Connect with us

FB RECRUITING

Michigan State football: 5-star DL David Stone picks commitment date

The Spartans are one of the finalists.

Published

on

David Stone
© DENNIS MAFFEZZOLI / HERALD-TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK

Five-star Michigan State football defensive line target David Stone has picked a commitment date and finalists.

A consensus five-star defensive lineman from Florida, David Stone is the top target for Mel Tucker and the Michigan State football staff. At 6-foot-4, 270 pounds, Stone is the kind of player that can change the trajectory of a program.

On Thursday, he announced he will be committing on Aug. 26 and listed six schools that are still in the running. It will be a fight between Michigan State, Oklahoma, Miami, Florida, Oregon, and Texas A&M.

Where will he go?

I know plenty of MSU fans have felt like Stone has been using Spartan Nation for interactions by keeping us in the mix but part of me feels the love he has for East Lansing is authentic. I think he has shown enough online that he genuinely loves the staff and campus.

It was certainly a kick below the belt when pass rush specialist and lead recruiter Brandon Jordan opted to join the Seahawks while Marco Coleman left for his alma mater, Georgia Tech. I think we are still a close second after those two departures. It sounds like new defensive line coach Diron Reynolds has done a great job building a relationship with Stone but only time will tell if he approves of the new hire.

The competition

The real threat of this recruitment comes from Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners as they are currently the favorite. Stone’s home state is Oklahoma and OU has always been solid on the recruiting trail, especially in its home state (bet they wish they didn’t miss on Bai Jobe). With solid donors, a history of putting players in the NFL, and close proximity to home, it’s understandable why Oklahoma is at the top of the list.

Based on what I’ve gathered via the legendary twitter.com, the real contenders are MSU and Oklahoma and Miami has come in strong recently. The others — TAMU, Oregon, and Florida — are often referred to as ‘bag schools’ which always opens up speculation when they’re involved.

The kiss of death

Obviously things can change in a heartbeat but when we talk about insider predictions, Stone received a ‘Fong Bomb’ back on March 11, 2022. Although it has been 16 months since the Director of Football Recruiting for 247Sports placed his prediction, MSU fans know all too well that crystal balls can be changed at any moment. The ‘Fong Bomb’ is the kiss of death especially if the pick has not been changed. For what it’s worth, Spartan Tailgate’s insiders placed crystal balls for Stone at the end of December 2022 and have yet to change them.

Those of you that follow me closely on Twitter (@chopmanmsu) know that I have done my best recruiting in the past. Eating pancakes, riding scooters, and driving Cadillacs are all things I’ve done out of superstition. For Stone, I collected a pile of literal stones which are stacked up by my shed in the backyard. My fingers are crossed that I didn’t collect those stones for nothing.

Yeehaw,
ChopMan

FB RECRUITING

Michigan State football: Deion Sanders pursuing the top 2024 Spartan commit

This would be a tough loss.

Published

on

Deion Sanders pushes for Michigan State football commit
© Cris Tiller / USA TODAY NETWORK

Deion Sanders and Colorado are pursuing the top Michigan State football commit in the 2024 class. Not great.

We knew the Mel Tucker firing would begin a domino effect of other schools coming after Michigan State football players. It appears it has already started.

College football is the wild wild west. Now that the future of the Michigan State football program is cloudy, other programs are circling and looking for players to pull away. This includes current players on the roster who will soon have a 30-day transfer window open to them, as well as future commits.

This is an unfortunate reality of the nature of the game. This should have been expected and will continue throughout this upcoming offseason. Until the Spartans have a new head coach, teams will consistently be calling.

One of the latest examples is four-star 2024 Michigan State commit Nick Marsh who recently shared on social media that he’s been extended an offer from Colorado and Deion Sanders.

Few schools in the nation currently carry as much hype and excitement as Colorado. Marsh has already committed to the Spartans, decommitted, and then re-committed again. Potentially losing a player of his caliber again would be a huge blow to Michigan State. Spartan fans will be hoping the program finds stability in the near future to keep Marsh and the rest of the 2024 class intact.

