Recruiting is heating up for many schools as official visits get underway and one of those happens to be Michigan State’s biggest rival. The Wolverines have been on a tear on the recruiting trail while Michigan State is looking to bounce back from four straight years of futility.
It’s going to take a heroic effort, but Pat Fitzgerald feels like he’s the right guy to turn things around in East Lansing. That has to start on the recruiting trail.
Michigan State has landed several key prospects in the 2027 class who should have an early impact — like Ohimai Ozolua — but it hasn’t quite hammered home in-state recruiting. The Spartans have landed two in-state commitments in the 2027 class in Grant Adloff and Jack Carlson who are both three-star prospects, but the latter is ranked fairly close to four-star status at No. 505 nationally (for reference, Ozolua is No. 414 and is a four-star).
There have been several battles with Michigan already, but Kyle Whittingham has been killing it on the trail and he just won another in-state showdown with Michigan State for a top target.
Three-star athlete Lundon Hampton has been on Michigan State’s radar since December before he was even ranked but now he’s in the 1,000-range nationally. Now, he’s part of Michigan’s 2027 class. But before he made the decision to commit to the Wolverines, he decided to troll Michigan State a little bit with the ever-infamous fake hat pull trick.
Surely Spartan fans won’t remember this for the next 4-5 years that Hampton is a Wolverine.
Grand Rapids (Mich.) Kenowa Hills 2027 ATH Lundon Hampton (@HamptonLundon) did the classic pump fake during his ceremony as he picked up the Michigan State hat to only switch it to the Michigan hat.
— Brice Marich (@BriceMarich) May 22, 2026
The Wolverines doing an outstanding job with in-state recruiting right now. pic.twitter.com/4nx6DfkD2E
Hampton said he was “committed to” and then picked up the Michigan State hat, put it on, and then immediately took it off and threw it to the side while saying he was committed to Michigan.
You can see a family member at the end of the table was clapping when she thought Michigan State was the pick and then went silent when Michigan was picked. Clearly this was a bit of a surprise to her and the crowd. As someone who hates the fake hat pick troll, this was pretty tame and while it was kind of lame, he was just trying to have some fun with his commitment.
During the Mark Dantonio era if a top target ever disrespected Michigan State and ended up playing for Michigan, it usually didn’t end well for them — Drake Harris immediately comes to mind.
We’ll see if the Fitzgerald era yields similar results.
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