MSU commit Marcel Lewis: 'a complete football player'

With the commitment of Chippewa Valley linebacker Marcel Lewis, Michigan State is getting a versatile, hard-nosed defender with good athleticism and impressive football instincts.

“He’s really a complete football player,” Chippewa Valley Coach Scott Merchant said. “He can really run. He is skilled. He has good hands. He’s athletic, and he has that physical nature about him. He’s not a one-dimensional.

"Athletically, he can handle it. Mentally, he can handle it.”

Merchant also lauds Lewis as a solid citizen who will represent his family and college program with integrity on the field and in the community.

“As good a football player as he is, he is an absolute joy to coach,” Merchant said. “He is going to be a great teammate. He is going to be a great representative for school. He is a team-oriented kid. He’s selfless and humble.

“I’m excited for him and his family. He’ll do great things.”

Ranked No. 24 in Michigan, Lewis selected Michigan State over finalists Michigan and Iowa.

“They love his physicality,” Merchant said of MSU coaches. “When you think of Michigan State, you think of tough hard-nosed defenses that run to the ball and are very physical and aggressive. That’s Marcel to a T. He’s a team-oriented guy who takes a lot of pride in playing defense.

“He’s aggressive, physical, and he can move. He fits the mold of a Michigan State linebacker pretty well.”

Lewis' commitment statement below:

Lewis is the sixth commitment overall, and fourth in-state commitment for Michigan State in the Class of 2019. He joins Dwan Mathis (Oak Park), Julian Barnett (Belleville), and Spencer Brown (Walled Lake Western) as in-state commitment in this class.

Barnett (No. 95), Mathis (No. 105) and Brown (No. 245) are ranked in the 2019 Rivals250. Three of those four in-state commitments have scholarship offers from Michigan.

Michigan made a push for Lewis in February when Jim Harbaugh offered him a scholarship during a phone call, and brought him in for an unofficial visit a short while later.

“He went up there for a basketball game after Michigan offered him,” Merchant said. “Michigan is a great school too, and they’ve got a great football program and good facilities as well. He had a good visit there.”

Iowa also made an impression.

“He was really high on Iowa,” Merchant said. “Coach (Kirk) Ferentz had come in over the winter, and they’re a team that plays tough, hard-nosed defense out there year after year. Iowa was one of the three main Big Ten Schools he had been talking about.”

Lewis totaled 88 tackles, including 11 tackles for loss, three sacks, three pass break-ups, and two forced fumbles as a second-year starter at linebacker for Chippewa Valley in 2017.

Lewis counted 18 FBS scholarship offers at the time of his commitment to Michigan State, including double-digit scholarship offers from Power 5 programs.

Iowa State, Kent State, and Central Michigan were the only schools to have offered Lewis before Michigan State pulled the trigger during an unofficial visit in January for the Michigan State-Michigan basketball game.

It was was one of several unofficial visits to Michigan State in the past 12 months. Before that Lewis attended Michigan State's non-conference football game against Western Michigan (Sept 9). He also dropped by campus last July.

Beyond his finalists, several other Big Ten programs aggressively pursued Lewis, who counted offers from Indiana, Purdue, and Minnesota in the Big Ten, and Pittsburgh, Iowa State, Kentucky, Syracuse, and Cincinnati outside the conference.

Within days of receiving an offer from Michigan State, Lewis added scholarship offers from Minnesota, Indiana, and Purdue.

“Iowa State offered during his junior season, and then Michigan State was next to offer,” Merchant said. “Then after that, it was crazy. There was one day he had three Power Five offers come in on the same day.

“Pittsburgh was the last one to offer him, and that was a couple of weeks ago.”

Merchant believes Lewis would have continued piling up offers if he'd let the process play out longer. He is surprised with the timing of his player's decision, but does not believe Lewis was hasty.

“I was surprised when he came in here on Monday and said, I’ve been thinking it over for a couple of weeks now and I’m ready,” Merchant said. “But he is a very humble and thoughtful kid, level-headed. He has a great mom who is a very good support system for him, and his dad. So I knew that he would make the best decision for himself.”

Michigan State was aware of Lewis as a potential Power Five prospect early in the recruiting process.

Lewis took his first unofficial visit to Michigan State for the BYU game in 2016 during his first season on varsity as a sophomore.

Lewis enrolled at Chippewa Valley too late in the calendar year to play football as a freshman, but Merchant encouraged him to take part in off-season workouts during the winter and spring as a freshman.

“He was in the weight room with us, and took part in conditioning, and 7-on-7’s, and everything,” Merchant said. “He fit right in with our older guys. He was competitive, and very athletic.”

Initially, Merchant looked at Lewis as a contributor on offense.

“We looked at him as a big wide receiver and an H-back at first,” Merchant said. “He had played running back when he was younger. At the same time, we were looking at him as a possible outside linebacker. His athleticism and size stood out right away.”

When the pads went on during training camp, it was obvious to Merchant that Lewis was wired to play defense.

“It was evident very quickly that he was a physical football player, and that he enjoyed contact,” Merchant said. “You just saw a lot of the things that you just can’t teach. Seeing his athleticism, and how physical he was, we moved him inside in our 4-2-5 defense, and you could just see it click. It was a real natural fit for him.

“He started every single game for us as a sophomore and was our second leading tackle. We went 6-4 with a really young team.”

Lewis made a big jump between his sophomore and junior seasons at Chippewa Valley.

“After working really hard in the off-season, he made the jump from being a good player as a sophomore to being a great player as an 11th grader. We also played him on offense some at H-Back and he did some special things in the playoffs for us.”

Kent State was the first FBS program to offer Lewis during the spring of his sophomore year. Central Michigan offered last spring.

“Rob Zeitman, who used to coach here at Chippewa and is a friend of mine, was at Ferris State, and then he became the o-line coach at Kent State," Merchant said. “He was the first one to offer. Central Michigan offered him a year ago last spring at their spring game.”