Tuesday Wrecruiting Wrap Loathes It's Coach of Choice

 Zeke II passed away yesterday, he was 16. I ran into the owners of Zeke after his last game in 2006 as they were leaving the stadium. They were humble people who wanted to see their dog be successful for catching frisbees. And he was. If you ever had a dog you loved, you know what yesterday was like for his owners. Donations in Zeke's honor can be made to the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine's General Scholarship Fund.

Wrecruiting Wrap

Here's a bit of film on a few of our top prospects who are showing strong MSU interest.

Matt Alviti

Brogan Roback

Cameron Dillard

All three are quality prospects that MSU is in on. In the grand scheme of how likely these guys are to commit think of this. Alviti and Roback are QBs so we won't take both. All three prospects are not yet "imminent to commit" like RJ Shelton is on 2/25. However, all of these guys could be committed to their schools of choice by July(Summer Camp Season).

Loathe Your Coach of Choice

Yesterday afternoon, ESPN announced a poll to vote for your most disliked Big Ten coach. For me, the decision was simple, it's Bret Cornelius Bielema. For others is it not as simple. At the time of this posting Urbz has 36 percent of the vote to Bielema's 33.  It would make me laugh heartily should Bielema drop this one by just a percentage point or two. Although, Meyer winning this would be a point for me hating him more, how do you win most hated coach when you've only been a coach for three months in a league.

Don't worry. Dantonio is at least in the conversation at 23 percent. Hoke is not at 9 percent.

Friday Morning Hot Links

Outback Bowl Film Study: The Only Colors has it. The always excellent Heck Dorland does an outstanding job breaking down a third quarter drive in MSU's comeback win against Georgia in the Outback bowl. Required reading if you miss MSU football.


Divination, Tea Leaves and Real Estate Speculation: The class of 2012 was officially signed, sealed and delivered to MSU this week. If you want an excellent and quick overview check out the Little Brother Blog's write up on 2012 MSU Defensive Recruits and 2012 MSU Offensive Recruits.If something a little more official is your bag, MSU Spartans, has all the quotes about athleticism, change of direction and toughness you could want to read. If you want the super deep dive on MSU recruits hit that link for all of the write-ups we did this week. It's lame to link your own stuff in a links post, but there are some people who only read on the weekends. Chris Vannini points out that making predictions for the class of 2012 is not possible. He also hates freedom, joy and puppies. However, he wisely points out that a retrospective recruiting ranking would be more accurate. Luckily, if you're interested in such a thing, it exists. Spartan Nation examines a retrospective ranking of the class of 2008.

Urban Warfare(Pt. 2)

This is not 'Nam, Urban. This is recruiting, there are rules.

Bret Bielema thinks that Urban Meyer is "OVER THE LINE!" So, he's going to have Alvarez talk to "the league office. I don't know maybe have them forfeit the match." The point I was trying to make in yesterday's post was if you want to say the B1G has a Gentleman's Agreement, fine.When people don't adhere to that agreement, they are not gentlemen. That's fine too. But to publicly complain that decorum has been broken but no actual rules were violated makes you look less gentlemanly.  Also, the reason so many villains are southern gentlemen is because they do their dirty work behind closed doors.

I'm done talking recruiting until camp season or the next commit.

The BasketBOWL is Sunday and MSU really needs a win. Luckily Draymond appears to be ready to go. I wouldn't count on him at full strength. No previews are up on either side yet. Go Green. Beat the Wolverines.

Recruiting Wars, McJimbers and the Gentleman's Agreement

Earlier in the week, an article was written on Cantonrep.com titled "Buckeyes-Spartans Recruiting War Heating Up". In it, the author goes on to make Pat Narduzzi sound like an angry ex who felt he's been cheated out of things that rightfully belong to him. Further, Narduzzi goes on to talk about a gentlemen's agreement which existed between Dantonio and Tressel that involved leaving recruits unpoached.

Actual photographic evidence of when this agreement was made. Tressel, McJimbers and Dantonio

Normally, this wouldn't be cause to write a post, Narduzzi makes Dantonio look like Matt Lauer in front of a mike so you can't take him too seriously. However, this all came up yesterday again in the introductory press conference for the new recruits. In a Detroit News article titled "Mark Dantonio says recruiting committed players 'unethical'" It contains transcript from yesterday's press conference referencing the Urbaning of former MSU commit Se'Von Pittman.

It didn't sit well with the Spartans coaches and a few days ago defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi spoke about a "recruiting war" beginning.

On Wednesday, the feelings hadn't changed, though the Michigan State coaches were careful not to single out any team or coach.

"I would say it's pretty unethical," Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. "You ask people for a commitment, you ask for people's trust, ask for people to make a commitment to you, but then you turn around and say it's OK to go back after somebody else's commitment. That's a double standard.

