I said, ‘How are you doing?’ and I did not get one reply and she just kind of stared at me like, ‘What do you want?’”

Beyond the distance from family and change in culture, the biggest immediate hurdle for guys like Joe and Axel is the language barrier. Both spoke at least a little bit of English upon arrival in the states, though the occasional southern drawl is far from what they learned in school.

Was it tough?

“It’s tough still,” Joe said.

Considering himself a shy person as it is, Joe often struggled when he first began school in Georgia. Too unassuming to ask a teacher to repeat something he didn’t understand, he would just go back later and look it up in his book, hoping he could figure out what happened.

“First semester, I tried not to talk,” Axel said. “If they asked, I answered. One time I had to stand up and talk and that was kind of weird. But hanging out with the guys on the team, they joke on me a little for what I say. That helps if you take it in a good way. I learned the hard way, but I get better every day.”

Axel was a bit ahead of many when he started, having trained with a Swedish golf coach when he was 15 with just one common language: English.

Both he and Joe at least knew their golf vocabulary well coming in while they’ve learned by immersion in many other avenues.

They knew enough, at least, to have developed well in their sport, as Joe was the top-ranked junior college golfer when he signed with MSU before this year and Axel has put together the fourth-best season stroke average in Bulldog golf’s history.

They’ve been a part of easily the best season MSU golf has had, winning a program-record four tournaments and heading to the SEC Championship at St. Simon’s Island this weekend with a first-ever Top 25 ranking in tow.

While they miss everything from family to sheep sandwiches, the pair, as Axel said, wouldn’t change it for anything. The food, the people and golfing all day,

“I like the style here,” Joe said.

Hunter Renfroe’s motivation and the story behind Mississippi State’s monster

13 years into his baseball career, Hunter Renfroe was burned out. Like any student-athlete, he was travelling across the country on weekends, balancing practice with schoolwork during the week and forgoing the typical freedoms everyone else his age was able to enjoy.

He was also in ninth grade.

For the guy who started swinging a bat at age two, quitting baseball was the best decision of Renfroe’s life.

Playing 100-some odd games every summer, Renfroe was mentally exhausted with the sport he loved so much. Lucky for him, his parents were far less concerned with him making the high school team than they were his happiness.

“They always asked me, whenever you want to stop playing, you can stop and take a break,” he said. “I took a summer off and just relaxed and had fun. Went to the reservoir in Jackson, skied a lot, wakeboarded, did all the stuff a regular freshman did, instead of playing baseball. And I think that’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Get back to the love of the game instead of having to do this, having to do that, everything’s rushed.”

Now, another eight years later, Renfroe is one of the hottest baseball players in the country, a candidate for the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year and being projected by many as a first round pick in the MLB Draft this summer, though he’s shelving any talk of that until after he finishes what he hopes is a lengthy postseason.

For Mississippi State, Renfroe is batting .429 with 13 home runs and 42 RBI, and his .439 batting average in conference play is the best in the entire league. Against Texas A&M last weekend, he batted .571 and hit a home run in every one of the three games in the series.

To say he’s having a good season would be quite the understatement.

The success is the realization of untapped potential for Renfroe, who has been a star in the making since before his first chin hair.

Growing up in Crystal Springs, Miss., a town with a population size under 6,000 people, Renfroe’s area travel team was so good they had to be moved up an age bracket just to try and make it fair, and even then they rolled over the competition.

“We always played up in tournaments because we just killed our opponents,” he said. “We actually won the older age group state championship and they wouldn’t give it to us because we were younger.”

Even now, he’s a little bitter.

Then it was in high school when Renfroe – who ran track, was a shooting guard in basketball and played five different positions for the football team – realized baseball might be something he could do for a while.

“Everybody was about the same growing up,” he said. “You had your guys that matured earlier than others of course, but in high school I really started standing out my sophomore and junior year and realized, ‘I’m pretty good at baseball now.’ Scouts started to come watch me, colleges started calling me a little bit. That’s when I figured out I’m pretty good at this, I’m gonna make a living out of it.“

He’d have had the opportunity to go straight to the MLB, and his parents were big Ole Miss fans, so it seemed Renfroe had two choices.

But, be it out of natural rebelling against parents or an appreciation for history, Renfroe wanted to go to Mississippi State.

In fact, despite his parents’ now-changed allegiance to Oxford, Renfroe was “always Mississippi State.” So much so that when scouts from MLB teams came calling, he turned them back. All he wanted was to move to Starkville and experience college.

“That’s why I think I got drafted so late, too,” he said. “I openly told them I’m gonna go to college first.”

And so he did, with a world of hype and expectations that he’s at the very least meeting and perhaps even exceeding ins his junior year for the Bulldogs.

His first two years were a bit of a struggle, but at the end of last season, starting with MSU’s series against Florida, things started to click for Renfroe. He saw the ball, he caught the breaks. Then he went to the Cal Ripken League for summer baseball where he had such a good season that he became the first player in the history of the league to have his number retired.

