2021 East Lansing three-star wide receiver Andrel Anthony Jr. commits to Michigan over Michigan State

This one hurts. East Lansing’s own Andrel Anthony Jr., a three-star recruit in the 2021 class (per the 247Sports Composite rankings) and the No. 1-rated wide receiver in the state of Michigan gave his verbal commitment to the University of Michigan.

This is a big miss for the Michigan State Spartans. Anthony — a 6-foot-2, 175-pound hometown product —was a priority target for Mel Tucker and company. His East Lansing teammate, Ethan Boyd, committed to MSU in April. Throughout his recruitment, and really up until earlier this week, Anthony was favored to land with the Spartans. Then, Anthony took an unofficial, self-guided visit to Ann Arbor this past weekend, causing a lot of recruiting experts to switch their predictions to him landing with the Wolverines — they were correct.

Anthony is currently ranked as the No. 85-ranked wide receiver in the 2021 class. He also is the No. 12 overall player in Michigan and checks in at No. 529 nationally. According to his 247Sports profile page, Anthony recorded 87 catches for 1,497 yards and 16 touchdowns over the past two seasons for the East Lansing Trojans. Anthony was an all-state selection in 2019, and is a Sports Illustrated All-American candidate for 2020. He is also a multi-sport athlete at East Lansing, as Anthony is also a member of the basketball team.

MSU originally offered Anthony in June of 2019, while Mark Dantonio was still at the helm (and Tucker re-offered Anthony once he took over head coaching duties). The Wolverines followed suit a month later in July of 2019. In June, Anthony announced a final four list of Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State and Notre Dame. He held additional offers from Ole Miss, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska, Maryland and several others. He has received about 30 scholarship offers in total.

This is an interesting quote from 247Sports Midwest recruiting analyst Allen Trieu.

“(Anthony) said it at the time (of his visit), when he got on campus, he said Mel Tucker said to him in his office, ‘We’re going to make it really hard for you to say no and leave town. We’re not going to make you leave East Lansing.’ And they’ve really done that. They’ve recruited him with a lot of intensity and I think that’s going to win the day for Michigan State.”

Well, he left East Lansing (or I should say will be leaving East Lansing). The recruiting struggles continue for MSU, in what is looking to be a low-rated 2021 class. Of course, there is still time to turn things around, but opportunities are quickly fading.