The "Here's Your Shield" series will be monitoring MSU football and basketball commitments. We'll try to do a detailed breakdown of who the kids are and how they'll be helping the teams they've committed to.
On Monday night, when my car broke down and I was sitting in the parking lot of VG's where I held my first job as a teenager waiting for someone to come pick me up, I saw the Spartans had picked up a commitment from Kodi Kieler a 6'6" 305 athlete from Gibraltar Carlson. Kieler was offered at Offensive Tackle and accepted.
Kieler has a pretty so-so offer sheet consisting of Minnesota, Purdue and the MAC. You might think I mean all of the schools offered, but I don't. I mean the MAC sent a single offer redeemable at all 12 schools. With this commitment, I believe MSU has closed out their OL recruiting for the 2012 cycle. Scout lists Kieler as a three-star prospect, Rivals as of yet has no rating.
This has led to a pretty goodly amount of hand-wringing from the MSU faithful as some fans believe that we could have vetted some "better" prospects before offering a kid who did not come to MSU summer camp. The last recruit I remember this much hand-wringing about was LeVeon Bell, and he sure sucked.* While hand-wringing about the quality of recruit does not inversely correlate to the recruits success, I remember similar whining about Trenton Robinson, Darqueze Dennard, Trae Waynes(haven't seen him play yet)and Derek Hoebing. Congrats Kodi Kieler, if Spartan questioning of ability is any indication of future success you have a 75 percent chance of starting by your senior year. **
* - Sarcasm.
** - True Fact.
In the Big Ten, the Iowas, MSUs and Wisconsin's of the world love to pick up 6'6 240 lbs type TEs because they can grow into TEs, OTs, DEs, DTs and even sometimes OGs. With Kieler, I think they saw another Dan France type where France was projected as a DT but might be more successful as an OT. Kieler is listed with Rivals as a Strongside Defensive End, but it's clear the intent is for him to play OT.
If YouTube video existed it would go here. Since there is not, there is video behind the Rivals paywall here
The BDF BFD Take: Kieler is a kid with a so-so offer sheet who from what I can tell did not attend any camps this summer. This smacks on a much smaller level of the Keshawn Martin situation where he did not attend any camps and thus was not noticed. If the staff was willing to offer despite the lack of a camp appearance and no pressing need to fill the spot(it is only August after all) you can bet Dantonio and crew want him. That's good enough for me.
Kieler appears to have good feet and a nice quick burst, he's got the right kind of frame to put on a few more pounds, but doesn't need to put on a lot of weight to be effective at the next level. I'd expect him to redshirt his freshman year as most of his best highlights appear to be on the DE side of the ball. Additionally, if you're starting a true freshman OT you're usually in trouble. By all accounts Kieler looks to be a solid pickup with some boom potential if the transition from DE to OT goes smoothly.
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