Michigan State football entered June with just four recruits. It left June with 17 more and a class ranked just inside the top 25. And while that momentum has cooled a little bit with just one recruit so far in July, the Spartans’ big month created the core of a strong class as Jonathan Smith enters his second season in East Lansing.

With recruits from a number of Smith’s old Pac-12 recruiting grounds that fill multiple clear positional needs, Michigan State’s recruiting class is a step in the right direction for a program that hasn’t been the easiest sell in recent years. The Spartans’ 2026 class ranks 33rd according to 247Sports and 34th according to Rivals, 12th and 13th respectively in the Big Ten.

Success in June came less from a sales pitch itself than it did transparency. In the days of NIL and now revenue sharing, it’s been easy for recruiting to turn into negotiating, especially with highly-coveted players. That hasn’t been how Michigan State is operating. Recruits have enjoyed the connection with coaches so far.

“I don’t think MSU is shying away from it,” said Allen Trieu, a recruiting insider for 247Sports and Detroit News contributor. “But just because you’re talking NIL and money doesn’t mean that you can’t be transparent. And I think that’s what this staff has shown, is that you can be honest, you can be upfront, and you can still talk about the important details of what will happen when you get to campus.”

Impressions from players’ early trips to campus were strong. Official visit season brought a lot of recruits — especially the many out-of-state ones — to campus, as well as earlier commits. Players like offensive lineman Collin Campbell out of Gilbert, Ariz., or wide receiver/athlete Tyren Wortham from Sarasota, Fla., who flipped from Central Florida toward the end of the month.

A list of 22 commitments so far includes representatives from 15 states. And while the most recruits from any state come from Michigan (four) and Ohio (three), Michigan State is picking its battles in a number of familiar territories.

“I think they realize that they’re not going to win the Midwest,” Adam Gorney, an insider for Rivals, told The Detroit News. “So they’re not going to win in Michigan for top, top kids as much anymore. For years, they were getting like the No. 1 player in Michigan for a long time. I think that’s changed a little bit. … But what Jonathan Smith has are phenomenal connections in the Pacific Northwest.”

Those ties landed some commitments Michigan State probably wouldn’t have gotten under previous coaches. Three-star edge rusher Fameitau Siale, from Seattle, is a top-four prospect in his state. He announced his pledge to Michigan State, in honor of his late father, on June 15.

Michigan State has also maintained some recruiting ties to the southeast, where eight commitments — many at skill positions — call home. The Spartans addressed a long-standing need in the secondary with six recruits in this class, a list that includes a pair of corners from Georgia in TJ Umenyiora and KJ Deriso, as well as South Carolina corner Jeremiah Favorite and Florida safety Eliyjah Caldwell-Hardy.

To be clear, Michigan State isn’t completely out of the in-state battles. It landed five top-five players in the state during the 2025 recruiting cycle, and eight of its 18 recruits came from Michigan high schools. This class, one of its top recruits is Detroit Catholic Central wide receiver Samson Gash. Quarterback Kayd Coffman, out of the Grand Rapids area, may be under center at some point in the near future. In front of him, North Branch lineman Eli Bickel and Freeland lineman Tristan Comer are part of a concerted recruiting effort in the trenches.

As much as some fans might be clamoring for more local kids in the recruiting class, however, the Michigan State staff is mining talent on a national stage. And if that approach lands the kind of players Smith wants to build his team around, the proof will be on the field in the coming years.

“I tell you what, if some of these guys turn out, Michigan State fans aren’t going to care where they came from,” Trieu said.

That Michigan State put together such a strong June shirked a lot of opinions that Smith might be outgunned in recruiting battles. While that momentum has cooled a bit recently, it’s a strong sign for the future of Michigan State’s talent pool.

“The way that Jonathan Smith kind of operates his program is, it’s like, you know, stable, steady, not flashy,” Gorney said. “But they loaded up in a massive way in the month, and they got some really good players too.”