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MAC Recruiting Roundup: 5/24-5/31

Get caught up with the latest MAC recruiting news here

By Mike Karpinski

-Four MAC programs landed their 2016 quarterbacks this week.

  1. Kato Nelson committed to Akron early in the week and gives the Zips a solid base to build their 2016 on.
  2. Buffalo landed Max Bortenschlager, a proven winner out of Cathedral HS in Indianapolis, IN.
  3. Ball State received a verbal from QB Drew Plitt
  4. Bowling Green landed quite possibly the most talented QB to commit to the MAC to date, Elijah Cunningham.

-Seven MAC schools now have verbal commitments from a QB and it is just the end of May (the other 3 schools are NIU, Miami, and WMU). **For the record, Toledo has two players in Billy Kisner and Desmond Jennings who play QB in high school but are expected to play a different position at the collegiate level. The same can be said for Miami commit Riley Lees, who projects to play WR at the next level.

-To keep up with the quarterback theme, some transfer news(which is sort of 'Crootin news!) out of Florida State. QB John Franklin announced he will transfer from the program just 10 days after Everett Golson announced he will play out the rest of his collegiate career with the Seminoles. Many of you may be wondering, how is this related to the MAC? Well, Franklin seems to be considering any school willing to give him an opportunity and the MAC has a history of landing transfer from Power 5 programs. Check out some of his possible landing spots here.

-For the past three weeks now, there has been at least one de-commitment to talk about, however this time it was not a WMU recruit. Instead, 3-star ATH Tyrece Speaight announced his de-commitment from Kent State.

-NIU offered 2-star WR MJ McGriff this week. McGriff is just 5-foot-8, however he could see the field early in his college career returning kicks. The Huskies aren't the only MAC school pursuing him as he currently lists offers from Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, and Toledo.

-EMU was the 1st school to offer 3-star QB/ATH Kamal Martin this week. Martin reminds me of former 2015 NIU commit and Wisconsin signee Alec Ingold. It's not that Martin is the exact same player as Ingold, it is the fact that Martin seems to be getting recruited by G5 schools as a quarterback and P5 schools as a wide receiver. Ingold was in a similar position when NIU wanted him to be their quarterback of the future, while Wisconsin was recruiting him as a linebacker. In Ingold's case he wound up at Wisconsin, however only time will tells what happens with Martin(who actually plans to camp at Wisconsin at WR).

-It seems that Toledo is closing in on a few defensive targets from the state of Texas, both of whom plan to announce soon.

Vliem currently lists offers from Air Force, Army, UMass, Nevada, Ohio, Sam Houston State, S.F. Austin, Toledo, and UTEP.

Another prospect from the state of Texas plans to choose between Toledo and SMU this weekend.

Fort Worth (TX) Arlington Heights DE Patrick Jones (@ps_jones72) is committing on SUN between #SMU and #Toledo. @AdamGrosbard @RivalsJason

— Josh McCuistion(@JLMcCuistion) May 29, 2015

-Current Buffalo commit, LB Hosea McMullen reportedly landed a Syracuse offer this week. As of right now, he still seems committed to the Bulls but it's definitely something to monitor over the coming weeks/months.

-By our count, there are just two MAC schools without a commitment thus far. Those school are UMass and EMU. With that said, it is the end of May and about nine months until NSD 2016 so no fan base should be concerned about a lack of commitments at this point. A major part of recruiting is building relationships, which obviously takes time so patience is a must. For example, WMU has 12 commitments at this time, almost a full class, however even their recruiting class will look rather different on NSD 2016. It's just the end of May and the Broncos have already had three recruits de-commit.

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