Here's Your Shield, R.J. Shelton

The Spartans picked up their fourth commitment Sunday from Wisconsin running back R.J. Shelton.  Most of the recruiting sites haven't yet evaluated .  Only 247 has a rating for him -- 3 stars.  It also looks like the Spartan coaches got out ahead of other programs.  MSU was the first B1G program to offer Shelton, shortly thereafter he was noticed and offered by Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  It appears that Bielema personally called Shelton to try to keep him instate, but MSU's early interest seems to have paid off.

Shelton has good size (5'11" and 185 lbs), and he is listed as running the 40 in 4.5 seconds.  That seems about right; he looks like a 4.5 guy in his video:

The immediate reaction is to see Shelton as the next Edwin Baker, as they move in a similar way.  If you look at this next video of Baker (at the 1:15 mark), you can see that Baker was bigger and more powerful in high school.  He may also have been faster -- according to Scout he ran the 40 in 4.4 seconds. 

Shelton was only a junior in his video, so some physical improvement seems likely. Nonetheless, Shelton already shows some excellent talent and athleticism.  He's another guy who makes you realize that it's too early to panic about recruiting.  After all, how can anyone be upset about taking a running back with competing offers from Iowa and Wisconsin?

Shelton's commitment should wrap up the running back recruiting, between Shelton and Holmes the Spartans have secured a speed/power back combo.  The Spartans now have 5 young guys who could step in for Caper after 2012 or Bell should he leave early for the draft.  

Here's Your Shield, Jalyn Powell

The Spartans have picked up their 3rd commitment from Ohio safety,  Jalyn Powell.  Powell attends Warren G. Harding high school, home of former Spartan DB Chris L. Rucker. Once again, it looks like the Spartan coaches have jumped ahead of most of the recruiting services, so the information on Powell is limited, and in some cases conflicting.  Only 247 has a rating for him, and they consider him a 3-star guy.  Otherwise, Scout says that Powell received offers from Michigan, and West Virginia, and that Ohio State is showing interest in him.  All of the other sites, however, list MSU as his only offer.

Powell has great size for a safety (6'1" and 185 lbs.).  If you believe ESPN, which is the only site that has a 40 meter time for him, he seems to be a little slow (at 4.86 seconds).  But folks, you tell me if you believe this guy is slow:

In this video, Powell looks like the best athlete on the field.  There are several moments where he makes everyone else look like they're standing still.  On defense he shows some pretty good instincts and he brings the lumber when he tackles.  I have to say, this is some of the best highlight video I've ever seen.  That makes Powell one of the most exciting prospects I've ever reviewed.

Powell is being recruited as a safety, but to me he looks like a guy that could excel at many other positions, including wide receiver, linebacker, and running back. He fits the mold of a Dantonio safety and will be a great addition to the class of 2013 for the Green and White.

Here's Your Shield Jonny Reschke

Photo Credit: 247 Sports

Jonny Reschke announced his commitment to Michigan State via Twitter this afternoon. "Just joined the Spartan family. COMMITTED TO MICHIGAN STATE!!!!". Reschke is ranked a four-star recruit by Rivals, Scout and 247 Sports. Reschke reports offers from Michigan State and Toledo and will play Middle Linebacker for the Spartans. His commitment wasn't expected today but MSU did not take a Middle Linebacker prospect last year and the rumor was MSU was leaving this spot specifically for Reschke to become Bullough's replacement. Some idiot blogger guest writing for the Only Colors even went so far to project him as our 2015 Mike.

Obviously this early in the recruiting cycle there's no reason to get too worked up about a lack of offers. If this were August and he were rolling two offers deep I'd be a bit more concerned.

A Predictor of Future Success is YOUtube

What's to love about this kid? He sheds his blocks really well. There are several times in the two minutes of the video where a dude runs up to him and Reschke slides the kid out of his way. He seems to run to the sidelines really well and attacks through the offensive line quite nicely.  Swagger, he has it. I think there is no more important place in a sport for swagger than playing defense in American football. Areas for improvement? He tackles high and doesn't always take the best angle but that's a little nitpicky. The things that matter, size, speed and swagger are all there.

Jonny Reschke was the Mike of the future probably as far back as a year ago. We've been keeping this spot warm for him and today he's taken it. He'll be a great addition to the MSU defense and I'm excited about this commitment.

