3 things Michigan State football must do to improve recruiting

1. Make more connections in the Midwest

The one thing Michigan State was elite at during the height of the Mark Dantonio era was recruiting the Midwest. That's something that will always matter at MSU, but it's been a bit of a struggle so far under Jonathan Smith.

To be fair, that isn’t entirely his fault. A vast majority of his recruiting connections are out west where he’s spent his time as a coach. So it’s not surprising the Spartans have a lot of out-of-region commits already in this class.

But if recruiting is going to drastically improve, it has to start in the Midwest. Thankfully it seems Smith is already addressing that.

Out of the 14 commits in this class, six of them are from Michigan. When you open it up to the entire Midwest, the Spartans have nine commits coming from the region. So Smith is making an effort to recruit this area and make those connections. And it’s those connections that are the most important.

If he plays his cards right, Smith can exploit these connections to recruit better and higher-ranked prospects in the area. That’s a very hard thing to do when you’re new to the region, but hopefully, with a little more time, Smith will have those connections and will use them to his advantage.