Former Shreveport Football Star Gets One More Year at SEC School

A former star quarterback at Shreveport's Evangel Academy will get one more year in the SEC.

The former Shreveport high school standout Blake Shapen will be able to get one more year at Mississippi State, after suffering a season-ending injury in 2024.

Coming out of high school in Shreveport, Shapen was a 3-star recruit in the class of 2020. 24/7 Sports had him listed as the 747th overall prospect and 30th rated pro-style quarterback in the country on their national composite rating. They also had Shapen listed as the 32nd prospect in the whole state of Louisiana.

Blake Shapen has started for two different major college programs. As of November 27th, 2021, was the starting quarterback at Baylor. He stayed in that role through the 2023 season. Helping Baylor to 12-2 record, and guiding them to a win in the Big-12 Championship game that season. The Bears finished 5th in the final AP poll that year.

In 2022, he had his first full season as the starting quarterback. It didn't go as well as the 2021 campaign, but Shapen was able to guide the Bears to an appearance in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Going into 2023, Shapen was again the Baylor starting quarterback, but his season was cut short after 8 starts due to a knee injury. The team wasn't able to get a win after Shapen went down that year.

After the 2023 season, Shapen entered the transfer portal, and took his talents to Missisippi State. Where he started from day 1. But sadly, Shapen's season was cut short when he suffered a season-ending injury against Florida.

2024 was technically Shapen's Senior Year, and could have been the end of his SEC playing days, and his entire college career. But there's something still floating through college athletics that is going to make it so Shapen can play one more year.

Blake Shapen's first season of college football was 2020, where he took a "redshirt" year. (In college sports, a "redshirt" is a way for players to transition from high school to college without taking away from their eligibility. They don't play, but train and practice with the team to learn) However that season didn't really exist in the eyes of the NCAA, because it was the COVID year. So no one lost eligibility, whether they played, or took a "redshirt".

That means Shapen didn't spend his "redshirt" year in 2020, and was able to apply it to the 2024 season. So he didn't lose last year, and still has one more year of eligibility coming.

So Shapen returns to Mississippi State, and will get one more year in the SEC.