Michigan State Football 2023 Positional Preview: Running backs

The beginning of the 2023 college football season for Michigan State is under 50 days away. The Spartans will open fall camp in early August and they will have their first game of the season on Friday, Sept. 1 against Central Michigan at 7 p.m. Eastern Time (FS1).

Leading up to the start of the season, Spartans Illustrated will take a look at all personnel for each position group. To see the quarterbacks positional preview, click here.

The second position group on the roster that we will dive into is the running backs spot. Looking back at last season, the Spartans averaged 113 rushing yards per game (111th in FBS and 12th in the Big Ten). The lack of a ground game last season can be attributed to a number of things. Sure, losing Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III hurt the run game. The offensive line had its struggles, too. Left tackle Jarrett Horst and right guard Matt Carrick both missed part of the season due to injuries, as did guard Brian Greene, and there were other injuries in the trenches as well. Also, the Spartans had less depth than they did the year before, which didn’t help the rushing statistics.

Last season, the Spartans had a three-prong attack in the backfield. Wisconsin transfer Jalen Berger, who is back for the 2023 season, led the way with 148 carries, 683 yards and six touchdowns. Elijah Collins toted the rock 70 times for 318 yards and six scores. Colorado transfer Jarek Broussard had 63 carries for 298 yards and three touchdowns. Collins transferred to Oklahoma State and Broussard entered his name in the NFL Draft. He is yet to find a home at the time of writing.

Normally, when a team loses its second- and third-leading rushers, it’s fair to question the depth in the running back room. Today’s college football landscape is not normal with the transfer portal, however.

Head coach Mel Tucker and running backs coach Effrem Reed went out and got South Florida transfer Jaren Mangham and UConn transfer Nate Carter.

Also in the running backs room is senior Jordon Simmons. Simmons ran for over 200 yards in 2020 and 2021, but only had nine yards last season. Redshirt sophomore Davion Primm was the No. 3 running back prospect in the state of Michigan for the 2021 class. He has yet to record a stat for the Spartans, though. Walk-ons Joseph Martinez and David Millikin are two other backs on the roster that have yet to record a carry in the Green and White.

A name to watch down the road is incoming freshman Jaelon Barbarin. He was a three-prospect star recruit out of Chaminade College Preparatory in West Hills, California. Barbarin was not in East Lansing for spring practices, but has since joined the team.

Overall, incoming transfer Carter has been impressed with the running back room through spring practice.

“We have a lot of potential,” Carter said during the spring. “We have a lot of guys who are playmakers. We have a lot of guys who can do very different things for our offense and for our team, which is really, really good for us. Competition breeds excellence.”

Let’s take an in-depth look at every player in the running back room.

Berger was the leading rusher for the Spartans last season. As mentioned, he recorded 148 carries, 683 rushing yards and six touchdowns and he played in all 12 of MSU’s games. Berger also hauled in 19 catches for 128 yards.

Last season was Berger’s best season statistically in his college career. Before MSU, Berger played for Paul Chryst and Wisconsin. The New Jersey native had 84 carries for 389 yards in two seasons with the Badgers before transferring to MSU before the 2022 season.

Berger’s move to East Lansing wasn’t a complete shock. Tucker has always had connections in Madison because he was a former defensive back for the Badgers in the 1990s. During Berger’s high school recruitment, he visited MSU’s campus twice, but ended up committing to Wisconsin as a four-star prospect.

Berger is 6-foot-1 and weighs 215 pounds. He has a steady skill set. He’s not a guy that necessarily has elite breakaway speed. However, he is patient and has good vision. Berger is also good in the screen and short passing game. That is evident with his 19 receptions a season ago.

While he struggled at times last season, it really appeared that Berger was putting it together toward the end of the 2022 campaign. It will be interesting to see if that momentum carries over in 2023.

Among the presumed top-three backs in the room (Berger, Carter and Mangham), Berger knows the offense well since he was in East Lansing last season, and should have a better feel this time around. Don’t be shocked to see Berger get the majority of the carries this season. Even if he doesn’t, he will certainly be a valuable asset in the backfield because of his versatility in the passing game as well.

While Carter has yet to play a down for Michigan State, he’s already made a positive impression on the fans and coaching staff.

Carter’s weight room pictures that have circulated social media this offseason are certainly impressive. Michigan State’s spring roster lists Carter at 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds. However, it is very possible that Carter added weight since then.

It’s not just the fans that are impressed with Carter’s physique though. Tucker has spoken highly of Carter.

“He’s got really good burst through the hole, runs hard,” Tucker said about Carter in April. “He came in very impressive in the weight room. He looks the part. He’s very humble and very hard-working. He does an excellent job in the special teams work we ask him to do. He seems to be picking up the scheme pretty quickly. He’s mature and very attentive.”

As a freshman at UConn in 2021, Carter started in four games and played in all 12 games. Carter led the Huskies in rushing that season with 578 yards and two scores on 125 carries. He also caught 19 passes for 127 yards. UConn did have one of the worst rushing offenses in the nation that season as the Huskies only averaged 101.3 yards per game (123rd in FBS).

Carter returned to UConn for the 2022 season, but suffered a season-ending shoulder injury just four games into the season. He still finished third on the team in rushing despite only playing in four games. He totaled 65 carries, 405 rushing yards and one touchdown. Carter entered the portal after the season.