"Everybody's got a job to do, there's a lot of pressure, but we're all grown men and we're trying to do a job, just like society today in every respect, whether it's a reporter or doctor or lawyer or somebody else. People are gonna try and do their job, they're gonna do what they have to do to get it done sometimes."

Look, I get that we're all pissed Meyer stole Pittman, but this seems over the top to me. Complaining about the poaching of an admittedly marquee recruit during your Signing Day PC seems petty. Pittman would have been a valuable addition to this class, but MSU will do without him as well.

I've never believed that Dantonio lives by this uber-ethical recruiting code as it pertains to committed kids. He may well have had a Gentlemen's Agreement with Tressel but both OSU and MSU fans can agree the greatest evil of the Big Ten lives in Ann Arbor. For Dantonio regarding committed kids, I've had the feeling that he'll put in a call and if they say no then he lets it go. Coincidentally, this is exactly what Meyer said yesterday.

"Sometimes they say, 'How can you go recruit a young guy committed to another school?'" Meyer said. "You ask a question, 'Are you interested?' If they say, 'No,' you move on. If they say, 'Yes, very interested,' then you throw that hook out there. If they're interested, absolutely [you recruit them], especially from your home state. Is it gratifying to take a guy from another school? Not at all."

Something tells me the process of saying no to Urbz goes a bit more like this though.

 I want to have Se'Von Pittman play football here. Call him and see if he's interested.

No Urbz. No Dice.

 Deploy the hookers and coke, ask if he's interested now.

No Urbz. No Dice.

Cars and tats?

No Urbz. No Dice.

Offer my heartfelt allegiance and this Simpsons Yo-Yo

Se'Von Pittman is on the phone.


What's always surprised me most of this adherence to an ethical code is that it is so counter to Dantonio's on the field attitude. On the field, Dantonio will gamble the whole game on a trick play because he knows he has a chance to play on the assumptions of others that a FG will be a FG and a punt a punt. Why does it surprise him so that someone would be willing to do the same thing in recruiting?

The class of 2013 needs to be man-by-man one of the strongest at MSU since he came here in 2007. MSU has enjoyed the on-field success of an elite program the past four years using elite recruits from the class of 2009 and 2010.  The classes of 2011 and 2012 are solid and 2012 is not far off from 2010 from a rating perspective, but if we want to continue having eleven win seasons and playing for Big Ten titles MSU needs to recruit at it's 2009 and 2010 level consistently.

In short, if Dantonio needs to ask a second time if a recruit means "No" when he calls, that's fine with me. Given the Urbaning of the Big Ten it's going to become part of what's necessary to win in November.

Pledge Week: Defensive Backs

Defensive back isn't a position of weakness for 2012, but particularly at corner MSU is a bit thin. This is probably as highly touted a class as we've had since 2010 at the position.

Demetrious Cox

Cox committed to MSU on 1/31/2012. He had a Single Redeemable Offer From Any School In The Country. For examples sake that includes Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, and Wisconsin. For an extremely detailed write-up on Cox click here. For a more concise version of the write-up stay right here. Cox was ranked a four-star recruit by all three recruiting services and was ranked as the 8th - 18th best safety prospect in the country depending on your recruiting service of choice.

On Spartanmag they have an article about Cox 'hitting too hard' something I didn't know could be done with clean hits. I thought about dropping a Jeremy Ware/Colin Sandeman joke, but NSD is a happy day for all CFB fans.



YouTubin'!

What's to love about this kid? Well he's fast. With all due respect to Leo's breakdown, he's the fastest kid I've watched yet while doing all these write-ups.Tremendous athletes can do tremendous things in the safety position once there learn where and when to be, Cox has that athleticism. On a more jokey note, you would think for all the money Terrelle Pryor made and the fact they went to the same high school that they would have been able to put some arrows in here so people could have some idea what they're watching. 

2012 Prognostication and Beyond: Redshirt in 2012 unless he doesn't want to be. With Jairus Jones, Kurtis Drummond and RJ Williamson all competing for Trenton Robinson's vacated safety spot I don't see him getting significant minutes over Drummond in particular who played a lot in 2011. Good candidate to replace Lewis when he leaves in 2013 as a starter in 2014.

Jermaine Edmondson

Jermaine Edmondson committed to MSU on 10/21/2011 over offers from Nebraska, Purdue and the MAC. He took a full five months longer than his teammate Se'Von Pittman to decide to come to MSU. That's totally ok, because when Urban Meyer called him the day he was hired he told Urbz he was busy washing his hair. Pittman went on to take an arrow to the knee and go scarlet and grey. Ranked a three-star prospect by all three recruiting services he'll either be a corner according to Scout and 247 or a Safety according to rivals. I think he ends up at corner, he fits the Chris L Rucker mold of a big corner who's good in run support.


