Rich Rod has tried to turn Michigan from a regional recruiting focus to a national recruiting focus. As he has done so it has opened up the door for Michigan State to get early commitments from Michigan kids that aren't feeling the love from Ann Arbor. RR has gotten some late recruits out of Michigan (Cam Gordon, Will Campbell) but Dantonio took most of the good ones early (like Larry Caper). It remains to be seen whether this is a one year phenomenon or whether it has legs because Michigan State did not recruit near as well last year, but RR wasn't in Michigan last year. It could be that Michigan gets back to the top with national recruits and in the process creates another power in the Big Ten by letting Michigan State hoard all of the talent that Michigan is leaving behind.
We have competed with MSU for a few recruits this year (Gainer, Hammock, Hageman) and we competed with them for Gray last year. We will bump in to them and compete from time to time because Brewster and Dantonio will both recruit Indiana and we're willing to go in to each other's backyard for players (we picked up Dandridge & Watkins from Michigan the past two years). However, within the conference we have been going up against Wisconsin and Iowa more frequently than anyone else and then probably Illinois (St. Louis & Chicago recruits) followed by Michigan & Michigan State and OSU will try to come to Minnesota for top recruits (Mobley, Hagemen, Henderson). I think we're likely to go up against Texas Tech & Texas A&M as frequently as many of the Big Ten schools.
