Jonathan Smith talks about upcoming transfer portal recruiting expectations

Jonathan Smith is looking to utilize the transfer portal more before the 2024 season, but that won’t happen until spring.

Michigan State and Jonathan Smith have hit the transfer portal hard so far this offseason. Mainly because they didn’t have much of a choice with the amount of turnover the Spartans’ roster saw when the season ended.

The portal acquisitions were highlighted by the No. 1 transfer quarterback Aidan Chiles following Smith to MSU. But Chiles isn’t the only big news that Michigan State has received out of the portal.

The Spartans have had countless players already transfer to MSU, and they’ve had even more Spartans withdraw their name from the portal to stay in East Lansing. So Smith’s staff has done an amazing job at recruiting the portal and re-recruiting players to stay at Michigan State.

How does MSU’s staff plan to use the portal going forward?

During a press conference on Thursday, Smith talked about his staff’s future plans when it comes to the transfer portal. Chris Solari of the Detroit Free Press shared this post about what Jonathan Smith had to say on the subject.

Smith says he doesn't see MSU being heavily active the rest of this month in the transfer portal in part because of school already starting. Believes the Spartans will be more active when the portal reopens in the spring.

— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) January 18, 2024

In summary, the staff doesn’t plan to use the portal in the coming weeks as the spring semester has begun. This is typically a time when less players enter the portal anyways. Maybe the players to wait to see how spring practices go with their current team or they want to finish out their degree at their school. But typically once spring semester starts significantly less players enter the portal, so this move by Smith makes sense.

Focus shifting to high school recruits

This now means that Smith’s staff will turn most of its recruiting attention on the 2025 high school class. We have already seen a lot of offers go out and have seen recruits announce future visits to East Lansing. One big event coming up is MSU’s junior day on Feb. 3. A lot of high school juniors have already scheduled a visit for this day and I imagine many more will join them in the coming weeks.

Smith did mention they will recruit the transfer portal hard again later this spring when it reopens. This coincides with what I already mentioned about more players entering the portal at a later date. This also gives Smith a chance to see what his team looks like during spring practices and what areas need the most help from the portal.

There likely won’t be many commitments any time soon, so the next thing for Spartan fans to pay attention to are high school recruits receiving offers and scheduling visits to East Lansing. This should be an exciting time in recruiting to see how the new staff attacks the high school ranks.