He described entering the portal as taking a “leap of faith.”

“I felt my time at UConn had come to an end and I was being called to go somewhere else. I didn’t really know where that was. So, I was kind of taking a leap of faith as far as trusting God for what plan he had for me.”

Despite not being in East Lansing for a full year, Carter says he is “very comfortable” with the Spartans' offensive system. Expect Carter to have a big role in the run game this season.

Mangham is one of the veterans of the group. He has played his college football all over the country. The Detroit native was recruited by Tucker when he was at Colorado out of high school. Mangham committed to the Buffaloes and spent two seasons in Boulder, one of those was under Tucker. He totaled 130 carries, 476 yards and five touchdowns.

After the 2020 season, Mangham transferred to South Florida and played for the Bulls for the next two seasons. He was the leading rusher for the Bulls in 2021. Mangham had a total of 184 carries for 775 yards and 18 touchdowns.

The Cass Tech graduate returned to the state of Michigan and reunited with Tucker by committing to MSU back in December.

“That’s where my heart led me and it led me back here (to Michigan State), home,” Mangham said earlier this offseason.

Mangham’s connections with Tucker and with his brother, current MSU defensive back Jaden Mangham, helped him create a full circle moment. Mangham was “very close” to committing to former head coach Mark Dantonio and the Spartans out of high school but decided to leave the state and go to Colorado. Now, he is in East Lansing with his brother being coached by the same guy who coached him at Colorado for one season.

Mangham is the biggest back in the room. He is 6-foot-2 and weighs 230 pounds. Mangham is confident in his pass protection abilities and receiving balls out of the backfield. That’s all on top of his physical, bulldozing skillset as a ball carrier.

Expect Mangham to see plenty of action this season, especially in short-yardage situations.

Simmons was the leading rusher for the Spartans as a true freshman in the shortened 2020 season as he totaled 219 yards in seven games. However, MSU was one of the worst in the nation in rushing offense that year as the Spartans averaged 91.7 yards per game, good enough for 123rd in FBS.

He was the second-leading rusher, behind only Walker, in the 2021 season. In 2022, he played mostly on special teams and only had four rushing attempts. Simmons was buried on the depth chart behind Berger, Broussard and Collins last season.

The running back room heading into the season this fall is arguably better and more deep than it was last season. Expect to see Simmons contribute on special teams. However, Simmons has experience at the running back position so he is a great depth piece if the room gets bitten by the injury bug.

Primm was one of the top running back prospects out of Michigan in the class of 2021. He redshirted in 2021.

As a redshirt freshman in 2022, Primm drew a lot of buzz in spring ball, but it didn't materialize into much. He switched from running back to the defensive backfield to help out the depleted secondary unit. However, he didn’t see the field on defense either. Primm did see special teams time against Akron in Week Two, but that was his only listed appearance.

Primm was featured sparingly in the Spartan Football Kickoff event in April. He was not used as heavily as Berger, Carter, Mangham and even Simmons.

The 6-foot, 205-pound Oak Park native is another depth piece for this room if things go south with the aforementioned backs. However, he's flashed his potential in past springs and would likely love an opportunity to show off his skill set in game action.

The running back position in the future was bolstered by the committed and eventual signing of three-star Jaelon Barbarin from West Hills, California. He was ranked as the No. 81 player in the state of California.

Barbarin chose the Spartans over offers from Austin Peay, Kansas State, Massachusetts, San Jose State, UNLV and Washington State.

He also took visits to many Pac-12 schools, including Arizona, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State and Washington.

“I chose Michigan State because I feel like they provided me the best opportunity to become a better football player and a better man overall,” Barbarin said to Spartans Illustrated when he committed to MSU in December.

The incoming freshman wasn’t in East Lansing for spring ball. Instead, he spent his spring running track. Barbarin has elite level speed as he has a record of 10.37 in the 100-meter dash, 21.36 in the 200-meter dash and an unofficial time of 4.3 in the 40-yard dash.

It is possible that Barbarin, 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds, could get on the field early for the Spartans in other ways. His elite speed could allow him opportunities on special teams, and it's also possible that offensive coordinator Jay Johnson lines him up in unique ways, such as a slot receiver. However, how much playing time Barbarin will get as a true freshman remains undermined, and a redshirt could happen.

Martinez is a local, mid-Michigan running back from Holt. He joined the Spartans as a walk-on wide receiver for the 2020 season and he redshirted that year. He made the switch to running back this past spring.

Martinez enters his fourth year in the program now, but has yet to see game action. In 2021 and 2022, Martinez did earn Academic All-Big Ten honors.

While at Holt High School, Martinez averaged an impressive 8.1 yards per carry in his senior season. Behind his production out of the backfield and as a receiver, Holt earned a spot in the Division I state playoffs.

Millikin is another Michigan native in the running back room. He hails from the small town of Grayling, which sits just north of Higgins Lake.

Millikin joined the Spartans team as a walk-on for the 2022 season. He did not see game action and redshirted as a result.

While at Grayling High School, Millikin played all over the field. He was a running back, but he also spent time as a middle linebacker and as a safety.

Update: Millikin has been moved to linebacker.

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