By Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) — MBB Beat Reporter
The Spartans’ first full recruiting class since winning the Mountain West title is officially in the books. Head coach Brent Brennan was elated with the results and mentioned it “being the best recruiting class” he and his coaches have reeled since they’ve been at San Jose State.
The recruiting landscape has changed drastically since Brennan stepped foot on campus as the head coach in 2017.
With social media, transfer portal and NIL taking place, college football players are making decisions based on economic opportunity while also knowing they can walk out the door if a fit isn’t right.
Coach Brennan called it “funky” and “one of the most unique times in college football.”
You would be hard pressed to find a player looking like a cast member of “300” posing with a coach who has a football helmet on like this a decade ago, but now it’s all part of the process.
Kejuan Bullard, featured above, hails from Watts, Ca. and is one of four wide receivers in the class.
Below is a breakdown by position group for the 2022 crop with their class listed.
Quarterback
Chevan Cordeiro/Junior/Transfer from Hawaii
Anthony Garcia/Freshman
Tyler Voss/Freshman
Runningback
Jakob Galloway/Freshman
Camdan Wright/Freshman
Viliami Teu/Freshman
Wide Receiver
Kejuan Bullard/Freshman
Cieonta Davis/Freshman
Justin Lockhart/Sophomore/Transfer from Nevada
Elijah Cooks/Senior/Transfer from Nevada
Offensive Line
Denaris Derosa Jr./Freshman
James McNorton/Freshman
Jake Steele/Freshman
Bryce Peterson/Senior/Transfer from Akron
Defensive Line
Jairus Steele/Freshman
Noah Lavulo/Freshman
Linebacker
Jordan Pollard/Freshman
Damonie Perkins/Freshman
Justin Eklund/Freshman
Coming off the Mountain West title in 2020, Coach Brennan boasted about a big piece of hardware that he was never able to prior. The incredible season helped the Spartans go from being ranked as the No. 122 overall class to No. 83 in the nation and No. 10 in Mountain West to No. 5, according to 247 Sports. However, Coach Brennan is more focused on the players themselves than how many stars they have attached to their name.
“Obviously those guys do a lot of good work,”Brennan explained. “But it has to come down to our evaluation and how we think players fit us.”
Later he added that “rankings are cool, stars are fun, like that’s an awesome thing, but it just depends on how well you play. I don’t know what our recruiting classes were ranked on our way to playing good football and winning the conference.”
Brennan makes a valid point about getting too excited in stars and rankings.
Bengals QB Joe Burrow was a 3-star prospect and is a week and some change away from potentially being the first player to win the Heisman, National Championship and a Super Bowl.
Getting lost in everything outside of the gridiron is empty calories for Coach Brennan and his staff as they try to repeat and improve upon the excellence from 2020.
“Our program is always going to be a developmental program and I think you’ve seen that overtime with the players we have here. Getting the right college or high school players to be excited about what we are doing here is really important to us.”