Spartans Offer Scholarship to Key 3-Star DE

Coach Jonathan Smith and the Michigan State Spartans Football program continues to stick to the plan of building the trenches with latest defensive end offer.

Nov 14, 2020; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Indiana Hoosiers offensive line lines up against us / Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Coach Smith and Michigan State remain focused on the recruiting trail, even though recruiting has been rough for Coach Smith and his coaching staff. Specifically, Coach Smith and the Spartans have had difficulty keeping their current players out of the transfer portal, and they’ve had difficulty securing talent from the transfer portal or the recruiting trail.

Still, Coach Smith and his coaching staff continue with their plan of finding the best three-star athletes they have a realistic chance of signing and offering them scholarships. Such is the case with the Spartans’ most recent scholarship offer to an edge rusher from Florida.

Michigan State offered a scholarship to three-star edge rusher Nicolas Clayton. The defensive end announced MSU’s scholarship offer on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. 

According to 247Sports, Clayton, a native of Gainesville, Fla., is ranked as the 51st-best edge rusher in the country and the 83rd-best player from Florida in the 2025 recruiting class. Michigan State is one of nearly 20 programs that offered Clayton a scholarship. He is set for official summer visits to UCF, USF, Duke, and Nebraska.

As the start of the season slowly creeps nearer, the Spartans must find a way to beat out other schools on the recruiting trail for their most prized recruits. While most of the offers Michigan State has extended have been to players who are three-star athletes and below, the Spartans still need to secure many of the prospects. The Spartans hope Clayton will join their efforts to start a new era in East Lansing.

Coach Smith is currently experiencing the growing pains of a new coach who is also trying to navigate a college football program through one of the most unique times of its existence. So far, he has done a decent job, but just not on the recruiting trail. As Coach Smith and his coaching staff continue to hang the success or failure of their first recruiting class on their ability to secure three-star or lower athletes and develop them up, that plan won’t work if they’re unable to secure enough three-star athletes, as they’ll be stuck with subpar talent in one of the best conferences in college football. 

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