SIAP:Hoke-a-mania driving Sparty out of the state.

Submitted by wisecrakker on

Well not really, but certainly causin them to look elsewhere.

"Now is the best time for Hoke to hit the local recruiting trail hard since he's technically undefeated against rivals MSU and Ohio State. He is selling early playing time at many positions and working with a clean slate. In addition, Hoke can bring in a full class of 25 players, or possibly more, if the Wolverines backdate scholarships."

http://www.freep.com/article/20110506/SPORTS07/110506001/Recruiting-Michigan-State-not-Michigan-expanding-its-base-nationally

Mitch Cumstein

May 6th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^

Coming off a Big Ten championship, it will not be difficult for MSU to walk into schools and impress recruits. The Spartans has proven that they can go all over the country and bring high-level talent to East Lansing

Not only is this an incredibly poorly written 2 sentences, I also completely disagree.

dahblue

May 6th, 2011 at 10:01 AM ^

I think a more accurate statement would have been, "coming off a tie for the big ten championship (thanks to luck and a weak schedule) MSU hoped for recruiting success, but just like in real life, no one cares about sparty and they are having trouble getting attention from top recruits, both in and out of state."
So...I think the author just had a really long typo.

Sgt. Wolverine

May 6th, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^

it has to be easier for them to walk into schools and impress recruits who haven't yet seen their stadium up close.  Once recruits have seen that, it gets a lot harder to impress them.

So he must have meant "...it will not be relatively difficult for MSU to walk into schools and impress recruits."

lhglrkwg

May 6th, 2011 at 1:10 PM ^

I went back and looked through MSU's recruiting since 2006 on rivals. They have maybe 2 or 3 4* recruits who came from outside of the midwest. They had one guy in '06 who was from NY. Other than that, every 4* recruit they got was either a) from the midwest or b) from a JUCO

If MSU relies on getting their talent from outside of the midwest, then they are doomed doomed doomed

The author also conveniently leaves out that the only time MSU was really on the national stage last year they lost by 40 to Bama

Salinger

May 6th, 2011 at 9:23 AM ^

From the contents of the article, it sounds as though Sparty was beginning the search elsewhere before Hoke even arrived.  

 

Granted, it does look as though Michigan is going to lock up the state's top recruits, so I cannot fault you there.  However, I don't think there is any cause/effect to the Spartan's recruit search.

Salinger

May 6th, 2011 at 10:58 AM ^

 

I acknowledged that we are kicking the shit out of MSU on the in-state recruiting front, but the OP's supposition is that it is because of this that Sparty is FORCED to re-target their search to out of state talent.  What I'm saying is that per the article, MSU was already targeting their search outside of Michigan, so the notion that Hoke has forced MSU to look elsewhere is not altogether supported.

 

I will state again for those of you who have a hard time reading that I agree that we have reclaimed the state in the Honorable name of Wolverine, but that doesn't mean that Sparty wasn't looking elsewhere for talent before said action occurred.

briangoblue

May 6th, 2011 at 12:53 PM ^

Why would they go national unless they had to? The Midwest is totally loaded this year, including some traditional Sparty pipelines. Typical juggalos, right down to the author of the article, acting like we got it because they didn't want it. To paraphrase D-Mo, get the f@#% out of our state!

MI Expat NY

May 6th, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^

I assume he means early enrollees can count towards the 2011 recruiting class and its 25 scholarship limit.  But from my understanding, 25 isn't going to be the limiting number this year, barring massive attrition, so I don't know what the point is.

Quail2theVict0r

May 6th, 2011 at 9:40 AM ^

I just quickly counted MSU's offers right now and of their 89 offers 58 of them are from a big ten state. That's hardly "recruiting nationally" only 31 offers come from out of the big ten footprint; and only five of them come from the State of Florida. That's a little different than what this article says.



And last year MSU had 53 offers from big ten states and 21 offers from non big ten states. That ratio is very similar with 6 less big ten offers and 10 less non big ten state offers. So I'm calling 100% BS on this article.

jethro34

May 6th, 2011 at 9:38 AM ^

They have proven they can bring in high-level talent from all over the country?

What?

Since Dantonio took over as HC at MSU, they have exactly ONE player higher than a 3 star from outside of MI/OH, and he was from Indianapolis. (this is based on Scout rankings - Rivals is more generous giving them a 4-star from PA last year and a 4-star from Iowa in 2009, still hardly "all over the country")

Like others have said, that's one of the more false statements I've read in quite some time.

MKEblue

May 6th, 2011 at 9:41 AM ^

I do sort of agree with the idea that Hoke et al. should swing for the fences this year before they get a season under their belts. Right now they've got the winds of change at their backs. They can upsell the "we're going to turn things around in Ann Arbor" line. Next year's recruiting cycle may not have that same benefit (or at least it will be diminished, even with a decent season).

Humen

May 6th, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^

Even that logic is bogus, because "Hoke et al." will have played both teams before National Signing Day. 

 

I am wondering if a single claim in the article cannot be refuted? 

 

Freep is making me think that Michigan needs to expand its school of journalism recruiting as well and kick these incompetent Spartan fools out of the state. Hoke style

Tater

May 6th, 2011 at 10:07 AM ^

...but the Daily has occasionally had beat writers doing a better job on the Wolverines than the guys out there getting paid.  Andrew Reid was the one example.  When your student newspaper has better writing than the state's MSM, you are doing something right in the journalism department.

lilpenny1316

May 6th, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^

...like U of Chicago doesn't have a football program.  It got scrapped right before I got there school in 1995, so I had to transfer to Kinesiology.  The school dumped the remaining applied communications classes over to SMC at that time.

So whatever classes the Daily writers are taking does the trick!

jmblue

May 6th, 2011 at 12:31 PM ^

Right now they've got the winds of change at their backs. They can upsell the "we're going to turn things around in Ann Arbor" line. Next year's recruiting cycle may not have that same benefit (or at least it will be diminished, even with a decent season).

If we beat Sparty, the effect won't be diminished at all. Then Hoke will be 1-0 against them. We saw this after 2001. Tressel only went 7-5 that year, but beat us, and that alone fueled the perception that he was turning things around.

If we can also pull the upset against the Bucks, we'll probably have a monster recruiting class the next year.

jethro34

May 6th, 2011 at 9:43 AM ^

Goal #1 for Hoke is to win the Big Ten.  The best way to do that is to beat out Big Ten competition for the talent that's in Big Ten country.  There are offers out there to people outside the conference area, but I'm loving the fact that they're getting these local players....and unlike early Dantonio days, they aren't just taking random 3 stars for the sake of building relationships.  They're getting the top kids from the best midwest class in years.