Why 3 key Michigan State football starters stayed to help Jonathan Smith's rebuild

Derrick Harmon wanted to get away and forget about it all.

The losing season he just endured. The depressing mood that had befallen a Michigan State football program now in shambles. The uncertainty of what could come next. The defensive tackle from Detroit Loyola yearned for a fresh start and something different.

Several Power Five programs had lined up to give it to him as soon as he entered the transfer portal in early December. Auburn came calling. So did Oregon and Ohio State. Harmon visited all of them.

“I was like, yeah, let’s go ahead and leave State and see what’s out there,” he told the Free Press.

But then he sat down with the Spartans’ new coach Jonathan Smith. The conversation went well, better than he anticipated. Smith gave him his pitch on why he should stay. It wasn’t much of a hard sell, which Harmon appreciated. Still, it resonated with him.

Suddenly, he had begun to reconsider whether he should continue to pursue his exit strategy. Did he really want to abandon MSU and a locker room full of guys he liked? Would it make sense to move far away from home and his mother Tiffany, who had recently suffered a stroke? Why not stick around and see if Smith and his staff could offer Harmon the new beginning he sought elsewhere?

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“Maybe give these guys a chance, buy into the program,” he said. “Which I am right now, and I like what I am seeing.”

Harmon is not the only one who holds that view. When Simeon Barrow returned to campus earlier this month, the fifth-year defensive lineman and former Mark Dantonio recruit felt reinvigorated. The Tom Izzo Football Building, which was still under construction this past year, had finally been completed. The facility was modern with all the bells and whistles. But most of all it was inviting. There was an air of happiness inside it, an ineffable sense of excitement.

“It felt like a new place, new setting,” Barrow said. “The atmosphere in the program is real good. Everybody is walking in with smiles. It was like, ooh, I feel like I already transferred.”

At one point, he prepared to do just that. That was in late October, when Michigan State was a month removed from the firing of former coach Mel Tucker but still knee deep in pit of despair. The Spartans had already unraveled, losing five consecutive games as they careened toward a final record of 4-8. Like his team, which had been just been blown to smithereens by Michigan, Barrow had landed in a bad place.

“Just a lot going on and it put me on my back,” he recalled to the Free Press.

But two days later, Barrow withdrew his name and chose to remain in East Lansing. The decision offered Michigan State a temporary reprieve at a time of great hardship. Yet there was no guarantee it would remain permanent, with a regime change on the horizon. Barrow, after all, seemed like a prime candidate to transfer once the season ended. He was a three-year starter, a team captain and one of the Spartans’ most productive defenders.

Other programs figured to be interested in him.

But Barrow didn’t join the exodus after MSU played its final down. Instead, he joined forces with Smith, becoming his trusted agent within a fractured locker room. After developing an instant connection with his new coach, Barrow began encouraging his teammates to listen to Smith and give him a shot.

“And I’m cool with a lot of the guys,” Barrow said. “They look at (me) as a big brother and a great friend.”

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Smith appreciated Barrow’s support as he tried to stabilize MSU during a volatile period. Tucker’s replacement touched down in East Lansing on Nov. 26, two days after he coached his last game at Oregon State. Barely familiar with his surroundings, Smith hit the ground running in a foreign land. There was much to do. The first portal window was set to open in eight days and the early signing period for high school prospects was only three weeks away.

But before he went about acquiring new talent, he prioritized keeping the current roster intact and met with members of the scarred team he inherited.

“We understood with all they’ve been through and with the dynamic of college football now, they can go and explore those options and things,” Smith said. “We did try to re-recruit them.”

Of the 25 MSU players who entered the portal following Smith’s arrival, nine have since rejoined the Spartans. Guard Geno VanDeMark, who started six games this past season, is one of them. After he was courted by Oklahoma and several other schools, VanDeMark was pulled back into the fold by his attraction to MSU and his fidelity to his teammates. The relationships he had built with them over the past three years mattered. So did the amount of sweat equity he invested.

“Something was telling me to stay,” he told the Free Press. “Other places, other things sounded sweet. They had great opportunities, great staffs, everything. It was awesome.”

But VanDeMark couldn’t quit MSU, and he’s glad he didn’t.

He immediately hit it off with Smith and his new position coach, Jim Michalczik. Both established an open-door policy, allowing a free flow of communication that helped ease the adjustment process. Their methods may have been a bit different, VanDeMark discovered.

“But I like the way they’re doing it,” he said. “They’re built on doing things the right way and getting guys in the room doing things the right way. That’s not to say the old staff wasn’t.”

The feeling, though, is much better than it was only a couple of months ago, when a dark cloud shadowed the Spartans. Back then, Barrow and Harmon were consumed by the negative energy. The nagging uncertainty created by Tucker’s sudden ouster “made the environment not welcoming,” Harmon said.

“It was kind of bad,” Barrow added.

These days, it has completely flipped.

“Frowns have gone upside down,” Barrow observed.

VanDeMark describes the mood along Shaw Lane as “warm.” Barrow characterized it as “happy.” Harmon said it was simply “great.” Smith credited all three upperclassmen for helping him rally the troops and reignite the enthusiasm at MSU, where Barrow feels at home again.

“I’m glad I stayed,” he said.

So too is Harmon, the emerging linchpin who lines up next to him.

As the Detroit native surveyed the program he almost left, Harmon expressed optimism about the future. He is confident that the Spartans will soon win again now that the spirit has been restored. Even in the dead of winter, with the temperatures dipping into the single digits and football seven months away, Harmon loves his current situation. In fact, he couldn’t imagine himself being anywhere else.

“This is the life,” he crowed. “This is the place to be.”

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why 3 Michigan State football starters tested portal, but returned