EAST LANSING — With Michigan State football shuffling its second scrimmage to Saturday, offensive coordinator Jay Johnson pointed Thursday to some of the positives from the first scrimmage.
His offense did a good job protecting the ball and preventing turnovers, a primary goal of Mel Tucker’s program. The veterans mostly performed as expected.
The negatives? Some explosive plays, but not enough. Some situational development, but with plenty of room to improve.
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Johnson hopes some of the Spartans’ newer players take the next step Saturday, as the quest to define the “rep chart” Tucker preaches becomes clearer.
“I think you kind of find those certain situations where some of the younger guys got in that first live scrimmage and it didn’t quite go as planned,” Johnson said. “They needed to grow through that a little bit. I thought the veteran guys were on point, but I’m looking for those younger guys, hopefully through another week of preparation, to take a big step.”
Perhaps no group is more critical for that development than the offensive line.
MSU enters the season having to replace five linemen who combined for 213 games played and 136 starts from 2017-21.
Left guard J.D. Duplain (23 starts) and right guard Matt Carrick (18 starts) return with the most experience. Center Nick Samac started 10 games in 2019-20. Left tackle Jarrett Horst started the first eight games last season after transferring from Arkansas State, and center/guard Brian Greene made 10 starts at Washington State before arriving this season via transfer.
The other offensive linemen are relatively inexperienced; their highlight was right tackle Spencer Brown making his first career start against Pitt in the Peach Bowl. MSU had significant issues with injuries and outbound transfers during the spring that limited the numbers up front and altered practices. That also gave other young players, such as sophomores Dallas Fincher and Brandon Baldwin and redshirt freshmen Ethan Boyd and Kevin Wigenton, more chances for reps.
“We were pretty maligned there in the spring, so some of those guys got an awful lot of reps,” Johnson said. “I think the likes of…