Michigan State beats out Indiana, Iowa for elite 4-star OL Caleb Johnson

The weekend has gotten off to a heck of a start as Pat Fitzgerald and Michigan State have landed their second four-star commitment of the 2027 class.

Just a few hours after I wrote about Michigan State trending for a four-star offensive lineman from Indiana, he committed to the Spartans over the reigning national champion Hoosiers and Iowa — two big boys to beat out for an elite offensive lineman.

Caleb Johnson made it official on Saturday morning, committing to Michigan State.

This is a massive commitment for Fitzgerald and offensive lineman coach Nick Tabacca as it shows that they can close the deal for blue-chip prospects.

After missing on a slew of them from Reinaldo Perez to Dominic Black to Gideon Gash to Ronnie Gomiller, the staff locked in and pulled off its biggest recruiting win since taking over — rivaling the impact of Samson Gash’s signing. The staff may have missed on several top targets, but a good 2026 season could get at least a couple of them back in the mix.

Now, though, Johnson is the focus because the newest Spartan commit picked Michigan State and trusted Fitzgerald over his home-state Hoosiers who just won the national title.

Put that on the coaching resume.

Johnson is ranked the No. 213 overall recruit and he’s the No. 3 prospect from Indiana. Picking up this commitment over some Big Ten rivals just goes to show that we need to start trusting Fitzgerald and his staff until they give us a reason not to.

Now let’s go win some games and add some more four-stars.

Nick Tabacca has been flexing his recruiting muscle

On top of landing the No. 3 prospect from Indiana who visited the Hoosiers back in May and still picked Michigan State, Tabacca has been dominating portal recruiting and his 2027 group of offensive line commits is looking really solid.

Three of Michigan State’s top four ranked commits are on the offensive line. Johnson is the latest and he’s joined by Brighton, Mich., high-three-star Jack Carlson and Grand Rapids, Mich., three-star Grant Adloff. There’s a chance that at least two of those three will be four-stars by the end of the cycle.

We should have seen this success coming from Tabacca when we witnessed him recruit the transfer portal at an elite level this offseason.

Tabacca landed projected starters Trent Fraley, Ben Murawski, and Nick Sharpe along with depth piece, and projected rotational guy, Robert Wright Jr. That group of offensive line transfers should help get the unit back to the glory days and this commitment from Johnson feels like the cherry on top of a great offseason for the trenches.

We should enjoy Tabacca while we can because if he coaches as well as he recruits, Michigan State may not have him for too much longer.

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