Andrew Depaepe's mother takes us behind his recruitment to MSU (SP)

What is easy to forget when it comes to recruiting, though, is the fact that the industry is “relentless” and “ruthless,” especially in the days of name, image and likeness (NIL).

What is also often lost in the conversation around recruiting is that high school students, teenagers, are being contacted daily by football coaches, staffers, reporters and others, which can become a large burden for such young people, while other kids are just simply hoping to get noticed.

For highly-touted prospects such as Depaepe – who Rivals ranks as the No. 3 player in the state of Iowa, No. 17 strong-side defensive end and No. 177 player overall in the 2023 class – that process, while a blessing, can be overwhelming for them and everybody close to them – especially for their family members.

Tenya Losching, Depaepe’s mother, spoke to Spartans Illustrated via a telephone interview. She talked about how Depaepe’s recruitment started and gained momentum, how Michigan State got involved, her love for the MSU coaching staff, why Depaepe chose to become a Spartan and more.

As Losching explains it, Depaepe had a “phenomenal” junior year at Pleasant Valley High School and posted a few highlights on Twitter. Within 24 hours or so of the tweet, Depaepe started to get phone calls and his recruitment took off from there.

While it was certainly exciting, Losching felt certain programs could have handled it better by speaking to her directly.

“All these people (and schools) were extremely relentless, like calling (Andrew) almost on a daily basis,” Losching said. “I can see how overwhelming this is for a kid. I mean, he was 17 years old (at the time). You know, to a 17-year-old, it's a head coach of a football (program) at a university, that's a pretty big deal.

“But it really kind of bothered me because nobody called us (the parents) – they contacted (Andrew) directly. And I understand both sides of the coin there, but I did not like that, but every school did it.”