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The Nick Marsh re-commitment was rare, but exactly how rare?

Mel Tucker pulled off a rare feat.

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Mel Tucker
© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

Nick Marsh re-committed to Michigan State football on Friday evening which is a rare move, but just how rare is it?

Mel Tucker and Co. pulled off a rare task.

The Spartans got some good news on Friday when Nick Marsh committed to Michigan State. The four-star in-state talent from River Rouge High School is no stranger to the green and white. Marsh made headlines back in 2022 when he became the first player to commit to the Spartans 2024 class in July. To the surprise of Spartan fans, Marsh withdrew his commitment eight months later to explore more options.

Marsh would go on to take visits to Kansas, Pitt, and Penn State. Penn State was seen as the primary threat for Michigan State, but Marsh’s recent visit with the Spartans pulled him back to East Lansing.

With the transfer portal now in place, we’ll continue to see player movement increase. Fluidity is the name of the game. While players changing their commitments isn’t rare, players re-committing to the same school they de-committed from is. But how rare is it?

Since 2012, Michigan State had a total 0f 21 players that committed to the Spartans but eventually withdrew their commitment:

  • Nick Marsh
  • Jaylon Braxton
  • Kedrick Reescano
  • Colton Hood
  • Jayvant Brown
  • Demetrius Bell
  • Naquan Jones
  • Clay Wedin
  • Johnathan Slack
  • Bo Edmundson
  • Shannon Blair
  • Rayshaun Benny
  • Audric Estime
  • Jah’von Grigsby
  • Gabe Nealy
  • D’Wan Mathis
  • Jordan Huff
  • Joseph Scates
  • Cassius Peat
  • Raheem Blackshear
  • Chris Durkin

Nick Marsh joins Naquan Jones as the only two players to recommit to the Spartans. While this may not seem significant, it works out to be 9.52%. That percentage puts Michigan State as the third-highest team in the Big Ten in this category. This shows how rare this feat really is. In this same timeframe, Wisconsin had a total of 11 de-commitments with 2 returning (18.18%). This put the Badgers as the No. 1 team in the conference. Second is Indiana with three of their 27 de-commitments returning (11.11%).

In total, the Big Ten had 466 players withdraw their commitments from the schools they initially committed to. Of these, 22 (4.72%) of them eventually returned to the same school. The lowest on the list are Maryland and Purdue tied at zero percent. Maryland had a total of 39 decommits while the Boilermakers had 28.

What Mel Tucker and his staff were able to do with Nick Marsh is impressive and deserves recognition. More than ever, college sports isn’t just about finding the players you want but also keeping them. Once a player is in the portal or no longer committed to a school, it’s a free for all.

Trying to regain a player in this process is extremely difficult and the stats reflect that.

All stats provided by @GreatLakesFungi and @Stats_R4_Losers on Twitter.

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

This would be a tough loss.

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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.

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Michigan State football commit shoots up the recruiting rankings

Reggie Powers got a nice bump.

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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.

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Mom of Nick Marsh blasts Freep for misleading headline

Not a good look for the Freep.

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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.

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