Darien Harris Brings Great Value to Michigan State Football
East Lansing, MI— East Lansing, MI— When Mel Tucker hired former Michigan State Spartan football great Darien Harris to his staff, he sent a message to former players and the nation as a whole. Harris is one of several moves that have helped propel the message to the Spartan Nation that he wanted to reconnect the program to its base.
Tucker has made the concentrated effort to bring the Spartan football program to the forefront of the nation's collective college football mindset. He has used a brilliant social media marketing campaign, and a commitment to recruiting that saw the Spartans enter April with zero commitments and in the waning hours garner their tenth.
Harris's new role is the director of player engagement, but under Tucker, everyone is a recruiter.
Harris said of Tucker's fierce focus on recruiting, "I think the great thing about Coach Tucker, and I think you all are probably seeing that now, is that everybody is involved with recruiting. He's got a pretty simple phrase that's powerful in nature, 'we will recruit every day, Sunday to Sunday, and everybody is going to be involved.' I've been glad to be involved in a lot of the recruiting efforts just in terms of explaining our program. The Overtime program that I'm able to participate in and facilitate along with Elliott Daniels and (associate strength and conditioning coach) Coach Lorenzo Guess, to our recruits and their families. Just obviously talk about my experience and talk about where I see the program going. Just kind of be a resource in any way possible to our recruiting team; they're doing an unbelievable job, the personnel in our department was Scott Aligo as well as recruiting team with Lisa. Everybody's involved in the process which I like and enjoy. I'm definitely having a great time with that and talking to recruits and their parents and families about the experience that I hope they have at Michigan State."
With Spartan football's commitment to a stronger and more relevant social media, Harris has a show where he interviews Spartans to allow the fans to catch up and see how they are. Harris said of his new show and the commitment to social media, "The idea for the show actually came from Lisa Ben-Chaim, our Director of On-Campus Recruiting, as well as the graphics and media department, that's led by Derek Marckel. Both of them came to me with the idea, just to kind of fill space, fill content during this time and I thought it was a great idea. I think it's always good to be able to see what former players are up to, specifically former players that are in the NFL right now and just kind of catch up with them. What I've been trying to do is just kind of space it out between time periods, eras and just get a feel for what guys are up to right now during this time and just kind of reconnect. I think that's what this time should be used for; I think with family, friends, things that matter for reconnection, and our ability to reconnect with former players has been good so far."
Here are the ten commitments the Spartans picked up in April:
- Tyson Watson Defensive End Warren, MI
- Ethan Boyd Offensive Tackle East Lansing, MI
- Davion Primm Running Back Oak Park, MI
- Derrick Harmon Defensive Tackle Detroit, MI
- Hampton Fay Quarterback Fort Worth, TX
- Kevin Wigenton Guard Princeton, NJ
- Gabe Nealy Safety Miami, FL
- Antoine Booth Cornerback Hyattsville, MD
- Kameron Allen Tight End North Forney, TX
- Chuck Brantley Cornerback Venice, FL
The Spartans kick off the season on September 5, 2020. They will be hosting in the Northwestern Wildcats with a rare, season-opening Big Ten game.
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