MSU Offers Rising Offensive Lineman a Scholarship

Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith has a long-term plan to turn things around for the Spartans. It starts with quality yet under-the-radar talent receiving great coaching.

Members of the band perform during an introductory press conference for Michigan State football / Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA

Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith sticks to his recruiting game plan of searching for talented yet under-the-radar players to add to their roster.

Smith has hosted multiple prospects who are either not ranked or are ranked as three-star athletes or lower. The persistence Smith has shown with this gives clear insight into what he is attempting to do long-term. For Michigan State to improve its football team, Smith is depending on getting the most he possibly can from a range of unranked athletes through three-star athletes.

Esun Tafa is from Draper, Utah and is in the 2026 recruiting cycle. Smith has made it a point to search high and low for players who may not necessarily be the best at their respective positions but have a ton of upside. Tafa is undoubtedly one of those players, mainly because he has more time to develop before college. 

Tafa is listed as an interior defensive lineman who stands at 6’4 and nearly 300 pounds and still has years left in high school. The unranked offensive lineman has plenty of room to grow mentally and physically before he even steps on campus to receive collegiate level coaching from Coach Smith and his coaching staff.

Tafa is currently unranked by 247Sports but has still begun receiving national attention because of his size and skill, but the Spartans are the seventh program to offer him a scholarship. For an unranked player to receive the type of attention Tafa is getting from schools around the country explains how much potential he has.

The easiest way for Smith and his coaching staff to turn things around for the Michigan State program would be to recruit and sign talented players who may be overlooked by other teams in college football who are further along than the Spartans. Smith would then bank on those players staying at least three years, if not longer.

This would help Michigan State rebuild its culture from the ground up. The visits and scholarship offers Smith and the Spartans are handing out may not be the most exciting ones, but they could be the most necessary.

The Michigan State Spartan Football Spring Green and White Game (Spring Showcase) will be held at the High Cathedral of the Spartan Nation, Spartan Stadium, on April 20, 2024, at 2 p.m.

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