Michigan State football: Derrick Harmon removes name from transfer portal

After spending the last month in the portal, big defensive tackle Derrick Harmon has decided to return to Michigan State football, removing his name from the list of transfers.

This comes on the same day that Jonathan Smith convinced Geno VanDeMark to remove his name from the transfer portal and come back to East Lansing despite being courted heavily by Oklahoma. He's clearly doing a fantastic job of getting players to buy in and the list of returnees grows by the day.

In fact, Harmon becomes just the latest as VanDeMark, Darius Snow, Brandon Baldwin, Ethan Boyd, and Jaron Glover all entered the portal following the hiring of Smith but he has somehow gotten each one of them to reconsider despite strong interest from other porgrams. He continues to stack up wins during the offseason.

Harmon was the top defensive tackle in the transfer portal and one of the top 70 overall transfers. This is just a massive win for the staff and it's impressive that they've been able to do so many impactful things in such a short period of time.

While Smith has yet to coach a single game at Michigan State, it feels like he's constantly raising the floor of the 2024 team with all of these home-run moves.

Harmon is coming off a career season in which he recorded 40 total tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, a pass breakup, and a forced fumble. He will be a force in the middle of that defense with two more years of eligibility remaining.

Hats off to Smith for getting the job done here.