Recruiting is dominating the headlines lately and that’s because official visits are about to begin and Pat Fitzgerald is facing his first summer as Michigan State’s head coach.
The Spartans need to see an uptick in recruiting success if they want to compete in the Big Ten during the Fitzgerald era. It’s been five years since Michigan State last made a bowl game and a lot of that was due to poor coaching but poor recruiting had a lot to do with it, too.
Mel Tucker was a solid recruiter but he was never able to really close on his top targets and Jonathan Smith had his moments but was overall underwhelming.
Fitzgerald is looking to have more success than the coach he replaced and that shouldn’t be too difficult. He’s going to do this by finding some diamonds in the rough and he’s already done that with some top targets in the 2027 class but he’s still working on landing these under-the-radar prospects.
Over the weekend, he locked in another official visit with an underrated cornerback gem from Georgia — sound familiar (Darqueze Dennard)?
Corey Robinson of 247Sports reported that Michigan State locked in an official visit with unranked Georgia cornerback Noah Willis for June 12-14.
.@_n0ah2 tells Spartan Tailgate that he has locked in a June 12-14 Official Visithttps://t.co/PgqDmpLBcW
— Corey Robinson (@C_Robinson247) May 21, 2026
Willis is one of the fastest-rising prospects in the 2027 class but not because he’s shooting up the rankings (I expect that soon) but rather because Power Four teams are starting to notice him.
Michigan State will have to fight for the unranked gem
Willis may not be ranked yet, but I’d assume that he receives higher three-star status when that does finally happen. I could see that happening in the coming weeks.
The unranked target has received several Power Four offers in the 2027 class from Kansas State, Cincinnati, BYU, and Wake Forest and he already had a couple of visits scheduled. He’s visiting Kansas State next weekend and Cincinnati on June 5 before going to East Lansing the following weekend. It’s not going to be an easy recruitment to win but the interest is clearly mutual.
Michigan State does have a history of producing elite defensive back talent and Darqueze is proof that you don’t have to be a top prospect in order to get drafted in the first round.
Why wouldn’t a prospect like Willis want to play for Michigan State knowing that someone that already forged a path for him to go north to play for the Spartans before getting drafted in the first round by the Cincinnati Bengals.
I’m not saying that Willis is Darqueze Dennard 2.0, but this feels like a really solid target who’s likely to shoot up the rankings soon. Fitzgerald has an eye for talent, and this is further proof.
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