East Lansing, Mich. - Three things we learned this week in and around Michigan State preseason camp, two questions and one prediction:
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
1. Players who handle the ball the most are still locked in crucial competitions.
Who handles the football the most? The center, the quarterback and the starting tailback. At Michigan State, the starters at all three positions remain in doubt as the Spartans prepare for the first scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday.
Anthony Russo has improved physically, dropping 14 pounds and five percent of his body weight. He has immersed himself into the playbook and film room like crazy. He threw for more than 6,000 yards at Temple. But all of that might not be enough to hold off sophomore Payton Thorne.
Thorne repped ahead of Russo in the spring scrimmage. And, for what it’s worth, he has repped ahead of Russo for the practice reps that media have been able to watch this month.
Thorne is cool and steady. His teammates love him. Teammates like Russo too, but Thorne has had more time with them.
From my chair, both guys seem to be talented, bright-eyed, team-oriented battlers. Either way, I think Michigan State is going to get a winning quarterback out of this derby. The question is whether the supporting cast can play winning football as well.
Meanwhile at center, sixth-year senior Matt Allen was invited back by the coaches for another tour of duty. He played one game last year, the opener against Rutgers. He struggled badly that day and missed the rest of the year with an undisclosed injury.
Nick Samac has started five games in each of the past two years while replacing a banged-up Allen.
Samac is the more athletic of the two and probably has the higher ceiling of potential.
But Allen is back, slugging it out. In the spring scrimmage, Allen repped ahead of Samac, which surprised me. And Allen has repped ahead of Samac in the reps we have been able to view this month.
At tailback, sophomore Jordon Simmons is the leading returning rusher. But he might be third or fourth string, with Elijah Collins back to top form. Collins rushed for more than 900 yards as a freshman two years ago. But Wake Forest shifty-strong transfer Kenneth Walker III might be better than all of them.
There is a lot of buzz around Walker. He has impressed teammates and coaches. But Collins repped first in the spring scrimmage, and repped first during brief 11-on-11 thud scrimmaging on Wednesday.
The takeaway: Collins is ready to play the best football of his career, but his path to playing time is much more competitive and difficult than two years ago when he put up 988 yards. That’s a healthy situation for MSU’s offense.
Donovan Eaglin and Auburn transfer Harold Joiner are talented guys in the picture, too. Connor Heyward, who was the starting tailback at the outset of last season, has been bumped to H-back. That’s another positive sign about the overall talent pool when last year’s starter couldn't make the four-deep.
The overall takeaway: Is it detrimental that center, quarterback and starting tailback are likely being shuffled a great deal during the opening days of August camp? How often is Samac snapping to Thorne, who is handing off to Walker? How often is Samac snapping to Russo, who is handing off to Walker? How important is it for these parties to become increasingly familiar with one another?
The zone read option, and the RPO game, are important parts of the Michigan State offense. That involves the QB and RB having a feel for one another on the push/pull aspect of the handoff mesh point. A high level of familiarity would be ideal, but it’s going to be harder for Michigan State to achieve that than other teams that are more established with their personnel.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a little longer for Michigan State to achieve a level of mid-season form at these positions than would otherwise be the case. I’m reminded of the 2009 loss to Central Michigan when coaches were still auditioning Kirk Cousins and Oklahoma transfer Keith Nichol in a tight quarterback competition of sophomores.
Mark Dantonio and his staff ended up making the right decision in going with Cousins, which yielded outstanding seasons in 2010 and 2011 and helped set the foundation for a powerful program. I still think Nichol might have been an NFL quarterback as well.
I’m guessing the current staff would like to land on a No. 1 quarterback, center and starting tailback as soon as possible. But the competitions are so tight that it might take more than one scrimmage, and possibly more than one game, to nail it all down.
2. Connor Heyward has moved to H-back.
Good for him, and the team. He’s a team-oriented guy who wants to get on the field some how some way and contribute.
He had interesting size for the running back position but never displayed the type of power we might have expected from Ironhead’s son. That might be unfair for me to say, and I apologize. But remember when Heyward turned heads with a jarring broken tackle as a kick returner during his freshman year? I would have expected to see more broken tackles since then, but it didn't materialize. He also didn’t quite have a knack of seeing holes and finding daylight on those rare occasions when the offensive line blocked well for him. But he hasn't stopped working.