Michigan State’s Cal Haladay: ‘Our goal is always to win championships’
Michigan State began practices for the 2023 spring season last week. Following the first practice session of the spring, MSU redshirt junior linebacker Cal Haladay spoke to the media.
Haladay “beefed up” and added a few pounds heading into spring ball, while getting stronger. While that is what he was aiming for during the offseason, Haladay’s goal now is now is to perfect his technique and become a better communicator.
“My biggest goal this offseason was getting bigger, faster, stronger,” Haladay said. “That was big because I was pretty light last season, but that was the goal off the field. On the field, I just gotta get more technically sound, just trust everybody around me and make sure I'm doing my job and trusting that everyone else around me is doing their jobs. I think it's just gonna come down to details and really communicating, over-communicating for the defense.”
As for the initial spring practice session itself, Haladay thought it went fairly well, but he knows the Spartans have a lot of work to do following a disappointing 2022 campaign in which MSU went 5-7 and missed a bowl game.
“I thought it was a good first day,” Haladay said about the practice. “We have a lot to learn from last year, definitely have a different goal than last year, and I think we all know that we gotta focus this year and fix the things that we made mistakes on last year.”
The main goal for the Spartans, as Haladay notes, is to keep everybody healthy throughout the spring. Last April, Michigan State did not have many healthy bodies available, and, for the second year in a row, opted not to hold a traditional spring game.
The format of the 2023 spring game, which will take place on April 15, is still unknown, but making it out of the next few weeks with limited injuries is what the team hopes to do.
“Day one, I mean, everyone’s fresh right now,” Haladay said after the spring session. “It was a good day one. I think the big thing is to try to keep everyone healthy for the duration of the season is gonna be the main goal, and coming out of spring healthy because we don’t want anybody hurt going into the summer and then going into the fall because that just hurts us, and that’s what we can’t have.
“We had a lot of starters that ended up getting hurt (last year), and that’s just not good. Overworking can cause injuries, even though you think more is better, sometimes less is more. You can still get a lot of good work in not abusing your body.”
Competition and championship aspirations
After a breakout 11-2 season in 2021, many fans and pundits expected the Spartans to be one of the best teams in the Big Ten in 2022. However, MSU was decimated by injuries and suspensions, and just was unable to find consistency and winning football last season.
Haladay noted the team fell well short of its goals last year, and that Michigan State will do everything within its power to not repeat those results in 2023.
“Our goal is always to win championships – Big Ten championship, national championship,” Haladay said. “That’s always the goal, that’s every team’s goal, and we gotta know that we’re gonna have to go out and play every week and we’re gonna have to be prepared every week, and this is only the start of the preparation (in the spring). I think that it’s gonna go a long way for the spring to get the new guys up to speed with what we got going on, and it will just build on each other until the fall.”
Haladay was asked about the team’s mindset after the 2021 season versus what it was after the 2022 season. There will be no complacency during the spring and fall of 2023. The Spartans are hungry.
“We come off the Peach Bowl (after the 2021 season) and everyone’s happy, and I think that might have gotten to us a little bit looking back on it, but now I think it’s a different mindset (after the 2022 season),” Haladay said. “We came into the spring (2023 season) and we’re ready to go. We wanted to get back to work because it wasn’t fun sitting at home (during bowl season) and watching everybody else play.”
Part of that hunger will come in the form of competition within Michigan State’s own roster.
Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker has been adamant that “every position is open” this spring, and into the fall. From the quarterback battle, to Haladay’s spot as a starting linebacker, and everywhere in between, no player is locked into a role just yet.
Haladay “loves” the competitive nature of the Michigan State program.
“It’s just competition and you gotta love competition,” Haladay said. “People come to play – that’s what the goal is. You don’t come here to just hang out and be on the sideline, but the goal is to play. Everyone knows that, and it’s always competition, and that’s what makes it better. We have a really good (linebackers) room, and I think that it will allow us to play more guys, and we have young guys that can play, and we’re gonna be a well-rounded room I think. I think as a team, there’s gonna be positions that will also have competition and will also have the same qualities that are in our room.”
