MSU's Drake Martinez wins appeal, can play in the fall

EAST LANSING -- Mark Dantonio called for some "public outcry" on signing day and tweeted a public cry of excitement today -- Michigan State's appeal to the Big Ten to allow linebacker Drake Martinez to play right away is a success.

Dantonio tweeted to Martinez: "Congrats on winning the appeal! 3 for 3! Special thanks to MSU Compliance and Big10 office #LookWhoseCominToDinner!"

When Martinez signed on Feb. 4, Big Ten rule dictated that he would have to sit out the 2015 season and have two seasons of eligibility starting in 2016. That's because Martinez -- younger brother of former Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez -- started his career with the Cornhuskers, another Big Ten school.

Martinez redshirted at Nebraska in 2013 and then transferred to Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif., for 2014, after suffering an undisclosed illness. Despite playing just one season, the Big Ten was going to take a season of eligibility from him for returning to a different league school.

"We will (go) out in public and just try and stimulate things, public outcry I guess, to try to have him three for three left," Dantonio said on signing day of trying to get Martinez three seasons of eligibility starting in the fall. "Every other conference in the country does that, no reason the Big Ten Conference should not be doing that as well. He spends a year at a junior college, I think that he should have the opportunity to go sit and play wherever he wants to go play and not have to sit out a year when he is eligible...

"I think when a young man has played some place, and he'd gotten sick and lost 35 pounds and he leaves and goes back home, and he spends a year in residence at a junior college and his grades are all in order and he's going to transfer and graduate and fulfill all the requirements, I think he should be able to play."

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Now he is, and that should at least mean a bonus for MSU on special teams. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Martinez is a speedy, athletic linebacker who likely will help back up Ed Davis at the strong-side linebacker spot.

His potential as a blitzer had MSU co-defensive coordinator Mike Tressel heaping praise on signing day.

"I mean he has a killer instinct blitzing, he wants to take your head off," Tressel said of Martinez, who is from Laguna Beach, Calif.. "He'll flat-out tell you, and I hope Taylor would confirm this, 'Oh, coach, I beat Taylor in a race.' And Taylor, if you saw him running up and down the sideline on us two years ago, that's as fast an offensive player as I've seen – I got whiplash watching him run down the sideline. So if he runs faster than Taylor, that guy can move.

"But watch how he finishes blitzes, because he wants to get after you. Power and nasty. Not just power. But it looks at that moment like he wants to kill you. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, but that's what it looks like."

Contact Joe Rexrode: jrexrode@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @joerexrode. Check out his MSU blog at freep.com/heyjoe.