1. It’s not just fans. MSU’s players have been waiting for a new season for a while.
EAST LANSING – About the only remnants of last season that remain for Michigan State’s football team can be seen in the impact it’s having on the anticipation for this season.
A new season is always a fresh start. A new season that follows a miserable one is always the most welcome. And thus the overly positive vibes at Tuesday’s first practice of preseason camp, the first under new head coach Jonathan Smith.
MSU fans have been waiting for this. MSU’s players are just eager to get going, to set a new path, to play competitive football. To move on.
“Everybody’s excited about this season because last season was such a bad season,” MSU senior linebacker Cal Haladay said Tuesday. “… Last year was just hard for everybody.”
No one is making promises or predictions about how good this MSU team could be. There’s some buzz about certain players — at quarterback, receiver, tight end and defensive back, about the the potential for depth on the defensive line and linebacker. All stuff we’ve heard other years, even if some of the players are different. Sometimes it’s panned out. Sometimes not.
The only thing that’s just about certain is that it’ll be better this fall than a year ago. It can’t be worse.
2. All eyes on Aidan Chiles and MSU’s receivers
Among the reasons to think the Spartans might be competitive this season and perhaps have a chance to punch up in the Big Ten is the additions and possible improvements in the passing game, which averaged less than 200 yards per game last season.
That begins with sophomore quarterback Aidan Chiles, who spent the summer working to fine tune his chemistry with MSU’s receivers. Smith described it Thursday as a “huge summer” for that group and said Chiles was “pretty crisp” and had “some nice completions down the field” Tuesday.
Senior wideout Montorie Foster, who figures to be a big part of whatever transpires with MSU’s passing game, went a bit further in his assessment.
“Dynamic,” Foster said of Chiles. “He’s a dude, man. He makes plays. He stretches plays.”
Chiles is MSU’s unquestioned starting quarterback — he was brought in and paid to be the starter. But he’s a true sophomore, a first-year starter, who won’t turn 19 until after the Spartans’ second game. I don’t doubt his playmaking ability. What’ll impact MSU’s performance just as much will be whether he can make the right plays and avoid mistakes. He has to be afforded the time to grow with the program.
I do think he’ll have a decent crop of weapons to work with. I like Foster as an experienced and go-to target. I don’t know if he’s a take-over-the-game type of guy, but I think he has enough to juice and savvy to be a real threat.
More intriguing, perhaps, are the younger guys around him, including two players Smith brought up Tuesday — heralded freshman Nick Marsh and redshirt sophomore Jaron Glover.
“Jaron Glover’s taken a nice step in his game,” Smith said, “had a couple of catches today. But there’s plenty others. Nick Marsh, he continues to grow.”
Marsh is the big-bodied, potentially dynamic threat that showed flashes of what he could be in the spring game. When the head coach mentions a true freshman on Day 1 of practice, that guy is likely to see the field right away.
“Nick is different,” Foster said. “That’s my guy. We call him Megatron for a reason. He’s that guy to go make big plays down the field, big-body guy, and I just can’t wait to see him on Saturdays.”
You and a lot of other folks, Montorie.
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3. Spartan loyalty on display Tuesday after practice
All three of the players available for interviews after Tuesday’s practice were players who’ve lived three eras of Spartan football. Haladay and Foster both committed to Mark Dantonio in 2019, then played through the Mel Tucker era and decided to stick around under Smith. Sixth-year defensive tackle Maverick Hanson spent a year in the program when Dantonio was still coaching. They are proof that college programs can be about more than the coach and that the transfer portal isn’t the solution for everyone.
“Sometimes people leave for the wrong reasons,” Haladay said. “The grass isn’t always greener.”
Smith wanted all three back, including Hanson, who said he was grateful to be able to return for a sixth year, something Smith didn’t have to do.
“It matters,” Hanson said of sticking it out, “and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“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 leave a legacy that I’ve been wanting to leave here that I haven’t been able to in the past.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU football opens first fall camp under Jonathan Smith: 3 quick takes
