Jonathan Smith had less than a month to cobble together his first recruiting class at Michigan State.
A year later, he had the entire cycle the scour to country in what was a less stressful process but that didn’t mean there weren’t tense moments.
Smith and his staff landed 17 scholarship players on Wednesday to open the early signing period in the 2025 class and beat out a few heavyweights at the wire. The Spartans flipped running back Jace Clarizio back from Alabama and held on to defensive back Aydan West despite a late push from Ohio State.
“I think it shows we can compete at the highest level,” Smith said on Wednesday. “A couple of these guys had really high-profile options and we were able to have them choose us and believe in us, so I think it shows a great direction of where we’re headed.”
Michigan State lost 41-14 against Rutgers last week in to finish 5-7 in Smith’s first season and miss a bowl game for the third straight year. All 17 players signed are three-star prospects in the 247Sports Composite, which late Wednesday night ranked the class at 16th in the Big Ten and 57th in the nation.
“Exciting day, kind of a finish line of a lot of work,” Smith said. “I’m really pleased kind of where we landed today. It’s one piece of the puzzle putting your roster together but it’s really an important one, no doubt.”
Michigan State hasn’t finished in the 50s of the rankings since Mark Dantonio’s first class in 2007 and this group would mark the low in the modern era of online recruiting. However, the ability to rapidly rebuild through the portal changes roster management.
“I’m not here to say stars don’t mean anything at all,” Smith said. “We will trust our evaluations and whatnot and there’s some four-star, five-star column that, yeah, we would love to have if we think fit and we would like to get a few more of those but if they truly fit our place.
“The landscape of how it’s continuing, roster retention – I don’t know if it’s as vital to win a championship (needing a highly-ranked recruiting class) because you can add to your roster in different ways than maybe in years past on the portal.”
Smith, who had a total of 61 new players on the roster this year after arriving from Oregon State, pointed out a couple of notable battles won on the recruiting trail Wednesday, starting in the program’s backyard. Clarizio, a program legacy from East Lansing High School, committed to the Spartans in May before Alabama swooped in with an offer last month. He flipped to the Crimson Tide last week but was officially back in the fold before 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
“You just keep competing,” Smith said of Clarizio. “All of us felt really, really confident that our place was a great fit for him and not just because he is a couple of miles away from the campus. The relationships we built, learning his personality type, his attributes, his family, we got a chance to do that over a long period of time so you’re just competing all the way to the end and reechoing some of the messages where we’re headed with this program, how he fits.”
West, from Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md., committed to the Spartans in June before other schools jumped in late. He picked up an offer from Ohio State while on a visit last week before a trip to East Lansing. Even though Michigan State cornerbacks coach Demetrice Martin left this week for a job at UCLA, West stuck with the Spartans.
“He had a great relationship with Coach Meat but we do try as a staff to have multiple relationships, not just the position coach,” Smith said of West. “I think it’s important for recruits to choose places (for) more than just their position coach because how things can change. I think Aydan took a wholistic look at everything we’ve got going on and still felt really good about it.”
In addition to securing Clarizio and West, the Spartans added a surprise as the first signee in the class. Leonard Ah You, a three-star linebacker from Hawaii who signed with Smith’s 2023 class at Oregon State before taking a two-year Latter-day Saints mission, is headed to East Lansing.
“We’ve had guys come back from Mormon missions that, yeah, it’s going to take a little bit,” Smith said of the time off from football. “He gets back here in April, he has a full summer of training, we feel great that he’ll be able to get in shape.”
The early signing period ends Friday and Smith said there’s a chance of adding from the high school ranks in the next window that starts in February but this should be the bulk of that group. Michigan State’s signing class features nine players on defense – including four defensive backs – and eight on offense. They come from 10 different states with six from Michigan, along with additions from Florida to Texas to Hawaii.
“A heavy dose kind of on this inside-out approach,” Smith said of starting with homegrown talent. “I think a reoccurring theme, these guys are coming from quality programs, a lot of winners in this class. … I think there’s value with that, guys that have spent their experience in high school at a program that values doing things right and winning at a high level.”
Ahead of the expected move to revenue sharing next year, name, image and likeness dollars remain a significant factor in recruiting. Although there has been grumbling from some fans about where Michigan State fits in that area, Smith highlighted Spartan Nation NIL for its funding.
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