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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

Wednesday is the big day when high school seniors can sign with the college football factory of their choice. But before you make your national championship hotel reservations based on all the so-called blue-chip recruits your team signs, remember a few things:

1) Most of these guys won’t play as freshmen. It usually takes three years to determine a recruiting class’ sucess.
2) Several of these big names won’t qualify academically as freshmen and will probably be visiting a junior college football stadium near you next season. Garry Pack, the state’s top-rated high school senior, has committed to Ole Miss, but the Oak Grove product will probably be wearing a Pearl River CC uniform next season.
3) Don’t believe the hype about some of these big-name players. Rating high school seniors can be very subjective. Good example: Southern Miss almost never signs a big name from Mississippi. So how come the Gilded Eagles keep winning conference championships and sending guys to the NFL?

Meanwhile, check out the Willie Williams recruiting journal for the Miami Herald. Williams is a stud linebacker from Carol City, Fla., who’s being wooed by most of the major college football powers. He’s been providing details of his recruiting visits to the Herald. If football doesn’t work out, Willie might have a future as a comedian.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.