Spartan Recruiting Looking to Continue to Land Superb Student Athletes

For the Michigan State coaching staff, patience, perseverance and discipline are the building blocks to success on and off the field. Outside of practices and games on the gridiron, success is much more difficult to assess. But in one off-field area, MSU has already built a foundation waiting for a champion.

Recruiting has not always been kind to MSU. Historically out-recruited by Michigan in-state and Big Ten foes throughout the Midwest, not to mention the gravitational pull of Notre Dame, the march to a Rose Bowl has been 20 years and counting. The answer to a return trip, of course, is a boatload of talent. Witness USC, perennial superpower and the team with the most Rose Bowl appearances, a program that stocks starters in the three-deep.

Since the arrival of head coach Mark Dantonio, the appeal of Michigan State has grown exponentially. Sure, there's the in-state recruiting, seemingly flipping the tables on the Wolverines, who have come up short the past couple years on over a half-dozen can’t miss prospects they might have easily bagged in years past.

But MSU's reputation is spreading. Prospects are inquiring about the program, summer skills camps are filling up with dozens of coveted athletes participating, and hungry players are seeking opportunities for walk-on status, lining up outside the proverbial Spartan Stadium door.

The class of 2010, already boasting names such as Bullough, Gholston and Boisture, should continue to bolster the MSU name in recruiting circles. But, like USC, State's goal will be to populate the depth chart with as many starters as possible. So the work will continue on the recruiting trail.

Mike Sadler, the heralded punter from Grand Rapids, would give MSU a formidable two-deep in the punting game, not to mention potential contributions to the kicking game. While the need is not critical, finding another leg like Sadler's so close to home could be difficult in the future. Landing a leg of Sadler's quality would secure an important and sometimes neglected position for the next five years.

Skyler Schofner looked fantastic at camps before the summer as an athletic offensive tackle. While he's been bailing hay on the farm and working out through the heat of the season, and keeping close to home out of the fray of recruiting, his stock has nevertheless remained high. Schofner's 6-foot-7, 300+ pound frame is a perfect potential bookend to David Barrent's, the outstanding prospect from Iowa entering MSU this year.

Jayrone Elliot, defensive end from Glenville HS in Cleveland, could help MSU take recruiting to the next level. Hailing from a high school football factory, landing Elliott would not only give State an outstanding, hard working defensive end, it would also give the Spartans a toehold into Ted Ginn, Sr.'s powerhouse program.

Jewone Snow, a linebacker from Canton, Ohio, has ties to both MSU and UM, but Michigan State has learned how to stand and fight to the finish. The Spartan mind begins to get delirious imagining names like Snow, Norman and Bullough roaming the same field, preceded by a guy named Jones and followed (fingers crossed) by a kid named Thomas.

And Kurtis Drummond, a safety from Hubbard, Ohio, recently told Spartan Nation MSU stood at the top of his list. So far, the Spartans have out recruited UM for Drummond, hinting at a knack for replicating, in Ohio, the kind of success the coaching staff has built throughout the State of Michigan