He's hungry, and he's ready to take his aggression out on any and all of the Spartans' opponents.

After standing on the sidelines, itching to get involved in the revival that is the 2003 MSU football team, Eric Knott will finally get a chance to back up his claim of being the best tight end in the Big Ten.

He's the physical, pass-catching and power blocking tight end that would fit perfectly into any offense, especially one that relies on distributing the ball to multiple receivers and, with no fullback, uses tight ends as blockers.

"Expect Eric Knott to make a play here and there, but if my number's not getting called, I'm (going to) make sure that I'm down the field, making a key block, a 100 percent effort," Knott said. "That's what I'm focused on, my blocking and stuff, and just staying on my blocks and high effort. That's the thing for me this year, high effort on every play."

Knott, a junior from Detroit, saw his first offensive game action since the season opener last Saturday against Iowa. His injured right knee has partially recovered and Knott aided the offensive effort, catching the Spartans second touchdown of the game and finishing with 31 yards on three receptions.

"I think that helped our whole passing game; I think that helped Smoke," wide receivers coach Jim McElwain said. "Just another comfort-zone guy in there. I'm not sure how many balls he's thrown to that group of receivers. I would imagine that he's thrown more over his four years here to Eric than anybody."

Knott was ready to go back but wasn't happy with the few balls that he dropped during the game, including a ball that was thrown behind him in the end zone.

But senior quarterback Jeff Smoker took part of the blame for the dropped balls and couldn't be happier to see one of his favorite targets back in the game.

"He said he dropped a couple balls, some of them weren't good passes to him," Smoker said. "You saw how many times we went to him. We had the one in the end zone and a couple other passes we threw to them. He's going to be a threat and he's going to get better as he gets back into it and his leg gets better by the day. He'll have his hands back this week."

Knott knows that one of the downfalls he encountered last season was that he was too concerned about his statistics and getting noticed. But now, he knows that the accolades will arrive if he puts in effort on every play.

"Man, I think, me as a tight end, you know, Kellen Winslow is a great athlete. I think he's more of a wide receiver and stuff, but me, myself, I bring the whole package," Knott said. "You'd be a fool not to take me in the draft, first round. I'd be silly not to say I'm not the best and I'm not being conceited or anything like that