Michigan State’s offensive line has been one of the biggest reset projects of the offseason, and Monday’s practice offered a pretty clear look at how Pat Fitzgerald’s staff is sorting through it.
The Spartans have plenty of reason to shuffle things around. Last season, they gave up 37 sacks, which was the second-most in the Big Ten.
Fitzgerald also made it clear at Big Ten Football Media Days that there were "10-11" players in the mix for starting jobs up front. With only one starter back from last year - Conner Moore - the group was always going to look different.
If Monday’s drill was any indication, the Week 1 lineup against Toledo would feature Ben Murawski at left tackle, Moore at left guard, Trent Fraley at center, Nick Sharpe at right guard and Rakeem Johnson at right tackle.
Murawski and Fraley have felt like the safest bets for a while. Both arrived through the transfer portal and seemed lined up for starting jobs almost immediately after committing to Michigan State.
The more interesting questions were on the right side and at left guard.
Sharpe at right guard is probably the least surprising move among the unsettled spots. He played left guard last season at South Carolina and also worked there during MSU’s spring scrimmage in April, but his background points somewhere else.
At Wake Forest, he spent all four of his seasons at right guard, and that’s where he played under o-line coach Nick Tabacca. Now that the two are reunited in East Lansing, moving Sharpe back to his old spot would make plenty of sense.
Moore’s shift to left guard stands out more. He was not an exceptional right tackle for Michigan State last season, but he was solid enough that his return this offseason made it seem likely the new staff would leave him there.
Instead, he appears to be sliding inside. Moore has 175 career snaps at left guard, compared with 2,214 at offensive tackle, and all of those guard snaps came in 2024 at Montana State.
Then there’s Johnson at right tackle. He was the starter there in the spring game, with Moore at right guard, and he still seems to be ahead of promising incoming transfer Robert Wright Jr.
Wright started a full season at right tackle last year at Georgia Southern and didn’t commit a penalty. Johnson, meanwhile, has built his value on being able to move around. He has only 90 career snaps at right tackle, and most of his work last season came at right guard, where he started Michigan State’s final four games.
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Michigan States rising optimism around its young core got a little louder this week when Jeremy Fears Jr. took issue with a recent ranking of the top 30 sophomore players in college basketball. The list left out Cam Ward and Jordan Scott, two Spartans who are expected to play major roles this season and who have already built a case as potential All-Big Ten-caliber talents heading into their second year.
Ward and Scott each showed enough as freshmen to keep the Spartans breakout buzz from sounding like empty offseason talk, and their next step could shape how high this team climbs. Fears public criticism only added another layer to the conversation around Michigan States depth and upside, especially with so much attention now turning to what those two sophomores can become in East Lansing. [Read more 🡒]
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Michigan State Needs More From Derrick Simmons Than Hype This Year
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Now a sophomore, Simmons has already made the kind of body transformation the staff wanted to see, and the expectation is that hell finally be part of the weekly conversation up front. He is projected to fit into the tackle mix with Ben Roberts and Eli Coenen, and for Michigan State the question is no longer whether he belongs in the rotation, but how quickly he can turn promise into production. [Read more 🡒]