Michigan State football opens camp with new coach, fresh perspective and plenty of changes

EAST LANSING — Lines of players — the offense in green and defense in white — went through stretches in preparation to shake off three months of rust. That doesn’t take long for finely trained and conditioned college athletes.

Michigan State football head coach Jonathan Smith stood watching during their calisthenics, hat on head and whistle in hand, observing every little detail. The horn sounded, ending the warmup period. Players and coaches scattered into position groups. Pads began to thump over the loud music, balls began to fly through the blue-white skies and sweat began dripping as the temperature and humidity increased.

The Spartans are back, even though many of the faces and names are different than a year ago — heck, even since the last time they practiced on this field in April. Smith and his new squad opened their preseason camp Tuesday, with his debut a month away, on Aug. 30 against Florida Atlantic.

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“It's definitely always exciting for the first day of camp and stuff,” senior wide receiver Montorie Foster said after practice Tuesday. “Last night, I really couldn't sleep too much. But it was definitely fun today. We got there got out there to run. We got to run and play, so it was pretty good.”

Although the team spent the summer working individually and in small groups, keeping skills sharp and developing rapport with each other, the opening of camp remains a symbolic restart to football. Particularly when a new coach, namely Smith, takes over a program.

Mel Tucker was fired during last season for off-field issues and after a Title IX investigation, with the Spartans finishing 4-8 and missing out on a postseason bowl invitation for the third time in four years on his watch. Aside from the magical Kenneth Walker III-led 2021 season that resulted in a New Year’s Six bowl win, an 11-2 record and a top-10 finish, Tucker and his staff went 11-20.

That came on the heels of Mark Dantonio making the program into a constant winner the previous 13 years by going 114-57. During that span, he missed a bowl game only once. Smith on Tuesday preached the need for MSU to recapture the consistency Dantonio displayed in surpassing Duffy Daugherty as the school’s all-time winningest coach.

“(Smith and his staff) make little games and stuff for us, to make sure that we know everyone's name. We know their hometown, we know what they like to do,” said sixth-year senior defensive tackle Maverick Hansen, the last remaining Spartan on the roster to have actually played under Dantonio. “We we sit together all the time. I mean, there's just little things, but those little things add up. And it helps really, truly build camaraderie between the guys.

“And with that, I mean, the start of the team is the team. So if everyone's super-close, you're going to be fighting harder for the guy next to you and you're willing to put more on the line for him. So I feel like that's, that's been the biggest difference for me and with this staff. Coach Dantonio was really big on that.”

Yet the path toward college football cohesiveness has changed dramatically since Hansen’s true freshman year in 2019.

Foster and linebacker Cal Haladay arrived at MSU in 2020 as Dantonio recruits who maintained their commitment to the program after his retirement. All three remained despite Tucker taking over and gutting the roster going into 2021 with a dramatic, sweeping use of the transfer portal that now has become commonplace in college football. And they stuck it out despite the tribulations of the past two seasons, both on the field and with Tucker’s termination.

But those three also have watched many of those who fought alongside them the past few years go elsewhere to finish their college careers, while the Spartans have endured a fall from the upper echelon of the Big Ten.

MSU lost 38 players to the transfer portal since this point last year. That includes 21 since Smith and his staff began to remake the program in the spring. Since 2021, the Spartans have seen 96 players go into the portal and have pulled 61 out of it. Some have transferred multiple times, before and after. Some of entered the portal only to remain at MSU; some of those eventually departed as well.

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“I would just say it's loyalty to the program,” Haladay said of his decision to remain in East Lansing. “I'm not huge into the portal. I mean, if it's for you and if it benefits you to leave, then so be it, that's your decision. But I think staying somewhere and sticking it out, it shows a lot of character, I would say.

“So I never really bought into the whole portal thing. And I always felt like I was a Spartan from Day 1, and I'm gonna finish as a Spartan.”

The new staff brought in 24 replacements via the portal, on top of a 21-player freshman class assembled after Smith was hired Nov. 25. All the turnover makes the next 4½ weeks critical for the new coaching staff to get the new players up to speed on schemes, terminology and demands on top of the usual preseason installations.

“There’s new faces. No question that there's teaching,” Smith said Tuesday. “They did get the advantage of some summer, and they got some work there. I kind of described it to the team last night. There was a lot of teaching in spring ball, into the summer a little bit.

“This thing is going to be pretty competitive for the depth chart. And we got a lot of depth at positions.”

The challenge is further compounded by the Big Ten's expansion to 18 teams — welcome, Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington — and the College Football Playoff's expansion to 12 berths. The need for a productive and injury-free camp is vital as the Spartans face an early four-game gauntlet over a five-week stretch in September and October: at home against Ohio State, at Oregon, at home against former Big Ten West champ Iowa and at reigning national champion Michigan.

With all the newness and turnover, outside expectations are at historic lows for MSU entering this season, even though most believe Smith to be a home-run hire. However, the grueling schedule does not yet matter, especially not on Day 1 of practice. The goal at this point, through the impending August heat, will be to establish the building blocks for success.

“For me, I always think about the what's after the season. But first thing is the season. We got to get through those 12 games,” Hansen said. “My biggest goal is get that bowl game, get to the Big Ten championship and get us a chance at the natty, man. I mean, that's all anyone in college football could really hope for.”

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

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