Different defensive looks and returning depth
While Michigan State runs a 4-2-5 defensive look under defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton, which means there are often only two linebackers on the field for the Spartans, Hazelton did experiment with some three-linebacker formations in 2022.
Haladay likes mixing in the three-linebacker looks because it forces the opposing offenses to adjust on the fly, and it allows MSU to match up better against certain sets.
“I think it just makes it tougher on the offense,” Haladay said when asked how three-linebacker sets change things for MSU. “We’re matching personnel and making sure it’s easier to go big on big (for example). It takes some stress off of a (defensive back) taking on a tight end or stuff like that, so it makes the matchup better, and that’s kind of the goal. For other personnel, it gives us different variations of defense when you’re playing different people – depending on the down, depending on the situation – so I think it just gives a different look to the offense and makes it hard for them to pick up stuff and see what’s going on.”
Haladay also noted that – because of all of the injuries last season – a lot of returners on defense got valuable game experience last season. While it may have been a detriment playing so many younger guys last season, Haladay thinks that experience can help the team in 2023.
“There’s a lot of people (who played) in games (on defense last year), and we know that, and we know we’ve got to take advantage of everyone’s skills and use them to our advantage,” Haladay said.
New faces in East Lansing and familiar faces returning to the program
Of the new faces to join the team, Haladay said he is looking forward to competing against transfer running backs Nathan Carter (UConn) and Jaren Mangham (South Florida) in practice. Haladay also spoke highly of defensive lineman Ken Talley, who joined Michigan State during the 2022 season, but did not see game action.
While he didn't mention any single player by name, Haladay mentioned that he is also excited to see what the newcomers on the defensive line (transfers and freshmen) can do in 2023.
Speaking of new faces, former Michigan State linebacker and team captain Antjuan Simmons has joined the MSU coaching staff as a graduate assistant and will help out with coaching the linebackers. Simmons and Haladay actually played together for the Spartans in 2020. Haladay is ecstatic to have Simmons back in the program, and looks forward to learning from him.
“It's really cool because he played before me and he was some guy that I looked up to and I respected,” Haladay said about Simmons. “He taught me a lot. I mean, even though it was that short season, the COVID season (in 2020), but he taught me a lot and I know he'll push me. We were teammates, so basically brothers, and I know he'll push me whether I like it or not, so it'll be a good relationship.”
Haladay's growth and expectations
Now in his fourth year in the program, Haladay has grown a lot. He not only knows what he needs to do as a linebacker, but he knows the responsibilities of all of the other positions, and he now as a veteran, he can hold people accountable when needed.
“I would say I have a pretty good understanding (of the whole defensive system),” Haladay said. “We go over all the installs and everything throughout the spring and summer and all that. But it's kind of just a refresher. I mean, I know it pretty well inside and out. I'm starting to learn other positions. I'm starting to get the whole concept around not just the linebackers, but just kind of seeing how it all fits together (as a whole defense). I think that's a big advantage, too, because then you know how it affects this position or that position. So I think it just helps all around (to know the whole system).”
Still, while Haladay is comfortable with where he is at, and is striving to get better every day, the linebacker knows what needs to be done. For Michigan State to improve in 2023, the entire defensive unit needs to take a step up, including Haladay himself. That improvement begins now in the spring.
“We didn’t perform to I think our standard last year,” Haladay said. “We need to work on our all-around defense, I think. We just need to get better – pass, run game, both – because we have goals in every game and we weren't meeting them or many of them for most of our games. So we look back on that (2022) season, just go back to those goals, and that's what we looked at and that's what we need to get back to get to that standard. We'll do it every practice and try to meet those goals and see where we went wrong and see what we need to do and make those corrections.”
Haladay also praised fellow linebacker Jacoby Windmon for his leadership, saying the redshirt senior is a “good voice” and a “natural leader.” With safety Xavier Henderson moving on from the program after finishing his fifth year of eligibility at MSU in 2022, Haladay expects Windmon to take on Henderson’s role as the orchestrator of the defense.