Michigan State football has a new 4-star in its 2025 class

Michigan State football recruiting has been rather quiet since the end of official visit season. The 2025 class currently sits at 16 commitments and is ranked just No. 56 nationally. While it’s not a star-studded class, it feels like the ones from the prime Mark Dantonio days.

There are a lot of low ego, high output players committed in 2025.

And Jonathan Smith is focusing on the Midwest, more specifically the state of Michigan.

As you probably remember, Dantonio did the same thing and was wildly successful with that strategy. He landed recruits from the Midwest that were overlooked by Michigan and Ohio State and unleashed them in those games where they had a ton of success. The Spartans were hammering the Midwest recruiting home and Smith is doing a lot of the same.

In fact, he has four of the top 12 prospects in the state of Michigan committed in his 2025 class.

One of those four just happened to get a big rankings boost on Wednesday, jumping into the Top247 on 247Sports and earning a fourth star after being labeled a three-star defensive linemen throughout the process. That prospect is four-star Derrick Simmons.

Update: #MichiganState DT commit Derrick Simmons is now a Top247 four-star prospect.

The Frankenmuth (MI) product is MSU’s 1st 247Sports 4⭐️ commit this cycle.

Simmons talked to me about the honor & MSU’s belief in him: “It means the world to me.”https://t.co/WGDzA8kZWS (VIP) pic.twitter.com/PC6pR4THn8

— Justin Thind (@JustinThind) October 16, 2024

This newfound love from the recruiting service has Simmons as the No. 3 prospect in the state of Michigan and the top two are committed to LSU and Pitt, respectively. That means that Michigan State has the highest-ranked in-state prospect who is staying home. Michigan’s highest is Avery Gach who is one spot behind Simmons at No. 4 in the state.

The 6-foot-3, 270-pound defensive lineman from Frankenmuth is also now ranked No. 245 nationally and is the Spartans’ highest-ranked commit in that 2025 class. He’s done well enough this summer and to start his senior year to make a massive rankings jump.

The other Spartans in the top 12 in the state in the new update are Di’Mari Malone (No. 10), Jace Clarizio (No. 11), and Charles White (No. 12). Bryson Williams (No. 16) and Jayden Savoury (No. 17) are the other in-state prospects committed to Michigan State football.

Smith is working the state of Michigan hard on the recruiting trail and it’s paying off.