Mississippi
Stone Blanton, Mississippi State football starting linebacker, declares for 2025 NFL draft
STARKVILLE — One of Mississippi State football’s top tacklers won’t return for the 2025 season.
Stone Blanton, the Bulldogs starting linebacker, declared for the NFL draft on Wednesday. He made the announcement with a post on social media.
“After much prayer and thoughtful consideration, I am humbled and excited to declare for the 2025 NFL draft,” he wrote. “This journey has been filled with unforgettable moments, lessons and blessings.”
Blanton was second on the team and tied for 10th nationally with 124 tackles this season. The junior had one year of eligibility remaining.
It’s the second significant roster move of the day for MSU after Georgia wide receiver Anthony Evans III announced his commitment in the transfer portal.
What Stone Blanton declaring for NFL draft means for Mississippi State football
Blanton, a Jackson native, transferred to MSU after two seasons at South Carolina. Although MSU struggled defensively, he was one of the few bright spots. He also had 3.5 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.
His departure leaves a hole in Mississippi State’s defense that doesn’t have an obvious replacement. Fellow linebacker Nic Mitchell is returning and so is sophomore Zakari Tillman, who showed flashes as a playmaker. Five linebackers have transferred out of MSU, but most of them were depth pieces. Two have transferred in, headlined by Tennessee’s Jalen Smith, an All-SEC freshman.
The Bulldogs signed four-star Winona linebacker Tyler Lockhart in the 2025 recruiting class.
Safety Isaac Smith, MSU’s leading tackler, is returning next season.
Feb. 7 is the deadline for players to opt out of the draft and return to college.
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
Mississippi
SEC rivalry game once again changes days, schools announce
The Egg Bowl is moving to Friday for the third straight year, it was announced Thursday.
The annual game between Ole Miss and Mississippi State, the Battle for the Golden Egg, is now set for Friday, Nov. 27 for the 2026 season at Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium in Oxford.
Kickoff time and television network will be determined at a later date.
The game will mark the seventh time the two school have met on a Friday, including 1916, 1921, 2007, 2008, 2024 and last fall’s 38-19 win in Starkville.
The 2026 game will mark the 123rd meeting between the two schools. The Rebels hold a 67-49-6 advantage all-time on the field (67-47-6 after vacated and forfeited wins).
Next season’s game will also be the 99th Battle for the Golden Egg, which Ole Miss also leads 61-30-5 on the field since the trophy’s introduction in 1927.
Mississippi
MS House committee passes massive school choice expansion bill. What it means
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The education bill championed by Mississippi House Speaker Jason White narrowly passed its first test in the legislature Wednesday. The legislation focuses on aligning Mississippi with its conservative neighbors by expanding and funding school choice options.
One of the most controversial provisions of the massive bill involves creating 12,500 educational savings accounts. The state would allocate more than $87 million to create these accounts, which would give the families of eligible students up to $7,000 per child to cover costs such as uniforms and tuition at private and charter schools.
Half of the initial savings accounts would be designated for students currently enrolled in public schools, and education committee chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, said the selection process would prioritize low-income students.
“This is designed to make certain that if you’re 100% below the median income, you are the first in line to get this money,” he said in the Wednesday committee meeting. “We want to make certain that our kids out there that really haven’t had an opportunity to go anywhere else would have that opportunity.”
The accounts would provide funds for fewer than 3% of Mississippi’s school-age children in the 2027-2028 school year, if the bill passes, with scheduled increases in the number of savings accounts for the following three school years. After that, the number of savings accounts would only increase if there aren’t enough savings accounts for all interested students.
The bill is estimated to cost more than $160 million in its first year, the bulk of which would go to the student savings accounts. Included in the total is around $29 million allocated for assistant teacher pay raises. Roberson said the raise, a $3,000 bump that would bring minimum assistant teacher salaries up to $20,000 a year, was one of the provisions he thought was most important.
“It’s absolutely insane that anybody could even do it for $20,000 a year, and I hope we can work on increasing that going forward,” Roberson said.
The bill does not include teacher or professor salary increases, which differs from the legislation coming out of the Senate. A bill from Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, proposing a $2,000 raise for teachers passed the Senate and was sent to the House last week, but the House has not voted on it yet.
Roberson said he thought a discussion about teacher pay raises was worth having, but the House education bill was not the right place for it.
“It’s not in this bill because I don’t want to put anybody in this room in a position to suggest that I’m forcing you to vote against the teacher pay raise if you’re against [school choice],” he told the committee. “I’m all in favor of a teacher pay increase, but what I’m more in favor of is making certain that our babies are getting educated.”
Democrat legislators focused on the school choice aspect of the bill in the committee hearing, where they debated the impact of a potential mass exodus to private or charter schools on public education.
“We talk about how public education is the gateway for every family to have success, but we also know that we have underfunded public education since we’ve been in this government,” said Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville. “This is a gateway, in my opinion, that we see that there’s going to be an advancement of tons of charter schools coming forward with zero accountability.”
Roberson said the bill was not the perfect solution to the problems facing Mississippi schools.
“This bill is not the end-all to fix all for schools. Never has been,” he said. “It is a piece of the puzzle that we need to continue working on.”
Democrats, including Taylor, warned committee members of the legislation’s impact on the average Mississippi family.
“Most of us run on public education, and therefore, if we divert these funds from public education, we’re also diverting funds from the entire philosophy that gives advancement to most families,” Taylor said, gesturing at banners on the committee room wall declaring that several school districts received an “A” grade. “How do we throw away the progress on the wall for 12,500 students?”
Mississippi
Verizon outage reported across Mississippi, in more states. What we know
Massive Verizon Outage Leaves Phones in SOS Mode
Discover how a massive Verizon outage is causing SOS mode on phones across the U.S. with no official statement yet from Verizon Support.
Can you hear me now? If your Verizon phone stopped working in Mississippi, you’re definitely not alone.
Customers all over the U.S. are reporting technical difficulties making and getting phone calls. Multiple cellphone service providers were hit on Wednesday, but Verizon is reporting the most widespread issues. (It’s the largest wireless provider in the country, with 146.1 million connections.)
Here’s what we know so far about the outage, what Verizon says is happening and when it could be fixed.
Is Verizon down in Mississippi?
According to Downdetector, more than 150,000 people across the nation have reported outages. The map shows swaths of reports from Mississippi are mostly in the northern part of the state and along the Gulf Coast at this time.
Customers in several other major cities have reported outages including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Downdetector showed other providers had outages on Wednesday, too, with at least 1,600 on T-Mobile and more than 1,700 on AT&T.
What does the Verizon outage look like?
Those affected are saying their phones can’t get a signal, showing no bars of service or “SOS.”
What caused Verizon outage?
Verizon released a statement midday Wednesday saying they are aware of the issue and their engineers are working to solve the issue. They gave no details on the cause of the outage.
How long will Verizon outage last?
A time/day for when the outages will be resolved has not been released yet. Stay tuned for further updates as they are provided.
Contributing: Jonathan Limehouse, Mike Snider
Miguel Legoas is a Deep South Connect Team Reporter for USA Today. Find him on Instagram @miguelegoas and email at mlegoas@gannett.com.
Bonnie Bolden is the Deep South Connect reporter for Mississippi with USA TODAY Network. Email her at bbolden@gannett.com.
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