We’re about to see recruiting take center stage as official visit season approaches for Michigan State. The next 1.5 months will be busy for Pat Fitzgerald as he enters his first recruiting cycle as Michigan State’s head coach following a multi-year break from the sport.
It’s going to be an adjustment for Fitzgerald who basically has to start all over at a new program three years after Northwestern let him go. He has to assimilate to the NIL era as well as the wild, wild, west that is the transfer portal and he’s done a pretty good job so far. Although he’s not landing four and five-stars, he’s landing talent.
Plus, it can’t be too easy to recruit at a high level after being removed from college football for three years and taking over a program five years removed from its last bowl game — you take a top-40 class at this point in the cycle under those circumstances.
Fitzgerald is also starting to work on the art of the flip. He’s offered several prospects who are committed elsewhere, including three-star linebacker Caleb Green from Lee’s Summit, Mo.
The No. 60 linebacker in the 2027 class has only been committed to the Missouri Tigers since April 26, but Fitzgerald is trying to complete a flip in record time. He offered Green on May 15 and now he’s already scheduling an official visit.
According to Jason Killop of SpartanMag, Green will be on campus on June 5 for his official visit and he’s excited to see what he can learn about the program and Max Bullough.
He’ll visit Missouri two weeks later.
Pat Fitzgerald is trying to flex some recruiting muscle
Like I said earlier, it can’t be easy to recruit at a program that hasn’t made a bowl game in five years as a head coach who’s been out of the game for three years.
Yet Fitzgerald is seemingly flexing his muscle at every opportunity.
The first-year head coach pulled off some signing day surprises back in February, wrestled Samson Gash away from the likes of Alabama, Penn State, and West Virginia, and now he’s working on flipping an SEC commit just weeks before kicking off a huge official visit weekend highlighted by several four-star targets.
Michigan State may only have the No. 39 recruiting class in the country, but I’d bet it finishes closer to 25 than 40 before it’s all said and done.
Add us as a preferred source on Google