Former 4-star Michigan State football commit has entered the transfer portal

The transfer portal is getting ready to officially close on May 1, so there are only a few more days where new players are able to enter the portal before they are stuck on their team for the upcoming season. I imagine many names will enter the portal in these final days, but hopefully none of them will be Michigan State football players.

The latest player to enter their name into the portal, however, is a familiar one to Michigan State fans, and his reasoning for entering the portal could be a great sign for the Spartans.

Four-star offensive lineman Andrew Dennis has officially entered the transfer portal. Dennis is an offensive lineman from the 2024 class who originally committed to Illinois. After enrolling early and spending the spring with the Illini, he has entered his name into the transfer portal looking for a new team to play his first collegiate season with.

This name likely sounds familiar to a lot of you as Michigan State was in the thick of his recruitment the first time around. In fact, the Spartans weren't just in the thick of his recruitment, Dennis was committed to MSU for quite some time. Unfortunately he decommitted after the Mel Tucker news came out, but there's no denying that he has a lot of love for Michigan State.

This on its own would make me think the Spartans have a good chance in his transfer portal recruitment, but a tidbit shared by Allen Trieu with 247Sports gives me even more confidence. Trieu shared that a "desire to be closer to home" is a reason why Dennis has entered the portal. Thankfully for Michigan State, Dennis is from Mount Pleasant, Mich., so that makes Michigan State a front-runner in my eyes.

According to 247Sports, Dennis is the No. 162 overall player in the 2024 class as well as the No. 7 interior offensive lineman. So based on his ranking and the recruiting nugget from Trieu, this recruitment is likely down to two teams. Michigan and Michigan State.

Similarly to the Spartans, Michigan was also pushing hard for Dennis the first time around as well. This however will be an interesting recruitment because both teams have new coaching staffs since his original recruitment out of high school.

But it's clear to me that this is a battle between the in-state schools, and this is one I think Michigan State has to win. Time will tell if Jonathan Smith is interested or not, but based on his recruiting ranking and interest he had in Michigan State in the past, it'd be hard to imagine Smith not pushing for a commitment here.