Why Michigan State football is convinced their running game woes are 'all fixable'

EAST LANSING — Effrem Reed emphatically made his point clear.

Michigan State football needs its running game to produce again. Badly.

“We've got to be better,” the second-year running backs coach said Monday. “There's no excuses.”

The poor production looked worse because of how significant a dropoff it was from the Kenneth Walker III-driven 2021 team that averaged for 175.6 yards on the ground a contest. The Spartans’ 113.0 rushing yards a game in 2022 ranked 110th out of 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Their time of possession last season was fourth-worst in the nation.

The season rushing numbers ended up being the fifth-lowest run production in program history since at least 1947 (as far back as MSU’s record book goes). Mel Tucker’s first team in 2020 averaged just 91.4 yards in its shortened seven-game, conference-only season. John L. Smith’s first team in 2003 averaged 97.4 yards on the ground, George Perles’ first team in 1983 ran for 102.3 per game, and Muddy Waters’ final squad averaged 104.1 in 1982.

Tucker brought in Jalen Berger as a transfer before last season, but the former Wisconsin starter struggled to find consistent running room while starting all 12 games. Elijah Collins left the program after the season, transferring to Oklahoma State for his final year of eligibility. Jarek Broussard, a Colorado transfer, turned pro despite having another collegiate year of eligibility.

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The issues and attrition led Tucker and his staff to add two more transfers in Jaren Mangham from South Florida and Nate Carter from Connecticut to compete with Berger and homegrown running backs in senior Jordon Simmons and sophomore Davion Primm, along with freshman speedster Jaelon Barbarin.

“I don't really shy away from competition,” said Berger, who averaged just 56.9 yards per game in his first year at MSU last fall. “Competition always makes you better.”

Mangham, a Detroit native who played for Tucker at Colorado in 2019, said he watched tape of the Spartans’ run game from last year and felt enthusiastic because he saw “a lot of mental errors” causing the poor production. From footwork getting amiss to not reading an oncoming linebacker correctly or missed blocks on the edge so “the run didn’t really hit for how it was supposed to.”

So why the excitement?

“Those are all fixable,” said Mangham, who Reed said has emerged as a leader among the running backs. “So that's really kind of what I was excited about, because you get to learn and you get to grow. That's what I've been trying to tell the players, and that's what Coach Reed has been pushing for us. He has been just very hard on that, just the details and focusing and being locked in.”

Last fall was Reed’s first year replacing William Peagler, now an assistant defensive line coach with the Arizona Cardinals who identified and pushed for MSU to bring in Walker. And Reed — an analyst working under Peagler on the 2020 and ‘21 coaching staffs — said after reviewing every offensive play of 2022, he felt his running backs appeared to be pressing too much and trying to break Walker-like explosive runs.

“Everyone wanted to be Kenneth Walker,” Reed said. “We were coming off of an 11-win season — obviously a Heisman Trophy candidate (Walker) who probably should have won the thing — but we're coming off that year with that guy, and the next guy that comes in, they want to be him. Well, everyone's not Kenneth Walker.

“You got to play your game. And guys were trying so hard to make the big play. Well, let's be consistent and do our job, and the big play will take care of themselves.”

Enter more competition from the portal.

Mangham owns 1,251 rushing yards 23 touchdowns on 314 career carries over 32 games in five collegiate seasons. Carter ran for 983 yards on 190 carries with three touchdowns in two years with the Huskies.

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Reed said he was up front in letting Berger and the others know why the Spartans added their fifth and sixth running back transfers in the past three seasons.

“Obviously, we gotta have guys who fit our core values. And one of our core values is selflessness,” he said. “If it takes you going out there and just being a third-down back, well, you gotta buy into that role. You may not get 30 carries, but whatever you can do to go out there and execute help the team win, you gotta be able to humble yourself and do it.

“I've had this conversation with these guys to get ahead of it as well, because I do understand it's going to happen at some point what guys want to be the guy, they want the ball. But at the end of the day, it's all about getting the W in the column. And for me personally, I got to put the best product out there for Michigan State. That's my job, that's the goal, and that's what has to get done. So whoever's helping us win, whoever's got the hot hand, whoever does it in practice on a consistent basis, that's who's going to play.”

Some of last year’s inability to run the ball had to do with having to try and use the pass to get back into games. Still, MSU ranked 127th nationally in time of possession last season, getting the ball on offense for only 26:13 a game. That was the worst ball control by the Spartans in more than a quarter century.

Where Mark Dantonio’s teams often squelched out opponents on the ground by dominating time of possession, only trailing its foes in one of his 13 seasons (28:51 in 2009), Tucker’s team has yet to have the ball more than its opponents over the past three years. The Spartans managed just 28:19 of possession time with Walker in 2021 and 27:10 in 2020 with Simmons the leading rusher as a true freshman.

“For a running back, it's kind of hard to get into a rhythm when you're in and out ... and going three-and-out so fast,” Berger said. “So it's kind of hard for the run game. That's something we were working on this year, for sure.”

Tucker at Big Ten media day pointed to this being his most talented and deepest team since he took over for Dantonio. And the running back room, he feels, is now a reflection of that.

“It's competitive in there,” Tucker said. “The guys are gonna have to compete to get on the field. They're got to compete for spots on special teams.”

Carter, who emerged as the talk of spring practice, feels the competition that began in the spring already is showing how much it is sharpening the running backs through the first week of practice.

“I feel like all around, all of us just got better,” Carter said. “All of us put a lot of work. ... It's a very competitive group, but all of us are not necessarily competing against each other. We're really out to try to win and really help each other be better, because we're gonna need everybody in that room.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Michigan State football is convinced their run game is 'fixable'