While it’s a near certainty that the program will lose players from both the current roster and future classes, the players certainly aren’t to blame. The nature of college football is that more often than not, players are committing to a coach more than a program. Tucker convinced young men to buy into his vision for the program and the future they could have with him. With all of that changing, it’s certainly understandable why many of these players may be considering a change of scene.

Marsh seems to have a strong relationship with Michigan State wide receiver coach Courtney Hawkins. The hope will be that Hawkins is able to keep Marsh connected to the program throughout this current season.

Continue Reading

FB RECRUITING

Michigan State football commit shoots up the recruiting rankings

Reggie Powers got a nice bump.

Published

on

Michigan State football
© Nick King / USA TODAY NETWORK

One of the top Michigan State football commits in the 2024 class shot up the recruiting rankings this past week.

For the last week, Michigan State football saw nothing but bad news. So how about some good news for a change? Michigan State commit Reggie Powers just skyrocketed up the recruiting rankings and now is the No. 210 player in the country, according to On3.

Powers is a 2024 safety who committed to Michigan State this past summer on June 14. He was a pretty unknown name to the recruiting world then, but that appears to be changing.

Reggie is a 6-foot-0, 195-pound safety from Dayton, Ohio. He is coming off a great junior season last year that saw him accumulate 80 tackles (8 tackles for loss), 10 pass break ups and 2.0 sacks. On top of that, he also had four forced fumbles which is a huge number for a safety. Powers was previously unranked before this update, but now he is a solid four-star recruit and No. 210 in the country.

What this means for Michigan State

It is no secret that we need help on defense, specifically in the secondary. Since Mel Tucker was hired four years ago, our secondary has arguably been our worst positional group. Having extremely talented recruits at this position is a great sign for our future.

Michigan State’s 2024 recruiting class is still pretty small. We currently have 13 commits and have the 49th ranked class in the country. This poor ranking is not up to our standards by any means, but some of that is due to having such a small number of recruits currently committed. Michigan State will likely rise in the team rankings as more kids commit to the program.

Jaylen Thompson, Justin Denson, Syair Torrence, and Camren Campbell join Powers as the 2024 Michigan State secondary commits.

Will Michigan State be able to hold on to Powers commitment?

This question can be asked for every current Michigan State commit. With the recent news regarding Mel Tucker and the poor on field play against Washington, there are serious questions surrounding the state of our program. No recruit has come out and said much in the last week about the state of our program. However, it would be silly to expect them not to be debating their options at this point.

Any four-star player is always a huge get, but when it’s at a positional need like in the secondary it is that much more important. We are only three months until signing day, so let’s hope we can hold on to him.

Continue Reading

FB RECRUITING

Mom of Nick Marsh blasts Freep for misleading headline

Not a good look for the Freep.

Published

on

Nick Marsh, Michigan State football
© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

The mother of Nick Marsh has not taken kindly to a headline by the Detroit Free Press that was used without permission.

In a sensitive time when recruits and current players are undoubtedly hoping to avoid questions about the Mel Tucker situation, it seems like the Detroit Free Press isn’t respecting the wishes of said recruits.

According to the mother of Nick Marsh, her son was approached with questions about the situation and he replied with “no comment” and the Detroit Free Press went on to use a misleading headline without permission.

She went off on the paper on Twitter.

There’s nothing that a recruit could say right now that could be emotionally fair given the situation. Asking them about the head coach that recruited them likely getting suspended and likely fired for a nasty incident is going to yield a mixed bag of responses. But if a player says no comment or visibly doesn’t want to speak about the matter, you respect that.

Clearly that didn’t happen in this case.

From the looks of it, the Freep may have burned bridges with one of the state’s best recruits. Not exactly good for business.

Marsh’s mom is right, though, you don’t publish a headline like that or use quotes when a player doesn’t want to comment. It should be common sense that any commit or recruit is waiting to see how Michigan State handles this situation before making a final decision.

Plus, this just isn’t the distraction needed for Nick Marsh during his senior season and with so much stress already added to his plate with the whole Tucker situation. Now he has to answer to people who believe his quote means that he’s leaving.

This comes just one day after Marsh’s mom expressed gratitude for Spartan moms who are helping to keep things intact during this mess.

Do better, Freep.

Continue Reading

Trending