Here's Your Shield, Gerald Holmes

The Spartans have received their first commitment for the 2013 class in the form of Gerald Holmes, a running back from Flint, Michigan.  Holmes is very much under-the-radar, at this point.  None of the recruiting sites have rated him, yet, and he only has offers from Central Michigan and Toledo.  The only other data available on Holmes is about his size.  He is approximately 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 lbs, which suggests that Holmes is slated to become the successor to Larry Caper or Le'Veon Bell.

In fact, there are moments in his high school video highlights when Holmes looks a little like Caper and a little like Bell.  Here's Bell as a senior in high school (unable to embed video, unfortunately), and here's Caper as a senior in high school:

And here's Holmes' as a junior in high school:

We can see that Holmes is not quite as big as either Bell or Caper, yet.  In his senior year Bell was listed as approximately 6'2" and 215-220 lbs (currently he is listed as 6'2" and 237 lbs.) and Caper was listed as 5'11" and  215-220 lbs (currently he is listed as 5'11" and 223 lbs.).  But Holmes is only a junior in high school, so it's quite possible that he could grow a little taller and that he could add some weight in the next 6 months or so before he enters his senior year.

In the videos we can also see that Holmes is probably in between Bell and Caper in terms of speed.  He looks faster than Bell but not quite as fast as Caper.  When you consider that guys like Monty Madaris and MacGarrett Kings looked a little faster in their senior year highlights relative to their junior year highlights, it's possible that Holmes could get closer to playing at Caper's speed by his senior year.  Of course, we'll have to wait for Holmes' senior year highlights to come out before we can re-examine his speed.

We can also see that in terms of power, Holmes runs more like Bell.  He doesn't get brought down by arm tackles and there are even moments where he tries to hit tacklers before they hit him (check out 1:37).  Holmes is not yet as punishing a runner as Bell; in Bell's video we can see that many tacklers just bounced off of him and in many cases they just get out of the way.  But Holmes is pretty physical.  Holmes also moves a little like Bell.  He has a similar array of moves, including a nice spin move (at about 0:50).

One concern I have about Holmes is that in a lot of the highlights he's running outside the tackles, kind of like Larry Caper.  In the Big Ten he'll find he doesn't have the speed to do that -- perhaps even Caper is struggling with that.  A bigger concern may be that we can't tell if Holmes can do all the little things well, the way Bell was able to do right away as a freshman.  As the video below points out, Bell was able to contribute right away because he was good at running, catching, and blocking.  I should note, though, that Holmes does make some nice catches and blocks in his highlights.  But it's hard to know from highlight videos if he can do everything consistently well.

So the upshot is that there's a lot to like about Holmes.  There is a good possibility that he could end up around the same size as Caper and perhaps even Bell, and there is a good possibility that he'll end up slightly less speedy  and agile than Caper.  If so, he should eventually end up with at least 3 stars and perhaps even move up to 4-star territory.  On the other hand, there is always the possibility that he could struggle to add size and speed, and that would pretty much mean that he ends up a 2-star recruit.

So now the Spartans have recruited 3 running backs in the last year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go after another big back.  They are well stocked with the smaller, quicker running backs (Nick Hill, Nick Tompkins, Marcus Horne), but they'll be losing Larry Caper this year and Le'Veon Bell the next year (if he doesn't leave early for the draft).  The only big back they have coming in is Holmes, so adding one more big back could be in the offing.

Here's Your Shield Tres Barksdale

Note: Leo is in the kitchen working on the Gerald Holmes post. Have you ever tried to make a Baked Alaska? Sheesh.

MSU announced yesterday that has accepted Tres Barksdale as a preferred walk-on for the class of 2012. Barksdale is ranked a two-star prospect by Scout and unranked by the other two recruiting services. He was a Georgetown Hoyas football commit(they don't award scholarships in football), so expect an angry phone call from Kevin Kelly about poaching commits. (Not really.) As a senior Barksdale snagged 32 catches for 411 yards and 5 Touchdowns. Interestingly, as a sophomore he had 38 grabs for 578 yards and 5 Touchdowns. That likely means doesn't mean anything, I just thought it was interesting.

Barksdale goes 6'2" and 183. So in case you were worried Dantonio forgot he likes wide receivers who only shop the big and tall section, he hasn't.

