ESPN's Austin Ward wonders if Michigan State's window for football success is closing. My best argument against this comes from Austin himself:
The Spartans surely aren't going to just vanish as a contender in the Big Ten or go down without a fight. Dantonio has proven himself to be one of the top coaches in the country, and there's no reason to think he won't be able to find an answer for what Ohio State and Michigan do in the coming seasons.
So, no?
ESPN is going through their annual summer down period, and this year they decided that they wanted to try and create future power rankings for every sport using a pseudo-scientific method where they rank teams based upon some subjective criteria. Michigan came out ahead of MSU in those rankings because those rankings are stupid. They had to write something about it so we'd freak out and they'd get pageviews.
The "window closing" argument is just lazy. Did Oregon's "window" close? How about Wisconsin's? It's also possible for there to be 3 or 4 very good teams in the same division. The SEC West accomplished such a feat just last year. This argument is old and boring, having been trotted out just three months ago. Yawn.
Jalyn Powell has decided to transfer to Youngstown State. Best of luck to him; it seems that he got a little bit stuck between safety and STAR linebacker and never found a place to contribute consistently. This is only surprising if you put any stock into Spring Game drafts, which you shouldn't do because obviously. The star position is pretty loaded still, and the linebacking corps in general has plenty of depth.
Powell's departure opens up a scholarship for a contributing walk-on like A.J. Troup or Kevin Cronin in 2015, and opens up a spot in the 2016 class.
I am excited to announce that I am officially committed to Michigan State University Spartans to continue my academic and athletic career!!
— Matthew Coghlin (@MatthewCoghlin) June 24, 2015
... and that spot was immediately filled by a kicker, Matt Coghlin. I figured there should be a kicker to come in for the 2016 class to allow for a redshirt year while Michael Geiger finishes his eligibility. Coghlin looks to be that guy; top target Quinn Nordin named Michigan and Penn State his top schools. The timing was of Coghlin's commit was interesting, and makes me wonder if there's a one-in, one-out thing happening at this point (probably not).
2016 DE Khalid Kareem, one-time soft verbal to MSU, chose Alabama today. No surprises there, as MSU is now well-stocked on the defensive line. Good luck to him.
[Editor's note: is there a better title for this type of post which is decidedly non-laconic? Verbose Vinculums?]