Tight end is perhaps the most worrisome group heading into the 2020 season.
The point of this series of blog posts is pretty straight forward; to examine what we do and don’t know about each position group on the Michigan State football team.
It may seem hard to believe, but the college football season is–currently–scheduled to kick off in about three months. Time flies when you’re stuck inside. Whether or not Michigan State and the rest of the country play football this fall, or what that football looks like, is a conversation for another day. Today I want to start taking a deeper look at each position group on the team, broken down by what we know and what we don’t know. These will continue throughout the next couple of weeks until all of the positions are covered. Today: the tight ends.
What we Know
Trenton Gillison has to be good. Tight end might be the most worrisome position group for Michigan State right now. I’ll cover the reasons why as we progress, but Gillison is about it for proven (healthy) commodities and even he is incredibly unproven. However, the redshirt sophomore capped his first season strong with four catches for 88 yards in the 2019 Pinstripe Bowl. A former four-star recruit, Gillison came to MSU with high expectations and this is the year for him to fulfill them.
Matt Dotson is coming off a major injury. Achilles tears are absolutely brutal, we all know that. Dotson tore his towards the end of the 2019 season which gives him about ten months of recovery time before 2020 kicks off. That’s a tough ask. Even if he has recovered to the point that he can get on the field, how much of his athleticism has been sapped by his injury?
Adam Berghorst seems like he could have potential . . . maybe? Berghorst came to MSU as a defensive end, but switched to tight end midway through his freshman season out of necessity. That’s never a great start, but he was able to work his way into more snaps as the season progressed, finished with a career-high 28 snaps in the Pinstripe Bowl. He’s big and athletic, we know that. But that’s about all we know.
The rest of the depth chart is unknown. Parks Gissinger also transitioned from defensive end to tight end in 2019. He saw action in four games and heads into his redshirt sophomore season with one career catch. Could Connor Heyward see some snaps at H-back/tight end? Can true freshman Tommy Guajardo crack the rotation? Yes, I know that’s a lot of questions for the “what we know” segment.
They have a new position coach in Ted Gilmore. This might just be the most important development for the entire position group. Mel Tucker was able to pry Ted Gilmore out of Wisconsin after he spent five very successful years their as the wide receivers coach. Tight ends at MSU used to be a position of strength and haven’t been in recent seasons. Gilmore could be the guy to get them going in the right direction again.
What we don’t Know
How much MSU will involve tight ends in 2020. I like to keep these to specific players or coaches, but this is an important point. Jay Johnson recently said tight end will be the “MVP” of the offense. That’s not a statement that sits well considering all of the questions surrounding the group. Last year Colorado used one or zero tight ends for a great majority of their offensive snaps. I’d bet that continues this season and Trenton Gillison eats most of those. Maybe in the future MSU uses two tight end sets more often, but 2020 doesn’t feel like the time to do it.
Can Trenton Gillison replicate the Pinstripe Bowl? I mentioned it earlier, but Gillison’s Pinstripe Bowl was by far his most productive game in his first full season. As of now, that’s just a flash in the pan. It’s a nice flash, sure, but he’s got a ways to go before that can be relied upon. Can he do it? Gillison is big, athletic, and physical. There’s a reason he was so highly-touted out of high school. Is this the year he breaks out?
Can Matt Dotson even play? I won’t rehash much of what I wrote above, but it’s still a question mark that Dotson can even be healthy enough to play. And while Achilles tears are generally one-year injuries, it takes even longer for the sufferer to get back to 100%. Dotson is a senior in 2020. His shot at MSU might be over.
Will anyone else step up? This is the biggest question for this group. I think Gillison will be able to perform well enough that MSU will feel good about TE1. Behind that it is a total mystery. Outside of Dotson there’s a combined one catch for five yards. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. MSU needs at least one of Gissinger, Berghorst, or Guajardo to prove good enough to take 100+ snaps at TE2 this season. Either that or Connor Heyward as a tight end hybrid type. Heyward isn’t built to play traditional tight end, so even if he ends up in that kind of role, one of the bigger bodied guys is going to have to play. At this point, there’s no telling who that will be.
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