How Brandon Jordan’s departure impacts Michigan State
While Michigan State Football fans waited for news on the upcoming spring practice schedule, a surprising story broke. Pass rush specialist Brandon Jordan left the Spartans after just one season in East Lansing, taking the same position for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.
When MSU head coach Mel Tucker hired Jordan, it was considered an ‘out of the box’ hire. Jordan’s contributions helped improve the Spartans’ pass rushing attack in 2022, and he was Michigan State’s best recruiter on staff.
How will Mel Tucker and the Spartans respond to Jordan’s departure?
The biggest loss will come on the recruiting trail. Michigan State’s top two recruits, and three of their top five, were defensive linemen. All of them were recruited by primarily by Jordan, with the help of defensive line coach Marco Coleman – who also departed the program this offseason after just one year at MSU.
The 2024 class had the potential to deliver an even better haul of defensive line and edge rusher talent to East Lansing, but with Jordan leaving, it’s safe to say that several high-profile recruits may be less interested in Michigan State.
The Spartans have been high on the list for five-star defensive lineman David Stone, who has already made several trips to East Lansing over the last few months. Stone was being recruited by both Jordan and Coleman, and now both coaches are no longer with the program. We’ll see if Michigan State can stay in the race for Stone, but this development will hurt the Spartans and open the door wider for other programs in this recruiting battle like Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Miami, Ohio State and others.
Jordan’s draw came from his reputation as one of the best trainers for NFL pass rushers in the country. He has worked with over 200 NFL players including Pro-Bowlers Von Miller, Jadeveon Clowney, Cameron Heyward, Chandler Jones, T.J. Watt and others. That reputation and track record resonated with top high school prospects who envision themselves playing at the highest level of football in the near future.
Jordan also has several ties to high school recruits, coaches and trainers. Those ties had Michigan State competing for “out of area” prospects they never could recruit before. Four- and five-star players from Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and Georgia were considering MSU alongside the likes of top-tier programs like Alabama, Georgia and others.
Since he arrived in East Lansing in 2020, Tucker has preached that part of his plan for success at Michigan State was getting recruits from the south to come and play further north. Jordan’s ability to recruit players come traditional SEC and Big 12 country was a major boost for the Spartans.
In terms of on-field coaching, losing Jordan will hurt Michigan State’s player development as well. While many schools don’t employ a ‘pass rush specialist’, the technique that Jordan taught his players made an impact over the course of the season. We saw that first hand with converted linebacker Jacoby Windmon, who was named ‘Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week’ three times in just eight weeks this past season for MSU.
In eight starts for the Spartans, Windmon led the team with 5.5 sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss, and led the nation with six forced fumbles.
Moving forward, it is important for Michigan State to keep all the players Jordan recruited to East Lansing in the program. In the transfer portal era, players will often leave a school if the position coach who recruited them leaves for a new job. Michigan State made a big splash in the transfer portal this offseason in landing former five-star defensive lineman Tunmise Adeleye, who transferred to MSU from Texas A&M in no small part due to Jordan’s influence.
Because Jordan is headed to the NFL, Michigan State may not be in as much danger of losing the players that he recruited to the transfer portal as it might have been if Jordan had taken a job at a different university. With that being said, if any of the players that Jordan brought to East Lansing do look elsewhere, the Spartans would be losing a major talent.
In addition to Adeleye, Jordan was responsible for landing four-star EDGE Bai Job and four-star defensive linemen Andrew Depaepe in the Class of 2023. The Spartans also brought in former four-star defensive lineman Dre Butler, who played at Auburn initially out of high school before transferring to Liberty, as well as former three-star Jarrett Jackson who transferred in from Florida State.
Jordan’s departure was a surprising development for Michigan State, but it reflects well on Tucker’s ability to identify coaching talent. While losing good recruiters hurts any program, Tucker will benefit by being able to sell future coaching candidates on his ability to get them to the next level of the profession.
Will Tucker look to find another pass rush specialist? Or will Jordan’s position and salary be used elsewhere? A new coach could be used for various different positions, and only time will tell where Tucker intends to shore up his coaching staff.
