By By Marty Stamper / EMG sports assistant
Aug. 8, 2002
STARKVILLE It's not every day a coach at an NCAA Division I school will admit when he made a mistake. Egos tend to get in the way of reality.
Mississippi State's Jackie Sherrill 'fessed up' at Wednesday's Media Day at the Bryan Athletic Administration Building, agreeing he didn't always have his best players on the field last fall.
"I made a mistake and allowed our coaches to talk me into it," Sherrill said of last year's wholesale redshirting of the incoming class.
Those redshirts, along with the 2002 incoming class, give State 37 freshmen on this year's roster.
"We had five players last year who could have played and played very well on special teams. Now that's all they would have played," Sherrill said.
This year will be different.
"We're going to play as many freshmen that can play," Sherrill said. "Special teams get first priority and you'll probably see a lot of young guys on special teams. All those kids are really talented. We know they have the ability, now can they play at this level?
"I would say 15-plus will play."
The MSU rookies arrived on campus on Aug. 2 with the veterans coming in Tuesday.
"Right now around the country everybody is saying the same thing," said Sherrill, the Southeastern Conference's dean of head football coaches as he enters his 12th season at MSU. "They're saying that they're ready to go. Their football team is in the best shape. They worked hard this summer.
"The whole returning team is probably the fastest team we've had. The average speed for the whole team is 4.8 (seconds in the 40-yard dash). If you put the younger guys in this, that speed will go down. That group coming in is extremely athletic. Over half of those guys vertical jumped over 30 inches. And some of those kids are 4.3 kids.
"We lost a lot of body fat this summer with everybody on the team. We also had a lot of guys get stronger this summer.
"The strengths of this football team has to be in the skill people – running backs, receivers, defensive backs, cornerbacks, linebackers, and tight ends.
"I feel very good about our offensive line. We have some young guys that will certainly help us.
"The one place where we are thin and where we need to stay healthy is in the defensive line."
State finished last year's 3-8 debacle with four close games, three of which resulted in losses. That stretch saw MSU lose 24-17 at Alabama, 24-21 at Arkansas, knock Ole Miss out of the postseason 36-28 at Starkville, and lose 41-38 at home to Brigham Young.
"If you'll look at our football team at the end of the year, that football team is back and at the end of the year, we were a very good competitive team," Sherrill said. "Were we a great team? No, but we were a very good competitive team. If we had had that team back in September, then we wouldn't have gone 3-8.
"And we've brought in some help to that football team in every area except the defensive line."
MSU begins two-a-days today. They will run through Aug. 17. The Bulldogs open their 2002 season on Aug. 31 at Oregon.