Not to get into a petty argument or anything, and I've appreciated our conversations, but couldn't this same logic apply to the players that you are bothered about MSU getting and not UM? If we are saying "well, we can't know that the Arizona, San Diego State, Hawaii, Nevada, San Jose State, UNLV, and Wazzou all made full, non-conditional offers, so I will assume it isn't a true head to head recruiting victory," then perhaps we weren't offering the full rides to players MSU landed, so it wasn't really an apples to apples recruiting victory when they get someone over UM?
Or, maybe after he didn't get the offer he really wanted more than anything, from Oregon State, he was won over by our staff making a pitch that he could go FBS and sit, or come here and compete for a chance to get on the field as a freshman/sophomore and get enough looks to move up to the FBS with a higher profile.
The truth is, we don't know. The only data points we have are public offers, so that's really all we can utilize. This kid had a stack of them from the FBS and the Big Sky. He chose Montana.