A Predictor of Future Success is YOUtube

This video was compiled across his last three years of high school from 2009-2011. What's to love about this kid? He does a nice job after the catch slipping the initial tackle and getting a few extra yards. He does well catching passes in the middle of the field. His hands are good in this highlight video, but you don't build a three year highlight video and show him flat out dropping a pass. Obviously he's missing elite speed and that's why he had no FBS offers. He's getting caught from behind or losing ground whenever he gets into a breakaway situation.

Obviously he redshirts this year, whether he sees the field at MSU or not is a matter of time. Still, the thing that makes good football programs into great football programs is a healthy walk-on program.

Bonus Links


Six Spartans were invited to the combine yesterday. Edwin Baker, Kirk Cousins, B.J. Cunningham, Keshawn Martin, Trenton Robinson and Jerel Worthy all received invitations. Worthy and Baker were late additions because juniors aren't included in the first round of invitations. Notably absent was Brian Linthicum, if you're a team that uses your Tight Ends to disguise pre-snap play calls and then throws to your Tight End, you best be looking at this guy. Niners, Pats and Lions I'm looking at you.

Trenton Robinson reports a cop for his potty mouth.Greg Jones proposes to his girlfriend right after winning the Super Bowl, which on the list of manly ways to propose is pretty close to the top. KJ talks tempo-free over on the Only Colors. The Georgia Leather Helmet Blog talks about yesterday's film study on the MSU defense.

Monday Morning Hot Links

Yesterday afternoon, the Men's hoops team knocked off Michigan basketball 64-54 at the Breslin. An excellent win against a Michigan team who has been solid at home and kind of flaky on the road this year. Beilein is doing good things in Ann Arbor. Chris Vannini says about the Michigan State win.

While the Izzone chanted "little sister" as the final seconds counted down, don't expect "order to be restored," as it were. As I said before the game, this U-M program is still on the upswing, as is MSU (18-5, 7-3). The rivalry won't be like the old days, but this was an old-time performance by MSU.

Quick Soapboxing. I hate the "little sister" chant. It's inference of course being that being little sister is worse than being little brother. The little brother chant is juvenile, arrogant and priggish and you only hear it from the crappy Wolverine fans. The little sister chant is priggish, unoriginal(it's derived from the "little brother" chant) and sexist. Don't give the wolverines the satisfaction of making our fan base unoriginal and sexist.[/Soapboxing]

Update: In rereading you might get the impression I was picking on Vannini for pointing that out, I wasn't. I only pick on him about recruiting.


How did MSU win so well? It never hurts when Draymond "Rickety Knee" Green outrebounds the entire Michigan "We did not want to dirty our hands getting boards" Basketball team. 16-15. So the remainder of the boards picked up by MSU, 23 more to be exact, could be applied to drop the whoopings as necessary.

That wasn't all the good news though in terms of beating our friends down the road, the Lady Spartans knocked off the Lady Wolverines 65-63 in Ann Arbor yesterday. Porsche Poole was in beast mode as she dropped 23 points, grabbed nine boards and had five assists. Good win for the women as they improve to 14-9 and prepare for postseason action.

But wait, there's more... The Michigan State icers swept Ohio State on OSU's way to a ten game winless streak Hockey rankings confuse me, I do not understand how OSU could lose or tie eight straight prior to last weekend and still be ranked 10th. The wins sounded pretty convincing and prevented Spartan tailspin.

Update 2: Just found a new blog out there called the The Munn Minute. They obviously are not covering golf. Stop by and welcome them if you're into Hockey.

Football News. Congratulations to Devin Thomas and Greg Jones on winning their first of hopefully many Super Bowl rings. That was a doozy of a game was it not?

Gerald Holmes a big bodied running back out of Flint Carmen-Ainsworth committed to MSU as the first member of the class of 2013. He chose MSU over an offer from Central Michigan writes the Little Brother Blog. I've said for a while that unless Darien Harris sticks at RB MSU has no big backs after Bell. That changes with Holmes "commit". A more substantive "Here's Your Shield" later.

Are you missing football already? Tomorrow we have the Outback Bowl defensive film review coming up, c'mon back for that. Today head over to College Football Zealots and check out the 2011 Exit Survey I did for them.

Here's Your Shield: DeAnthony Arnett

Here's Your Shield can be used for transfers too. AMIRITE?

