At the beginning of the MSU football team’s fall camp, everybody wears a name tag — even Mark Dantonio. With a “Coach Dantonio” written on tape across his stomach, Dantonio kicked off his third season as MSU head coach with the team’s first practice Monday and noted not much has changed from his first two fall camps in East Lansing.
NFL rookies around the country have been working on their game, and Tennessee Titans running back Javon Ringer is no different. The former MSU workhorse, Ringer was selected in the fifth round by the Titans in April’s NFL Draft. The State News caught up with Ringer during Titans-organized team activities to ask him about adjusting to the NFL, his time at MSU and being a professional football player.
There’s no place for Democrats or Republicans with an important vote facing MSU students — it’s time to decide the 2009 football student section T-shirt. Voting for the upcoming season’s student section T-shirt can be done at http://www.msuspartans.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/062209aaa.html, and the voting period ends July 17.
The MSU football team’s defense loves the quarterback competition between sophomores Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol.
The MSU Athletics Department announced Monday it signed contracts for home-and-home MSU football series with Alabama and West Virginia within the next 10 years. MSU will play West Virginia in Morgantown, W. Va., on Sept. 13, 2014, and against the Mountaineers at home on Sept. 19, 2015. The Spartans will meet Alabama for the first time in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Sept. 3, 2016. The two teams will play in East Lansing on Sept. 2, 2017.
Four Spartan football players that weren’t selected in last weekend’s NFL Draft have signed with teams as of Monday, and a fifth has a tryout with a pro team. Quarterback Brian Hoyer, safety Otis Wiley, defensive end Brandon Long and defensive tackle Justin Kershaw all have signed with teams. Right tackle Jesse Miller also earned a May 7 tryout with the New York Giants.
The MSU football team’s quarterback race is getting most of the publicity, but a few other intriguing story lines emerged from the Green and White scrimmage on Saturday at Spartan Stadium.
Dear coach Dantonio, This has to be my job to lose, right? I’ve put in the time for this team and you’ve seen me drastically improve in the past two years.
Dear coach Dantonio, Look, coach. I know you’re a loyal person and that you still might be sour with me about the recruiting fiasco. But coach (and anyone else who might be reading), you must understand the reason I retracted my original commitment to MSU almost three years ago.
Former MSU running back Javon Ringer was drafted by the Tennessee Titans with the final pick in the fifth round of Sunday’s NFL Draft, making him the first MSU player to be drafted this year.
MSU football fans got their first look at sophomore quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol on Saturday during the Spartans annual Green and White game Saturday at Spartan Stadium. And the two quarterbacks didn’t disappoint the fans who stuck it out through monsoon-like rains and gusty breezes.
Once upon a time, junior A.J. Jimmerson was the heir apparent to Javon Ringer’s throne as the MSU football team’s star running back. Some, including then-head coach John L. Smith, even predicted Jimmerson would become a better player than Ringer, who finished his career second in school history with 4,329 rushing yards.
The State News caught up with former MSU running back Javon Ringer during Tuesday’s football practice to talk about this weekend’s NFL draft. Most draft experts project Ringer, who rushed for 1,637 yards and 22 touchdowns last season, as a middle-round pick.
We’ve finally reached the end of my 2009 mock draft. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Remember to compare my mock draft to the actual draft, which begins at 4 p.m. Saturday.
While offense took priority during the latter third of the first round, the middle is dominated by defensive prospects. Only four of the 12 players selected during this segment of my mock draft play offense. Find out if the Detroit Lions are one of those teams and stay tuned tomorrow for my top 10 picks.
With the NFL Draft looming, members of the MSU football team will have a chance to enter their names in a draft before ever considering going pro. Designated captains will embark on the first step of the annual spring Green and White Game today when they select players for each team by draft process.
Sick and tired of all the pointless dribble spewed by those self-proclaimed NFL Draft experts? Well, flip over to 2A for the Sudoku page.
The State News talked with junior Charlie Gantt, the Spartans’ starting tight end. He has scored four touchdowns so far in his MSU career, with 19 passes for 302 reception yards.
Junior linebacker Greg Jones is willing to play anywhere to help benefit the MSU football team. Jones originally was recruited to MSU as an outside linebacker but played several positions last season including the MIKE, or middle linebacker position, where he had great success and is starting to get more comfortable.
For the better half of the decade, the secondary has been one of the MSU football team’s primary concerns. The Spartans have finished in the lower half of the Big Ten in pass defense in five of the past six seasons. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Spartans also finished in the lower half of the Big Ten most of those seasons.