There's the Door!
To say it has been a tumultuous year for the Michigan State University football team would be a bit of an understatement. Something along the lines of a dumpster fire is more like it. Finishing the year at 4-8, any hopes of a bowl game were given up on long ago.
The fact that the team spent most of the season without and official head coach didn't make matters any better. Mel Tucker was suspended, then fired due to some indiscretions that eventually came to light. I won't get into the details about all of that. The facts leave things a bit blurry and it ends up feeling more like a hit piece than an actual offense.
That's not to say Mel didn't make some poor decisions. He definitely did, but again, that's not really what this post is about. When the rest of the world is focusing on one thing in particular, it makes it hard to focus on the things that are really important. No matter how hard you try.
Even before Michigan State announced that Jonathan Smith was coming over from Oregon State to take the reigns, players were entering the transfer portal.
It's amazing how one little rule can basically turn the world of college sports on it's head. On October 15th, 2018, the NCAA instituted the transfer portal. This allowed scholarship players to announce their intent to transfer to another school.
I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's bad, but in a world where people lack the ability to commit to anything and think that they are owed something or that life should always be "fair", this rule has wrecked havoc on teams across the nation.
No doubt in tandem with "NIL" (name, image, and likeness) deals, colleges are basically at the mercy of players whims now.
That brings us back to the Michigan State Spartans who have seen at least ten if not more of their players enter the transfer portal in the past month alone.
In fact, all three of their quarterbacks are now gone. Houser left a couple of days ago. Then Leavitt didn't want to play ball for the coach that didn't give him a scholarship at Oregon State, and now Kim announced yesterday that he is leaving.
I actually have some mixed feelings about this.
I know from talking to my niece that it can be hard for a new coach to come in and try to build a team the way they want it. Especially when you have scholarship players from the previous administration. While those players may have fit really well with the old coaches style, they might not fit that great with the new coach.
The problem is, because they are scholarship players, you are kind of stuck with them until they decide to leave or they graduate. You might be able to pull their scholarship, but many times that has a bad look to it and it could cause more problems than it solves.
The fact that so many players from Michigan State are entering the transfer portal could give coach Smith the chance to start with a clean slate.
Ultimately, only time will tell, but it definitely is a bad look when you see countless headlines talking about the players who are leaving the Spartans in droves.
It's safe to say that finding a new quarterback should be at the top of Coach Smith's list for the coming year!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
That was a really in-depth explanation as to why they were doing so poorly. To me Mich State is one of those teams that I just sort of expect excellence from year in and year out. Let's hope that this is just a hiccup and not a total downfall the likes of which Nebraska saw post Tom Osbourne days.
It's been a rough ride for sure. We had a couple years there where we were doing quite well. Honestly, if you wanted to go back I'd probably put the blame on the whole Larry Nassar thing. That was a big black eye MSU that likely cost them a lot of recruits across a number of programs. Then Dantonio left and road got even rougher. I expect they will turn things around. As I read in an article the other day, the transfer portal works both ways!