Last night DeAnthony Arnett announced his transfer to Michigan State. He was rumored to have picked between MSU, UM and ND. Some of the other fans are saying he didn't have a (insert sour grapes school) offer, all schools have fans that roll with sour grapes. Arnett may be eligible to play in 2012 if he is granted a hardship waiver on account of his father's illness, if not he will begin playing football in 2013 for MSU as a redshirt freshman. The health issues of Arnett are such that the hardship waiver should be a lock, but you know, this is the NCAA.

Arnett initially selected Tennessee over an Offer Redeemable At Any School in The United States. At the time he selected UT over MSU, USC and Cal. So... when he thinks to move home to be closer to his sick dad, I'm pretty sure USC and Cal don't really help with that. Arnett said several times during his recruitment he wanted to play in a pro-style offense, so the resurgence of Michigan coupled with the claim of reverting back to the pro-style offense made me a bit anxious he'd be wearing blue. However, the difference between Borges and Calvin McGee was much smaller than the difference between Roushar and Borges this year.


Arnett beats a Buffalo Linebacker to the edge.


Nice catch of a ball behind Arnett around the 3:05 mark.

In 2011, Arnett had 24 catches for 242 yards and 2 TDs. He had receptions in seven of 12 games despite playing in all 12. With UT averaging 242 yards in the passing game, I don't know that I'd read a whole lot into it one way or the other. UT's offense was a tire fire finishing 106th in total scoring offense, 104th in total yardage offense and 50th in passing yardage offense. So while this isn't a case of Sammy Watkins coming to MSU, I think he could very well live up to his pre-UT billing.

Arnett is listed at 6'1" and 175 although if he is bigger than 5'11" and 160 I'd be surprised. If you look at him and Keshawn (6'0 and 180), they simply do not look the same. Which is a nice segue into the role Arnett will play. Arnett will be playing the role of 2012 Keshawn Martin. Since Arnett has been a WR all along, I think you will see less of the issues Martin had growing into the position of slot WR his freshman and sophmore years, but he might be absent some of Keshawn's knack for making magical plays.

What Will His Impact Be On The WR Group?

Arnett is another talented but largely unproven commodity for the 2012 Michigan State WR corps. He's seen more gametime than anyone who will be starting in 2012 save perhaps Bennie Fowler. At his size, I worry a bit about durability. He has the shake and bake to shake any corner in single coverage, but I don't know if he has the deep speed to stretch the field on every play. In short, I think he'll be an excellent replacement for Martin in the slot and we're lucky to have him.

Here's Your Shield: Ezra Robinson

MSU received it's 16th commitment on Thursday from Sarasota Florida's Ezra Robinson. Robinson was recruited as a Defensive Back and select MSU over a host of Big Ten and ACC schools including Boston College, North Carolina and Wake Forest. Robinson is ranked a 3 star prospect and #51 CB in the nation according to rivals.com. Scout disagrees slightly, listing him also as a 3 star prospect, but 103rd in the nation.

Here's an interview with him from his sophomore year.



He hit that 10 foot broad jump.

The Takeaway: Robinson is a corner recruited by Dantonio who as a former Defensive Backs coach obviously has an eye for the position. The lack of an offer from any Georgian, Floridian or South Carolinan school would have me a mite skittish if it weren't for Dantonio's aforementioned reputation for making good cornerbacks.

Athleticism won't be an issue for Robinson. With a 31 inch vertical and over 10 feet in the broad jump. He has the leaping ability to play the position. Still not convinced? He's the Sarasota County record holder of the triple jump with a 44' 4" jump and an 11.46 in the 100 Meter Dash at the County Championship meet. The 100 meter dash time is not stellar, but given Robinson's destruction of all events jumping I think explosiveness is a strength for this young man.

Robinson's commitment likely closes out our Cornerback recruiting for 2012. It looks like MSU would take one of Demetrious Cox or Jordan Diggs, both highly sought after recruits for the Safety position. Both are A-List DB prospects, but if neither wants to come to MSU I suspect we're done in the Secondary for this year.

Welcome Ezra Robinson.

Gah! There was a bunch of stuff wrong on this write-up. He apparently did have offers from Clemson, GT and South Florida. I only found these things after reading What Is Your Profession? so go check out their write-up which is fairly similar, except more accurate.

Here's Your Shield: Kodi Kieler

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.