The Book & Background on MSU's latest commitment: Aaron Young

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Surprise commitments are rare in today’s recruiting world, but Michigan State’s certainly smuggled one out of Eastern Pennsylvania over the weekend when running back/athlete Aaron Young, of Coatesville, Pa., committed to the Spartans.

Young is the best player for the best team in Pennsylvania. Coatesville (9-0), located between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, is ranked No. 1 in Division 6, the biggest classification in Pennsylvania. PennLive.com ranks Coatesville the No. 1 team in the state, regardless of classification.

No team has come within 16 points of Coatesville this year. The Red Raiders have won their games by an average score of 47-10.

Young doesn’t know his stats on the year, and doesn’t seem to care. He often has to sit out the second half as Coatesville tries to keep the score down.

He is ranked the No. 8 player in Pennsylvania, and the No. 2 RB in the state, by Rivals.com. (Rivals.com lists Patrick Garwo, a Boston College commitment, slightly ahead of Young in the in-state running back rankings).

Young committed to Michigan State over Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers and Arkansas.

He took official visits to Michigan State, Northwestern and Arkansas in June.

Penn State offered in July, and he took an unofficial visit to Penn State for the Nittany Lions’ home game against Ohio State. Penn State wanted him to take an official visit in December.

He took two unofficial visits to Rutgers, where his brother, Avery Young, is starting at cornerback as a true freshman.

Few knew that the Spartans were on the verge of getting a commitment from him, heading into the weekend.

“I prayed on it for a while and kind of got a feeling that I wanted to go there,” Young said.

He told Michigan State coaches a decision would be coming.

“They were expecting the decision to be soon but I don’t think they expected it to be right now,” Young said.

He called Mark Dantonio and committed at 6 p.m. on Sunday night.

“It was a surprise to them,” Young said.

Young has been to East Lansing once, and that was for the official visit in June. It took awhile for that visit to germinate with him, but after visits to Arkansas and Northwestern, and nearly four months of weighing things, he committed to the Spartans.

“It was a great visit,” he said. “I got to build a great relationship with Coach Dantonio and I think that’s what got me to go there. Him just being honest with me and straight-forward, along with Coach Warner and building a relationship with the running backs.”

Dave Warner, MSU’s co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach, was Young’s primary recruiter.

“They never really pressured me to make a decision,” Young said. “They just texted me every once in awhile and I just built a great relationship with them. Them not pressuring me has kind of helped.

“Just building the connections there with the players and the coaches was good. I talked to a lot of the commits and got questions answered from them. I talked to Jase Bowen, Damon Kaylor, Devontae (Dobbs). I DM (direct message) with those guys. They were just giving me feedback off the questions I was asking, and how they feel about the coaches and stuff.”

He might have committed earlier, but the Penn State offer seemed to change things.

“I just wanted to sit back and look at everything,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on it being this long, it just ended up that way. It’s been a long process so I just wanted to think about it to myself and my family.

“Penn State talked to me a lot toward the end of the summer. I talked to Rutgers a lot and Northwestern.”

MSU’s recent victory over Penn State might not have had a direct impact on his decision, but it didn’t hurt.

“They played their butts off,” Young said of Michigan State in the Penn State game. “They had a lot of players hurt, and had a lot of people that didn’t travel with them. Even with them not being there, they won the game.”

Northwestern and Arkansas were strong early contenders.

“Northwestern was a great place,” Young said. “You can’t beat the academics there. I thought that was a great piece. Coach Fitz is a great coach. They have a great program.

“They said I could be like the running back that left, (Justin Jackson) with 5,000 yards. They said I kind of remind them of him and they wanted to use me the same way.”

And Arkansas?

“I loved it there too,” Young said. “Coach Morris is a great guy and they came all the way out here to recruit me and they said that was the first time they came to PA to recruit a PA guy.”

What about Michigan State impressed him the most?

“Their coaches, their culture and their history,” he said. “Coach Dantonio pulled me in and said he watched 120 clips of my film. That stood out to me because a lot of coaches don’t actually watch the film. And he said he loves that I can play defense and offense.”

And Penn State?

“They thought I was an overall back, too,” Young said. “They said they use their backs in the backfield and out wide and I could do that.

“They were all difficult choices because they all had a different feel about them and had certain features that I liked but I just looked at everything overall and got my gut feeling to go to Michigan State.”