With so much success outside of Dudy Noble Field, MSU fans were anxious to see it happen within the friendly confines of their own ballpark.

“We knew that eventually it would come around,” he said. “I knew I had the talent a long time ago, but it was kind of frustrating to me last year. I knew what I could do and it just wasn’t happening for me. I was hitting balls hard last year and it wasn’t finding holes. This year shows I have the potential.”

And as the potential has been met, Renfroe has helped lead the team through a successful two-thirds of the season, with their eyes set on hosting a regional and finding a way to Omaha for the College World Series.

As the college career he wanted so badly has arched upwards, Renfroe is happy he chose the route he did, though the college experience is far from that of a typical student, as baseball takes up nearly all the free time he would have outside of classes, studying and sleeping.

“You’re kind of used to not doing stuff like a normal student,” Renfroe said. “Me and [first baseman] Wes Rea joke about it all the time. We’d have killed every animal in the state of Mississippi if we didn’t play baseball. We were talking about it yesterday. It’s just something you live with and something you adapt to. You’re out here three hours a day practicing baseball, and it’s a lifestyle. You’ve got to enjoy it to do it.”

It’s that love for baseball that keeps him going. That summer he took off which made him rediscover his passion for the game and lit the fire that will take him through the rest of his career.

“The game is the biggest motivation on its own,” he said. “All the fans in the stands, screaming your name, cheering when you get a hit. All my teammates, coaches, giving me pats on the back, saying ‘Great job.’ Just winning, that motivates.”

As much as the Mississippi boy loves the outdoors, no fish caught or deer dropped can compare to the high of launching a ball over the fence and into the outstretched arms of the home crowd.

“It’s pure elation. It’s total joy,” he said. “You know you’re helping your team get that much closer to winning the game or won the game. It’s awesome. It’s an awesome feeling. You get chill bumps every time you talk about it or when you do it. When you run around first base, second base, it’s pretty special.”

Those moments – the home runs, the game-winning RBI, the diving catches – are why Renfroe never stops playing, why he works endless hours on his approach at the plate, why he spends days on end in the film or weight room.

“I love just playing the game.”

Softball ready for ‘big deal’ series hosting Ole Miss

Last year, as a rookie head coach, Vann Stuedeman was riding the bus to Oxford with her softball team for her first game against Ole Miss.

Going in, she said, she knew it was a rivalry and certainly wanted to get a win over the Rebels.

Then, rolling down the highway, she got a text from her boss, Mississippi State Athletic Director Scott Stricklin.

“It said, ‘This is kind of a big deal,’” Stuedeman recalled.

In that moment came clarity. She’s from the south and is “used to football rivalries,” but the text from Stricklin, just one short sentence, made it real for her.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m the head coach at Mississippi State and we’re going to play the rival and this is kind of a big deal,’” she said. “I wrote back to him, ‘We’re gonna make you proud.’”

And she certainly did that, sweeping Ole Miss in Oxford and racking up wins to help the team to its eventual NCAA Tournament bid.

“He immediately responded back with a text after day three and said, ‘I’m proud.’”

Now, a year later, the Bulldogs are ready to play Ole Miss again, this time at home, laying an unblemished record against teams from the Magnolia State on the line and once more boasting a solid RPI and searching for more wins to put on their tournament resume.

“We’re gonna be looking to do that again,” Stuedeman said.

As the season has progressed, MSU has had both an exciting and frustrating mix of highs and lows, hitting final-inning home runs to secure SEC victories and beating No. 3 Florida in Gainesville this past weekend, but also dropping close games where one inning, one mistake or a single miscue decided the outcome against conference opponents.

“Once we get all the cylinders going together, it’s just unstoppable,” junior second baseman Heidi Shape said. “Pitching, defense, hitting, when we’re all there, it’s gonna be really special.”

The key, of course, is finding a way to get all three going at the same time.

On the mound, Stuedeman’s area of expertise, is where many of the wins and losses have been decided, led by junior Alison Owen. In her first year playing for MSU, she’s already set and re-set the single-game strikeout record multiple times and even recorded a no-hitter in the early goings of the campaign.

Entering the stretch run of the season, Stuedeman is, for the most part, happy with what she’s seen from the pitching staff, but still wants a bit more.

“I don’t think you’re ever satisfied,” she said, “but I love their effort and that they’re willing to learn.”

The series against Ole Miss starts tonight, including several giveaways of T-shirts, signed memorabilia by various MSU coaches and several gift cards, and starts at 7 on ESPNU for those not in Starkville.

“Just to show Mississippi State to the country is a really cool thing and we’re really excited about it,” senior outfielder Jessica Cooley said. “Any time you play a state rival it’s always a serious game, but it’s fun just to get our fans out here, just because it is such a highly-competitive atmosphere and we want to put on a good show for the fans.”

Game two of the series is Saturday at 1 p.m. and the final match-up takes place on Sunday at the same time.

Going into a weekend of MSU-Ole Miss, Stuedeman still knows it’s kind of a big deal.

“It’s a state ownership and we want to have those bragging rights,” she said.