When Max Bullough earned his starting position at middle linebacker in 2011, he immediately became a leader on the MSU football team, especially within the Spartan defense.
But with several key leaders graduating following last season, the junior linebacker embraces his leadership role in a new way for 2012.
“It’s weird looking at myself in that position now,” Bullough said.
“As soon as I became a starter, things kind of were put on my back quite a bit only because of my position, not because of anything other than that. Similar to a quarterback on offense, a lot’s thrown at you. So now that I’m in that position for real because of myself and because of my grade and other things, it’s cool to look at how that happened (in the) last year.”
Bullough is one of 25 juniors on what head coach Mark Dantonio called a “relatively young football team,” but he’s utilizing his experience from his 14 starts last season to help the Spartans’ newcomers.
And Bullough’s effort is not only noticed by those whom he reaches out to, but also by Dantonio and the coaching staff.
“We try to build leadership every day by doing different things, so I think our guys are growing,” Dantonio said. “When you look at the core of our football team, we probably have 20 juniors on our football team who are in and out of the two deep, so the majority of those guys like Max Bullough and (junior safety) Isaiah Lewis … become our core leaders.”
Although Bullough adopted an instruction-giving role in developing the linebackers’ and defensive line’s cohesiveness, Lewis spent his time working with sophomore safety Kurtis Drummond and redshirt freshman safety R.J. Williamson.
The majority of MSU’s secondary has remaining eligibility, but with the loss of former free safety Trenton Robinson, Drummond and Williamson are working to replace him with Lewis’ help.
Lewis said because Drummond — who Dantonio said likely will be MSU’s starter — is the newest member of the Spartans’ back field and has a little experience from his 12 game appearances last season, he doesn’t have to teach too much. But everyone always has room for improvement.
“Basically, (there are) a lot of young guys on the team, and we have to help each other,” Lewis said.
“When you have guys like me and (Bullough) who have played before, we’ve been on the field already, so people will listen to us.”
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