Roster construction is step No. 1 on Pat Fitzgerald’s list this offseason after taking the Michigan State job a couple of weeks ago. The new head coach has been working on meeting with the current roster to discuss futures, but he’s also looking ahead to the class of 2027.
Fitzgerald still has to work on keeping Samson Gash away from the likes of Alabama, West Virginia, and Georgia and he needs to make his mark in the transfer portal, but he’s already focusing on his first actual recruiting class as head coach. He signed a solid 2026 class, but most of that group was put together by Jonathan Smith — Fitz deserves some credit for keeping it mostly together.
The 2027 class currently has zero commits, and FItzgerald is working on that already, extending his first two public offers on Monday.
The first was a re-offering of a previous Smith offer to three-star receiver Charles Britton from Belleville, Mich.
Blessed To Say Michigan State Reoffered! #GodIsInControl@coachfitz51 @CoachHawk_5 @AllenTrieu @ChadSimmons_ @BrandonHuffman @SWiltfong_ @GregSmithRivals @adamgorney @JavidJames8 @247Hudson pic.twitter.com/7Kn2hlF7cM
— Charles (Tre) Britton III 6’0 170 WR 2027 (@TreBrittoniii) December 15, 2025
Shortly after offering Britton, Fitzgerald extended another offer to unranked athlete prospect Lundon Hampton from Grand Rapids, Mich.
After a great conversation with coach @coachfitz51 I am super blessed to receive an offer from Michigan state university @Donfellows2 @CoachBlackwell_ @AllenTrieu @247Sports @MarcSutherland_ pic.twitter.com/pJymTGfLyo
— Lundon Hampton (@HamptonLundon) December 15, 2025
It’s cool to see that Fitzgerald’s first two 2027 offers were to in-state prospects, showing that he’s looking to keep the best prospects from Michigan in East Lansing.
Michigan State must capitalize on in-state recruiting in 2027
With everything that’s going on with the school down the road in terms of off-field issues and an ongoing coaching search, Fitzgerald has a head start on the 2027 class.
And he needs to capitalize on that.
Michigan State hasn’t really “dominated” recruiting in the state since Mark Dantonio was in town, but Fitzgerald has a chance to really win some high school coaches over and build strong relationships with some of the top recruits in the state — and that starts with Samson and Gideon Gash. If he can retain Samson and then land Gideon in 2027, that would potentially set off a domino effect.
Proving that he can recruit well in state is going to be a key to success in the future considering Fitzgerald will be battling with programs like Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Indiana, and Ohio State for recruits in Michigan for the foreseeable future.
These first two offers are a good start.