Will Dantonio Bring to MSU Another Flintstone?

Flint has been good to Michigan State through the years. While it might be basketball that leaps to mind when remembering Spartans athletes of yesteryear,

Flint has been good to Michigan State through the years. While it might be basketball that leaps to mind when remembering Spartans athletes of yesteryear, there's a football player at Flint Carman-Ainsworth the MSU coaching staff is keeping an eye on.

Tre Branch primarily lines up at defensive end and tackle, and the interior of the line is where schools like MSU project him at the next level. The Carman-Ainsworth junior will enter his final season of high school football in the fall and says he's ready to show programs everything he has, beginning with camps this summer.

"I'm going to Michigan State's camp, Ohio State, I'm going to Central Michigan, Arkansas, there's a couple more, too," he says. "Right now, though, I'm hitting the weights and running."

The 6-foot-1, 270 pound Branch is also hefting the shot put and slinging the discus for his track team. He says the full body explosion he practices for those two events keep his body tuned into the type of activity it needs to stay fresh as an offseason D-lineman.

Spartan secondary Coach Harlon Barnett is the lead recruiter for Branch, and Branch says he's built a good relationship with the ball coach.

"He's a heck of a guy," Branch says. "He's funny and I could look to him being a kind of dad as I go through college. … He makes you want to be around him all the time."

Overall, MSU is a program Branch anticipates seeing good things from in the future. "My impression of Michigan State is a program on the rise. They'll have a lot of opportunities for different payers to come in and play right away," he says.

But the most important thing is to get on campus this summer. Branch says he made a bit of a mistake last summer by not hitting many camps, but he'll be traveling as much as he can this summer to make up for it, with MSU being a school he hits for sure.

"They just want to see me in camp, see me in person," Branch says of the Spartan staff.

But the program showing the most interest right now is Arkansas. Bobby Petrino's staff got a glimpse of Branch with they were at Louisville, and now that they are with the Razorbacks, Branch says he's feeling some southern love. He'll be in Dixie this July for a camp and, like the other camps he'll be attending, Branch hopes to make enough of a personal impression to garner a scholarship offer.

"Right now the biggest school recruiting me is Arkansas," he says, "all the other schools are recruiting me and want me to come to camp, but Arkansas is really getting down to the wire and talking to me a lot. They are making me feel good about their program and that somebody wants me."