Michigan State Football: No reason to panic over lack of 2021 commits

Mel Tucker hasn’t landed a single commitment for Michigan State football’s class of 2021, but there’s certainly no reason to panic.

Last April, Mark Dantonio was doing his best to secure more commitments during spring ball, inviting prospects to campus to check out practices and the upcoming Green-White Game.

Fast forward a year and Michigan State is in an unfamiliar position under a new head coach with no spring ball and zero commitments. Yes, the Spartans have the No. 14 recruiting class in the Big Ten because of this lack of commitments and, as you can imagine, fans are losing their minds and already hitting the panic button.

Mel Tucker accepted the head coaching job on Feb. 12, making his rounds meeting players and getting some winter conditioning with his team in.

Less than one month later, face-to-face recruiting was suspended by the NCAA and campus visits were no longer allowed. All recruiting turned into remote work for head coaches as they had to continue to build relationships with the prospects they’ve worked hard to land from a distance.

For Tucker, though, he was trying to fast-track that process as he inherited an empty 2021 recruiting class and had to make up ground in recruiting in a short period of time. Without campus visits and in-person recruiting (due to COVID-19), you can see how that would be even more difficult.

Tucker has done a solid job with recruiting thus far, though. He’s extending dozens of offers per week, making top schools lists for some of the bigger targets and he’s even gotten MSU back in the running for guys like Donovan Edwards, Andrel Anthony, Jaylen Reed and Jamari Buddin. That’s not exactly an easy task considering how far behind the Spartans were with these guys under Dantonio.

While Michigan State may not even land any of those guys, the fact that he developed solid relationships with them in short periods of time to get on their short lists says a lot about his ability to recruit — MSU was behind in a lot of big recruiting battles before Tucker.

So why are people hitting that panic button?

Well, recruiting is a results-driven business and Tucker hasn’t landed anyone yet so it’s just assumed that he’s not getting the job done. Listen, he took over a program with zero commitments late in the process (just after National Signing Day), had no time to get to know his team, no spring practices, no campus visits, no in-person recruiting and all remote work and he’s still making headway with some of the biggest names in the class. Give the man a break.

Recruiting might be down this cycle because of the circumstances and Dantonio didn’t exactly leave him the best situation.

Stop worrying about the lack of commitments in the 2021 class — they’ll come. Once on-campus recruiting is allowed again, you’ll see it start to pick up and the first commitment will act as a domino for the rest of the class. The sky isn’t falling, the new head coach just inherited a disaster.