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Arguments for (and against) a bowl appearance

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When Michigan State football fans last saw their beloved team play, the Spartans' vitality had died.

A 42-0 loss to Penn State in the 2023 season finale at Ford Field was the grim final act of the doomed Mel Tucker era. The offense was in a coma. The defense was flat. Eight weeks after Tucker was fired amid the turmoil of an off-field scandal, the program was buried with a 4-8 record.

At this point, MSU was already looking for a recovery.

Jonathan Smith, a proven turnaround artist who had revived Oregon State, immediately came to the rescue. Soon after, he restored hope and confidence. Linebacker Jordan Hall described the change in mood as a “complete turnaround.”

CAPTAIN’S LOG: Michigan State Football says goodbye to the past and welcomes the leadership of new quarterback Aidan Chiles

The optimism has continued into this preseason.

“We're definitely trying to win,” Smith said in July. “We're trying to win more than we lose.”

If the Spartans achieve that goal, they will qualify for a bowl game for the first time since 2021.

We examine why this goal can be achieved, and also explore the reasons that suggest it may not be achievable in the first season of Smith's tenure:

Arguments for MSU’s participation in a bowl

As bad as the Spartans were last fall, they still could have extended their season by defending just two fourth-quarter leads in two crushing losses to Rutgers and Iowa. The results of those games significantly diminished the perception of a team that was destroyed in blowouts by Washington, Michigan, Ohio State and the Nittany Lions. But the fact that the Spartans were still flirting with the .500 mark in 2023 showed they weren't a complete lost cause.

Rather, it suggested that they simply needed some guidance – and much better care.

Smith and his team should provide that. With the help of his proven coordinator Brian Lindgren, Smith ran one of the most efficient offenses in the country last year at Oregon State. Meanwhile, Lindgren's counterpart on defense, Joe Rossi, has a proven track record in Minnesota, where the Gophers ranked in the top 10 in points and yards allowed per game in 2021 and 2022. Lindgren and Rossi should both be an improvement over their respective predecessors, Jay Johnson and Scottie Hazelton.

In their final year at MSU, Johnson and Hazelton oversaw units that finished in the bottom 30 teams in offense and defense success rate. In each of their five worst losses, the Spartans scored fewer than 10 points and allowed more than 30. That was no big surprise. During Hazelton's tenure, MSU was as tight as a sieve, especially against tough opponents. Johnson, on the other hand, was unable to produce consistent performance from one year to the next. Aside from Kenneth Walker III's breakout year in 2021, the Spartans' running game ranked near the bottom of the Big Ten. In 2023, MSU posted the worst single-season run average per game in school history. Smith and Lindgren should bring their feel for pro style to improve things.

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They have a capable ball carrier, Nate Carter, who has shown some explosiveness. They also have dual-threat quarterback Aidan Chiles, the highly touted transfer from Oregon State and newly crowned team captain. Chiles is expected to outperform each of the three passers – Katin Houser, Noah Kim and Sam Leavitt – who played a lot of snaps for the Spartans last year and then left to go elsewhere.

By then, he should be able to make better use of the tools at his disposal. Chiles, after all, is surrounded by talented players – from tight end Jack Velling, a Mackey Award candidate, to Montorie Foster Jr., the athletic fifth-year wide receiver who led the Spartans in catches and receiving yards in 2023. If the offense can sustain drives more often than MSU did during the Tucker era, Rossi's unit should have a real chance.

“We were so close to a (bowl game) last year, but we had a defense on the field for 80 plays and then we scored six points,” noted safety Dillon Tatum.

It was discouraging, Tatum said. So was the passive nature of Hazelton's strategy. Rossi's system, on the other hand, allows players to go “downhill,” Hall said.

The philosophical and structural changes could lead to enough improvements on that side of the ball to give MSU a leg up in the final month of the season, when it faces Indiana, Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers. If they beat all four of those teams, the Spartans could land in a bowl site by the time winter hits.

Arguments for Michigan State missing a bowl

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However, great progress still needs to be made to make this happen.

The Spartans have 61 new players on the roster, including 24 transfer additions. The turnover has been noticeable and MSU has spent the offseason filling gaps in every sector, particularly on the offensive and defensive lines, the secondary and the linebacker group. The departures of interior tackles Derrick Harmon and Simeon Barrow have left big holes and clouded the outlook for Rossi's unit. Meanwhile, the departures of Geno VandeMark, Kevin Wigenton II and Spencer Brown have further weakened a fragile blocking front that will now be reassembled with a number of unproven players to protect Chiles, who played just 100 snaps at the college level.

If MSU can't generate pressure at the line of scrimmage or pressure the opposing quarterback, it's conceivable that the Spartans could end up exactly like they did last season, when they teetered on the brink of extinction. This team, like the other, lacks depth at key positions, which could leave MSU vulnerable as it enters the final stretch of winnable games in November.

The road to get there is likely to be challenging anyway, and MSU may have trouble getting off the ground at first.

After all, Smith is no miracle worker.

The rebuilding he initiated at Oregon State took time. The Beavers won only two games in his first season and five in the following. It was not until the fourth year of his tenure in Corvallis that they qualified for a bowl.

If he can accomplish that feat by the end of his first fall in East Lansing, he'll be well ahead of schedule, but that may be asking too much given how many changes have already been made and the question marks that still hang around the roster.

Contact Rainer Sabin at [email protected]. Follow him @RainerSabin.

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