Dantonio gets verbal from Maryland LB

Fresh off receiving a commitment from Detroit Southeastern LB Ed Davis, Mark Dantonio learned that east-coast powerhouse DeMatha, MD’s Darien Harris has also given his pledge to play football at Michigan State. The three-star OLB/S, who is 6’1″ and 210 lbs., chose the Spartans over offers from a range of schools including Illinois, Kansas, Purdue and Syracuse. Darien expects to play Star-LB at State in the new Spartan defense and should fit well into that role.

Harris, whose father played RB at Virginia Tech, registered 83 tackles, five sacks and two interceptions last season for DeMatha at weak-side LB and could even play some safety this upcoming season. MSU now has four LB prospects for the class of 2011 in Lawrence Thomas, Taiwan Jones, Davis and Harris, but Jones will more than likely come to MSU as an athlete for the time being.

Harris is ranked among Scout’s top 25 players in Maryland for the class of 2011, and will now try and help recruit some of his friends to make the jump from the East coast to East Lansing. MSU has already offered two of Harris’ teammates –DT’s Kendall Patterson and Darian Cooper. Another one of his teammates, OL Cyrus Kouandjio, is a five-star prospect and one of the nation’s most highly sought-over recruits for his class.

Darien Harris is the 13th verbal commitment for MSU’s class of 2011 and, remarkably, becomes the 9th member of the class from outside the state of Michigan. (State now has verbal commitments from players from Ohio (2), Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin (2), Georgia, Maryland, Ontario (Canada) and of course, Michigan.)

Darien made his first trip up to EL last Wednesday and credits some of the interactions he had with the coaches and players like Greg Jones and William Gholston to making the trip enjoyable for him and his family.

“I think this program is in the clear-cut right direction,” Harris said. “The (recruiting) class last year and this year shows the big improvement they have (had). … What coach Dantonio has done is amazing to me.”

Scout.com’s national recruiting coordinator Alan Wallace has been impressed at MSU’s ability to go out of state and find impact players in 2011 class.

“I think it bodes well for Michigan State. It shows they’ve got the ability to reel guys in from outside state borders, and the better programs are able to do that,” Wallace said. “This class is headed toward one of their best in a long time.”

Tags: 2011 football class, class of 2011, Darien Harris, recruiting