Michigan State football: Vets keep expectations high despite new coach, roster turnover

EAST LANSING — Entering the fifth and final year of their Michigan State football careers, Montorie Foster and Cal Haladay already have been through three preseason camps, two coaching changes and just one winning season.

Returning the Spartans to glory — or at least a bowl game — is one of the biggest missions for the veterans before they leave campus.

“We do have a high expectation to win every game this year,” Foster said Tuesday after the first practice of preseason camp. “The expectation is that (for) every year, so it's not like it's a difference from year to year. It's kind of how you go about your day-to-day grind and how you put in the work every day to get those wins, to make big plays on the field. ... The expectation is there. We're trying to win this year. So that's what it is.”

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Amid the turmoil of Mel Tucker’s firing last season, MSU went 4-8 and missed a bowl game for the third time in four years. Tucker’s lone winning season, an 11-2 campaign with a top-10 finish and Peach Bowl win in 2021, is the only reasons the Spartans are 24-22 since Mark Dantonio’s retirement after the 2019 season. The program has gone 51-46 with four losing seasons since making the College Football Playoff in the 2015 season, which featured the last of three Big Ten titles under Dantonio. MSU is 31-39 in conference play over the eight seasons since making the second four-team CFP, finishing above .500 against league foes just three times.

But the 2023 season and Tucker’s unraveling, which led to his dismissal and the eventual hiring of new coach Jonathan Smith in November, has left even more scars.

“Last year was tough,” said Haladay, a senior who has started since arriving in 2020. “I mean, last year, the way that everything went was just hard. And it was hard on everyone, the coaches included. I think we knew something was gonna have to change after the way the season went last year. And I'm excited with the change, because it's different.”

Smith, a 45-year-old offensive mastermind and former star quarterback at Oregon State, arrives at MSU after guiding his alma mater through a difficult transition early in his first head coaching job. The Beavers were just 9-22 in his first three seasons, but they went 25-13 over the past three years — including a 10-win season in 2022 and an 8-4 record last year — to earn a reputation as a program builder. However, Oregon State got frozen out of the conference realignment that featured a Pac-12 implosion and a Big Ten expansion (to 18 teams) with the addition of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.

The mission with the Spartans is similar to the one he inherited with the Beavers when he took over in 2018.

“I think you're definitely not taking anything for granted,” Smith said Tuesday. “So everything's new and trying to make sure we're always on the same page, over-explaining what we're coaching or how we're teaching it. I describe it as a fun new adventure, not just for me, I think for our coaches, to try to put this thing together.”

Of the 118 players on the camp-opening roster, Foster, at wide receiver, and Haladay, at linebacker, are two of only nine on scholarship who have been at MSU for four or more seasons.

Defensive tackle Maverick Hansen is the only remaining Spartan to have played for Dantonio, arriving in 2019 and getting a sixth season of eligibility this year. Foster, Haladay and defensive back Angelo Grose are in their fifth and final seasons, thanks to the COVID waiver for their true freshman season in 2020. Defensive end Avery Dunn, linebacker Darius Snow and offensive lineman Dallas Fincher (along with three walk-ons) also arrived in 2020 as part of Dantonio’s last recruiting class before his retirement, but they each have eligibility remaining beyond this year after taking redshirts. Cornerback Charles Brantley and offensive lineman Brandon Baldwin are the only members of Tucker’s first recruiting class in 2021 still on the roster.

“Having a sixth year and being able to play here one more time, it means the world to me,” Hansen said Tuesday. “I feel like I haven't really been able to put my best out there, for a whole lot of reasons. I really just feel like this is a great opportunity for me to put my best foot forward and and leave a legacy that I've been wanting to leave here, that I haven't been able to in the past. …

“I mean, It's almost like I'm at a new program, but I still get to wear my green and white and be a Spartan. It's awesome, I mean, it is truly different though, I will say. And I love it I'm trying to embrace every bit of it.”

Smith said the Spartans will put on pads for the first time after a few days of acclimatization. The target for the first preseason scrimmage, he added, is Aug. 10, with the season opener against Florida Atlantic a Friday night game at home on Aug. 30 (7 p.m., BTN).

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“We've got a rhythm in August,” Smith said. “We get 25 of these practices. The approach, in regards to our teaching and installation, and goes into individual periods and then you put them in a whole group. Study the tape, have a few scrimmages. …

“The expectation is that it's gonna be pretty competitive. And then, yeah, we got some new faces this summer. They need to add to that competition."

Though Haladay expressed his personal distaste for the portal, he also said he understands how and why coaches are using it. And like Foster, he believes those who have stayed and become guides for the newcomers also will benefit from their arrival.

“Some of us have been through it before, so we had a better idea how to just come in with open arms,” Haladay said of welcoming 24 additions via the portal after 38 departures. “And whoever can help us win is gonna help us win. And that's anybody that can help. I'll take anybody.”

Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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