MSU 4* RB decommits
Tuck may be comin' but his recruits are leavin'.
Reescano joins three other four-star prospects — cornerback Jaylon Braxton from Texas, wide receiver Demitrius Bell from Tennessee and offensive lineman Clay Wedin from Florida — to decommit from the Spartans since July.
October 27th, 2022 at 5:54 PM ^
Gold.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:01 PM ^
Tuck already came and now the program is in a flaccid state.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:15 PM ^
Year 3 refractory?
October 27th, 2022 at 6:18 PM ^
After KW3 Tuck rolled over and went to sleep.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:33 PM ^
Come again?
October 27th, 2022 at 8:01 PM ^
He can't. He shriveled up
October 27th, 2022 at 8:04 PM ^
It was the shrinkage!
October 28th, 2022 at 5:36 AM ^
Sparties love their county music. Especially the Marginal Tucker Band.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:04 PM ^
Cruits leavin'.
October 27th, 2022 at 8:09 PM ^
Needs more upvotes
October 27th, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Thank you for your service
October 27th, 2022 at 9:52 PM ^
My other fav
October 27th, 2022 at 5:52 PM ^
He seems like a rational young man with solid perspective.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:33 PM ^
Boosters paid so much for Tuck that there isn’t an money left for the recruits!
October 27th, 2022 at 7:57 PM ^
After realizing how they've paid, boosters are reaching for the Tucks Medicated Pads. $95M guaranteed is becoming more painful than a "roid"!
October 27th, 2022 at 5:53 PM ^
Weird, I remember many posters definitively saying that our class would finish worse than MSU's.
October 27th, 2022 at 5:58 PM ^
It's going to be difficult for a program of MSU's caliber to make up for losing four 4* recruits while their team flounders. This likely isn't even then end of it. These are some of the top talent they had pulled into their class.
Tuck has been a mediocre at best game coach and player developer. He hung his hat on recruiting. If this (formerly #24 class) all leaves....look out in East Lansing.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:47 PM ^
I've been listening to a Sparty podcast and the general consensus was like "Yeah, sure the coaching is bad now, the talent level is shallow, the coordinators are clueless, Tucker isn't a gameday coach, blah blah blah" but they always say things will be fine and dandy in the future because "we're out recruiting Michigan this year and the talent gap between us and Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State will be closed with a few of Tucker's classes"
Uh yeah, so about that. Like you said, if this class falters, they're screwed. They don't have enough young guys who are developing well to be much better next year. They need literally all the 4*'s they can get their grubby little hands on and they need them yesterday.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:48 PM ^
They need to look no further than Texas A&M to know that recruiting isn't everything. And they're not recruiting like A&M.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:12 PM ^
Somewhere—maybe The Athletic—Nick Baumgartner (sp?) argues that
• Tuck's strength is recruiting,
• he's doing better with recruits than it seems,
• and because he keeps coming close to getting 5-star recruits, he eventually will land them.
Good ol' Nick also continues the habit he had when he wrote in our neck of the woods, of trying to use big words but getting it wrong.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:29 PM ^
I generally try to cut guys slack, especially when you're sort of on two conflicting beats like Baumgardner is, but he tends to write these stories where he creates a world different than the one he occupies in order to make his story more palpable. I don't know if he said that about Tucker (a number of media types were saying similar things over the offseason) but it wouldn't shock me.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:03 PM ^
The Athletic cares so little about Sparty they don't provide them a dedicated beat writer (whereas several report on Michigan including Sparty Nick).
This seems to upset Sparty commenters significantly.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:36 PM ^
This pleases me
October 28th, 2022 at 5:55 PM ^
As a teacher and a person, I rarely make a big deal about misuse of words. Nearly all of us make usage or spelling mistakes.
I DO comment though when someone is trying to sound highfalutin by throwing in a word or phrase that sounds fancy, even if they're shaky on its meaning.
Sports writers do it a lot. I know many MGoBloggers are fans of Quinn (? another guy who used to write locally) but he did—does?—the same thing.
October 27th, 2022 at 8:06 PM ^
I enjoy Nick's writing, but I saw that too. He also revealed his MSU bias in claiming that college football is strictly a regional game, not a national one. That's the take of a fan of a regional, traditionless program with an inferiority complex.
October 27th, 2022 at 11:38 PM ^
I got clowned and negged on r/CFB for this but it’s absolutely true: people are acting like Mel Tucker is recruiting at an all time level for MSU but it’s just not true. Dantonios last few classes were so bad that they forgot even he was pulling classes ranked 20-35 for the majority of his tenure. He recruited well, was a great developer of talent, and a good game planner & in game coach (obligatory respekt week as Seth would say). Tuck is recruiting on the same level but doesn’t hold a candle to Mork in development or coaching
October 27th, 2022 at 11:38 PM ^
I got clowned and negged on r/CFB for this but it’s absolutely true: people are acting like Mel Tucker is recruiting at an all time level for MSU but it’s just not true. Dantonios last few classes were so bad that they forgot even he was pulling classes ranked 20-35 for the majority of his tenure. He recruited well, was a great developer of talent, and a good game planner & in game coach (obligatory respekt week as Seth would say). Tuck is recruiting on the same level but doesn’t hold a candle to Mork in development or coaching
October 27th, 2022 at 6:32 PM ^
Those same posters would find a $20 on the ground and complain because it wasn't 2 fives and a ten.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:54 PM ^
Transfer portal university
October 27th, 2022 at 5:56 PM ^
we should never take joy in someone els
[reads headline]
...hahaha fuck 'em!