Junior Highlights and YOUtube

Did I just get lucky that the first half dozen of these videos were straightforward? This video looks like it was directed by Michael Bay when he replaced his ritalin with speed. Edmondson looks plenty athletic enough to play the part and a pretty hard hitter. That's all I can get out of this. I'm going to go sit in a quiet dark room now.


2012 Prognostication and Beyond:Will play corner in college. Will redshirt in 2012 barring Angry Hating God type injuries at the CB position. Will see the field in 2013 after the departure of Johnny Adams.

Mark Meyers

Meyers committed to Michigan State over offers from the MAC and heavy interest from Nebraska and Illinois. Previously a Toledo Rockets commit, Meyers was able to get his grades in order and earn an offer to a Big Ten school. Ranked a three-star prospect by Rivals and Scout and two stars by 247, Meyers looks to contribute at the Safety position for MSU.






A Future Predictor of Success is YOUtube(Jr Highlights)

In this video it looks like Meyers got left to play centerfield and did exactly that. Which means he should pick up the Safety thing pretty quick because he was playing "read and react". "Read and react, that's what we play, Walter." "Shut the Fuck Up Donny." He has a good read on where the ball is going and good closing speed to get there and make a play. He doesn't appear to have elite speed but you don't need that if you know where the ball is going. Ask Eric Smith. Solid pickup.

2012 Prognostication and Beyond: There's kind of a safety logjam in progress for the next couple years. Certainly redshirts in 2012. Could see the field in 14 or 15.

Ezra Robinson

Robinson committed to MSU back in October over offers from Clemson, GT, Illinois, Duke and a host of Sun Belt offers. Ranked a three star prospect by all three major recruiting services Robinson will bring the patented SEC speed to the CB position for MSU. At 6'1 and 188 Robinson is another one of the big, physical corners that Dantonio likes to bring in and can lower the boomstick in run support. For an extremely detailed write-up check out Leo's stuff over at What Is Your Profession.


YOUtube

He has a 31 inch vertical. So that's nice.

2012 Prognostication and Beyond: Redshirts in 2012. Plays in 2014 or 2015. Will be excited to see some actual video of him someday.

Sorry guys, the available video on this guys was nowhere near as good as some of the other Position Groups, but all in all it should be a pretty good class.

Tuesday Thoughts

Work has been soul-crushingly busy leading up to the Holidays and is over for the year tomorrow. My wife suggested that I do something that I enjoy in the middle of the day today to avoid leaving a trail of end users in my jail-bound wake.


The Defense of Isaiah Lewis


It looks like Dantonio spent a deal of time in today's presser defending Isaiah Lewis' play in the Big Ten Title Game. Despite my twitter barf in the minutes immediately following the game, there's really no defense needed. He had two bad plays in the most critical moments of the game. The one below, eh, he might have been blocked into the punter, but it wasn't obvious. If it should have been called back it's because of the punter's obvious flop, there's no way the refs could have caught the below.



If you'll recall, Lewis was responsible for the interception returned for a touchdown to make the UM game 28-14. Further, he caught Wilson's moonball in the fourth quarter of the MSU-Wisconsin game. These are two I can think of off the top of my head. There are certainly others. No defense needed Lewis nets out as a plus player for MSU by a lot.

Bowl Practices


As with every bowl practice season, there are rumors of position changes. It sounds like Tony Lippett has been practicing at WR this off-season and that will be his position next year. I really hope this is because he is filthy talented at WR and that CB is coming along nicely. The idea of moving our third best corner to WR makes me a bit itchy.

There are rumors that Darien Harris has been playing at RB, this was the position he played in HS. I'm not really sure what to make of that. MSU didn't take a running back in 2011, but like, the Bell, Baker, Caper, Hill logjam will still be right in front of Harris in 2012. By 2013, it'll still be Bell and Hill and Tompkins and others should be making some headway by then. Hopefully, this is some college experimentation in a consequence free environment.

Micajah Reynolds is back at DT with the injuries to Pickelman and Strayhorn. Huge dap to him for being able to play whatever position needs help. I do hope they settle him somewhere soon, he'll be a junior next year, the clock is starting to tick.

The Changing Recruiting Landscape

Seriously, go home and make sure your loved ones haven't bolted for OSU.

Well, Urban Meyer makes phone calls and brings kids to OSU. The Pittman thing, was, crappy. The following will sound a bit like denialism, homerism, etc. That's fine. This is a Michigan State blog, so I write it that way.

Here's the first couple sentences of Pittman's recruiting article from SpartanMag.

