Michigan State Football 2023

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker is in a pretty interesting spot after a massively disappointing 2022, as he signed a massive $95 million 10-year deal shortly after a great 2021 campaign that ended with a Peach Bowl win over Pittsburgh. That offer was made in no small part due to State’s victory over Michigan in a clash between undefeated top-8 squads, although it could be argued that the driving force of that win was Kenneth Walker’s superhero performance rather than Tucker’s football acumen.

If Tucker needs to live up to his huge price tag, with another result like the 5-7 record last season, questions will begin to fly about his position. Central’s Jim McElwain is also coming off of a letdown campaign with a 4-8 record, but he’s probably earned a bit more leeway; he inherited a 1-11 Chippewas squad, and got them within a score of a MAC Championship in 2019. The 2021 Chips went 9-4 with a Sun Bowl win over PAC-12 school Washington State, but crashed down to 4-8 a year ago, so McElwain and his squad will be looking for a bounce back.

Michigan State looks to get back on Track
MSU was hit pretty hard by the transfer portal, particularly on the offensive side. A pair of major wideouts are gone as top pass catcher Keon Coleman went Florida State and four-star talent Germie Bernard is now a Washington Husky. Perhaps most concerningly, starting QB Payton Thorne transferred out to Auburn. Make no mistake, Thorne is not a particularly good football player, but it’s an indictment on the state of the program that someone of his caliber who was relatively assured of a starting job was looking for greener pastures, especially considering that Auburn also went 5-7 a year ago. New starting QB Noah Kim looked sharp in limited time last year, but like so many other players who will get significant time in this offense, he is a relatively unknown quantity.