October 27th, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
EJ Holland had a good write up about Reescano and Cole Cabana. Cole's family were huge MSU fans. Dad even played for MSU. But the new RB coach at MSU prioritize Reescano over Cole. Mike Hart went all in on Cole right from the beginning and ended up getting his commitment. Nice pickup for Michigan.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:21 PM ^
Any chance Cabana goes to MSU? Seems like Hart is working hard on the relationship but if Dad played there that’s a tough separation sometimes.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:57 PM ^
Because he didn't know where his dad went to school before?
October 27th, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
Losing guys to Auburn and Arkansas has to sting considering Auburn is definitely in the market for a new coach and Arkansas is having a disappointing season as well. MSU may have some NIL money, but the total package is not better than the mid-tier SEC programs.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:53 PM ^
There's only a few ways to sell recruits, and Tucker's running out of them. He can't sell the "new coach smell", that recruiting bump when a new guy comes in and people get excited about the new blood in the program.
They've been coasting on last year's success, but that goes out the window after this season. You can't recruit kids on the success of 2-3 years ago. It's what have you done lately.
Tucker could promise immediate playing time, but that only works on kids who will play instantly, which are the exact recruits currently reading the tea leaves and flaking out.
You can promise them NIL, but they'll be out bid by somebody, and I suspect the donor money pipeline to tighten up as the Tucker era falls apart.
Lastly, you could sell recruits on developing on their way to the NFL but uh....which Tucker recruit is headed for the big leagues right now (and no, Kenneth Walker does not count, since he was developed at Wake Forest, but they'll be riding that pony til the wheels fall off I imagine)
October 27th, 2022 at 7:26 PM ^
Wasn’t there smoke that Tucker got most of his transfers in ‘21 on just straight under the table cash? The old fashioned way like he learned from Tressel, Saban, and Smart?
October 27th, 2022 at 8:14 PM ^
MSU does not send a lot of guys to the pros. In the past six years, they're 46th among college teams in alumni drafted. Behind the likes of Houston, San Diego State, and Temple. (U-M is fifth, fwiw).
October 27th, 2022 at 11:59 PM ^
Matt Rhule was a hell of a developer and identifier of pro level talent while at Temple. Not the best pro coach but the guy would make a hell of a super rich analyst in Ann Arbor.
October 28th, 2022 at 3:09 PM ^
…and I suspect the donor money pipeline to tighten up as the Tucker era falls apart.
Not only that, their top booster got rich off his dad’s SPAC IPO and its share price went from $13 to $3 in the last year. Ticker: UWMC.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:15 PM ^
So our worst recruiting years still better than MSU's best recruiting years?
Sounds about right.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:17 PM ^
I enjoy this news. The downfall has begun.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:41 PM ^
Perhaps, "resumed after an unsustainable and fortuitous bounce" is more apt.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:24 PM ^
Keep the violins playing on the deck.
October 27th, 2022 at 8:58 PM ^
the water is very cold though, and the lights are about to go out...
October 27th, 2022 at 6:26 PM ^
Seems like he'll wind up with Kiffin at Ole Miss, which makes some sense given the fact he's from Texas and probably wants to stick around in SEC country.
Teams are going to suffer from decommits around this time as guys who maybe were using spots as placeholders start making their final decisions. Happens to Michigan as well. Not something I'm going to laugh too much at happening to other teams, even if MSU looks dodgy right now.
The one thing Tucker has been trying to do is recruit "nationally" (i.e. out of the Big 10 footprint) and it's perhaps a bit telling that many of his highest-profile commits were from outside the region and are now decommitting. If I'm MSU I'd be getting nervous about Jobe, the top-75 DE they have from Texas, maybe looking around as well.
October 27th, 2022 at 6:57 PM ^
I assume they will have issue with retaining him if Bama etc come calling but will see
October 27th, 2022 at 7:50 PM ^
If I'm MSU I'd be getting nervous about Jobe, the top-75 DE they have from Texas, maybe looking around as well
He took a visit to Bama at the end of September. Seems MSU fans are convinced he's gonna stay with MSU and also bring along his 5* 2024 friend David Stone with him even though all his crystal balls are to Oklahoma. I'd be worried about losing Jobe to Oklahoma
October 27th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
Yeah, I'd be pretty surprised if Stone came to MSU even though he has visited a couple of times. MSU has had solid line play for some time so that is a feather in their cap but I have to assume OU, as much as a tire fire as that defense has looked this year, is still more appealing under Venables compared to Tucker and MSU.
It definitely feels more likely Jobe stays home than two 4.5/5* kids from the south go to MSU.