"Michigan State landed what can be deemed a surprise verbal commitment from Canton (Ohio) McKinley four-star defensive end Se'Von Pittman on Sunday afternoon. "

More:

When did it hit you that Michigan State was the right choice for you?

Pittman: If you would've asked me this question yesterday, I wouldn't have had no type of answer for you. But just sitting there with my parents (on Sunday) and we just talked about my top five and colleges that best fit me, and my mom kept telling me that she felt Michigan State was and she gave me some reasons and stuff like that, and I agreed. So we made the decision I should commit a couple hours before I committed. 

The following is a timeline for the majority of MSU summer commits.

• Kid comes to campus (1 to n) number of times and shows off why he deserves a scholly to Mark Dantonio and staff
• Mark Dantonio calls kid at some future date and says "Hai there, come on up to MSU, we need to have a talk" Knowing full well what this call will be about the recruit schedules a time, brings parents and comes up.
• Kid is given offer and told to go home before committing.
• Mark Dantonio follows-up with visit/phone call/handwritten letter/smoke signal/telegraph/box of chocolates.
• Kid commits usually soon, one week or less.

I'm not going to graph this, no one wants to see a single bar of me being right on this. It's pretty solid if you follow MSU football recruiting at all. There were several things about this commit that seemed a bit fishy. One, the whole we just talked about it on Father's Day and now I'm committed to MSU thing seems and seemed weird to me. Two, the whole snagging an Ohio kid with a real Ohio State offer thing seemed fishy. OSU would have needed to be down for a couple years for me to feel like we weren't stealing one. Finally, he and Adolphus Washington for months talked about playing together despite Washington showing no real interest in MSU. The writing was on the wall a bit before Meyer became the Mayor of C-bus. Afterwards, Meyer is the Unicron of good midwestern recruits.

Which brings me to my next point. Meyer should absolutely fight to get every Ohio kid he wants that is not going to school at OSU next year. Recruiting committed players to or from schools with coaching changes has always made sense to me. When a new coach enters the equation, they haven't had their shot yet. Still, anyone who coached in the SEC isn't above commit poaching and I think he better be careful he's not TOO successful at it in the 2013 class. If a half dozen schools put elbow grease into negative recruiting it will add up at some point.

Our Struggling Pretty Average Offensive Line

I have to say, the most improved position group from Youngstown State to Wisconsin Part Deux: The Cheese Filled Nightmare was the Offensive Line. The pass protection of our offensive line at year end was a plus and the run blocking improved quite a bit and was probably average. MSU's depth at Offensive Tackle is still frighteningly thin. Interior line has better depth, but loses Foreman next year. MSU returns four starters next year though and this group should pick up right where it left off. 

Enjoy the hot MACtion of the bowl games, film breakdown coming soon.

OSU: An Urban Legend

If you're reading this article, it means that Urban Meyer has been announced as the coach at Ohio State. I wrote it pre-emptively on November 23rd, in anticipation of the LEGEND of Urban being hired over Thanksgiving day weekend.

Urban Meyer is a great hire not only for OSU, but the Big Ten. He is without question in the cream of the crop in terms of college coaches and will make the Big Ten better. With all of the "O'Doyle Rules" about the SEC, don't you want the Big Ten to be better? I do.

Short Term

- If he brings his Spread Option, he already has a great QB for the Spread Option in Braxton Miller. Give Miller a year to learn the system, then watch out.
- While I wouldn't worry about Ohio recruits jumping ship from other Big Ten schools yet, I'd certainly make sure to give them a bit of extra love.

Medium Term 

- This might actually increase MSU's chances with the pro-iest Pro Style recruits. A dropback passer is not a person who will do well in Meyer's preferred offense, nor are beefy linebackers.
- Odds are Meyer will have a lot of initial success recruiting nationally, this means more regional prospects should be available to MSU in Ohio. Think Johnny Adams, BJ Cunningham, Marcus Rush types. This is a backhanded positive for MSU.

Long Term

- I'm not quite sure if Meyer will be as successful as he was in the SEC. This may sound dickish, but he never stayed anywhere long enough to have "Long Term" Success. His longest HC stop was in Florida where he won the two titles in four years. I think he'll be able to whip a talented OSU team into shape pretty quickly, but Long Term Success is far from a given, but definitely projected.

- He will however, make OSU better in a couple of years and that is long enough term for me. He has succeeded everywhere he's gone and unless OSU is different because he's taking care of his health instead of working 278 hours a week, that will be true here too.

When Mark Dantonio was hired in 2006, Jim Tressel was quoted as saying, "The neighborhood just got tougher." That's also true here, the neighborhood just got tougher with the hiring of Urban Legend. I'm excited. Tougher football is better football.