Projecting the post-spring Michigan State football defensive depth chart

The MSU defense has a handful of surefire starters and a lot of intrigue behind them.

Sorry I’m late!! This post was initially meant to be published two weeks ago as a companion piece with the offensive depth chart projection and the soon-to-be-published special teams depth chart projection. Well, a surprise and prolonged hospital visit followed by the birth of a child (everyone is doing well) was set in my lap and here we are; with me two weeks behind on everything.

So I’m not going to waste much more time. Expedition is the mission.

This is a somewhat informed/somewhat blind shot at projection what Michigan State’s depth chart currently looks like. This is based on previous roles and comments from coaches’ press availabilities. That’s the somewhat informed part. The somewhat blind part is that none of the new coaches–including the head one–have led these players in a real, live practice. That makes this difficult. What is clear is that on defense there are a handful of surefire starters and a lot of youth and intrigue behind them.

Let’s get to the defensive depth chart. Later in the week we’ll hit special teams.

Defensive Tackle

Jacob Slade, Naquan Jones
Jalen Hunt, Deshaun Mallory
Maverick Hansen, Evan Brunning

Salde and Jones are the obvious starters. They paired well as a tandem backing up Mike Panasiuk and Raequan Williams in 2019 and have the most experience in the group. Ron Burton has alluded to the fact that they well be counted on to lead the line. Behind them Jalen Hunt is really intriguing. He was supposed to go to Iowa in 2019, but wasn’t going to academically qualify. The Hawkeyes went another direction and then Hunt did end up qualifying and MSU swooped in late to get him. Mallory appeared in a couple games last season and could be used as a backup nose tackle. The interesting thing to watch here is how MUS aligns on defense in 2020. They’ll be slowly transitioning from a base 4-3 to a 3-4/hybrid defense. This means slight position changes for the front seven, which could shake up the depth chart.

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Projecting the post-spring Michigan State football offensive depth chart

Without the aid of spring ball, where do position groups sit on the offensive side of the ball?

Spring is an important time for college football depth charts. Practices in March and April set the stage for fall camp battles that may or may not happen as athletes jockey for starting positions. At programs with brand new coaching staffs–like Michigan State–that time is doubly important. Establishing the depth chart of a Mel Tucker’s new regime without the luxury of reports from spring practice or a spring game seems like a fool’s errand.

But I am a fool and these days I’m searching hard for any errand I can find.

The fall practices, training camps, or whatever we end up getting as a resolution from college football returning during the COVID-19 pandemic will go a long way into shaping who is actually taking snaps once snaps are there to be taken. Mel Tucker has said himself that everybody has a clean slate with him. At some point that slate will have to start to dirty up a bit, as the time for evaluation shrinks by the day and the need for game preparation grows. We’ll see how it shakes out.

With that said, with the help of what we know from previous seasons and reading into press availabilities from assistant coaches, we can start to piece together what the Michigan State football depth chart probably looks like right now.

Today we will start with the offensive side of the ball and get to the defense and special teams later in the week.

Quarterback

Rocky Lombardi or Theo Day or Payton Thorne

This is a totally wide open competition. Yes, Lombardi has the most experience of the bunch and it’s not close. But in the fall it will be almost two years since Lombardi has taken a meaningful snap as a starting college quarterback. And it’s not as if his run in 2018 was something that cemented his future as the starting quarterback. Sure, there were some good moments. But there were plenty of bad ones too. Plus, all three are learning a brand new offense. Lombardi’s advantage of being in the old scheme for three-plus years is out the window. Theo Day has almost no real game experience and his one shot against Penn State in 2019 was cut short when he called the wrong play just a few snaps in. Payton Thorne has yet to take the field at MSU. Had Mark Dantonio never left I would have picked Lombardi as the favorite to start, followed by Day and Thorne. With Tucker, I really don’t know. I’d probably just barely give the teeniest of edges to Lomardi with Day and Thorne in a dead heat for backup. Notice how many qualifiers I put in that sentence.

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