Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast: Football Recruiting Predictions

In honor of the first weekend of official visits for Michigan State, our Aidan Champion makes his predictions for the Spartans' class of 2026 recruiting cycle.

Nov 2, 2024; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Michigan State Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith looks over his sidelines during the first quarter against the Indiana Hoosiers at Spartan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Young-Imagn Images | Dale Young-Imagn Images

Michigan State is kicking off official visit season this weekend, and it needs to turn a corner in its recruiting of the class of 2026.

The Spartans have just four scholarship commits from the class so far, and none on the defensive side of the ball.

Michigan State is a finalist for a number of prospects, and these official visits could make or break their decisions.

On this episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, our Aidan Champion makes his predictions for the Spartans' class of 2026 recruiting cycle.

You can watch the episode below:

Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith addressed the media following the Spartans' 14th spring practice last month. Below is a partial transcript of his opening statement:

Smith: "Wrapped up practice 14 today. We will get some work done on Saturday. Little bit of scrimmage in, little bit of practice in, but really, feel good about the work that we've gotten done over these last five weeks.

"Guys stayed into it, continued to work. So, will kind of wrap things up Saturday. We will turn it into family day, and so a bunch of families come back, watch it a little bit and breaking bread together after practice. So, I think it's a great way for us to at least finish it kind of as a program.

"Two scrimmages, I haven't talked to you since the last one. Got a lot of work done over the course of 95 snaps there last Saturday. Defensively, as a whole, I felt pretty good. The tackling, the effort, making it hard on the defense; the offense picked it up toward the end in the red zone. But I feel pleased with kind of that second scrimmage.

"Gives a bunch of work for a lot of guys and evaluation and guys getting better and feel good there. It's a critical part; you think about spring practice, critical part in kind of transitioning to the program, guys improving, diving into summer, we're going to have a big-time summer and all of that, getting ready for August camp already with that.

"Do want to mention, speaking of August, that we were going to kind of bring back 'Meet the Spartans' event in August. Looking for August 21 to do that, leading into our first home game. I learned a little bit of some of the tradition of that in meeting our group. So, more to come on the exact details of that. But we were trying to bring that back in August on the 21st."

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