Michigan State football held off Oklahoma’s late push for Jarrett Horst

Mel Tucker and Michigan State football added Jarrett Horst via the transfer portal this offseason, but it wasn’t an easy recruiting win.

For years now, anyone who Lincoln Riley wants, he usually gets.

That pertained to transfers, recruits and coaches but Mel Tucker and Michigan State held off a late surge from Riley and the Sooners for one of their coveted incoming transfers.

According to an interview Tucker had with the media on Thursday, Oklahoma tried to poach Jarrett Horst when he hit the transfer portal and the Sooners again made a late surge for the Arkansas State transfer.

Michigan State had to “fight” to keep him a Spartan.

That’s a big win for Tucker and the staff and it shows that they have some recruiting chops of their own. Riley is an elite recruiter and his program is in a much better place than Michigan State, but Tucker still managed to win Horst over and show him that the future is bright in East Lansing and he could be part of something special.

People may not realize the magnitude of this transfer portal win for Tucker and the Spartans, but it just goes to show that the second-year head coach can go toe-to-toe with the big boys in the recruiting landscape.

We have yet to see him recruit at an ‘elite’ level yet because he’s still building things up, but if he can land big transfers like Horst, that rebuilding process is going to speed up tremendously and, in turn, it’ll put the Spartans in the running for some blue-chip recruits.

Fans already got a little taste of what Tucker can do on the recruiting trail, flipping Ma’a Gaoteote from USC and landing Rayshaun Benny over Michigan.

This “win” over Oklahoma to keep Horst deserves more attention and respect.