EAST LANSING – Jalen Berger paused and quickly chuckled.
One of Michigan State football’s two running back transfers knows his new team’s schedule includes an Oct. 15 game against his old program, Wisconsin.
“Yeah,” Berger said with a grin Monday, “I’ve looked at it.”
A homecoming game for the Spartans, and a chance to exorcise some old ghosts for the one-time Badger.
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First, Berger must battle Colorado transfer Jarek Broussard and others for carries during the Spartans’ preseason camp going into the Sept. 2 opener against Western Michigan.
That competition continues Friday in MSU’s second scrimmage of preseason camp. Berger turned coaches’ heads in Saturday’s first one by averaging around 5 yards per carry, according to coach Mel Tucker.
“The scrimmages are for like people trying to earn the reps,” Berger said. “So I feel like it’s a big scrimmage.”
Though Berger and Broussard are the new kids on campus, they share a reason and purpose for coming to MSU. Specifically, their connections to the staff.
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Start with Berger, a redshirt sophomore who committed to Tucker’s program in late November after seeing the job Kenneth Walker III did following his transfer before the 2021 season from Wake Forest. Like Walker, the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Berger enrolled in January to get a jumpstart on learning the playbook and his new teammates.
To outsiders, the cross-Big Ten transfer appeared strange, given that Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst dismissed the running back from his program four games into his second season. However, Berger said Tucker leaned on the advice of Saeed Khalif — MSU football’s general manager and executive director of player personnel and recruiting — who helped recruit the former four-star prospect while on the Badgers’ staff.
Khalif provided a bridge to vetting Berger after Chryst said little about the Oct. 10 decision to dismiss the New Jersey native. “I spoke with Jalen yesterday, and I am going to keep that between me and Jalen,” Chryst told reporters a day later in his only comment.
“Saeed kind of figured out what was going on,” Berger said. “He talked to a couple of people over there on the…