Michigan State’s linebacker room may be the cleanest example of where this roster can make real hay next season, and Caleb Wheatland is a big part of why.
Jordan Hall is the headliner, and keeping him in East Lansing was one of the major wins for Pat Fitzgerald in the early stretch of his tenure. But the Spartans didn’t stop there. They added Wheatland through the transfer portal, and he comes in as No. 18 on the top 30 list for the fall.
Wheatland doesn’t have to be a starter to matter. Hall is locked in at MIKE, and Buffalo transfer Dion Crawford looks likely to open at WILL.
Even so, depth matters in a hurry, especially when the backups from last season - Darius Snow and Aisea Moa - are gone after logging 232 and 180 snaps, respectively, while appearing in 12 and 11 games. The top two linebackers won’t absorb every rep, and injuries are always lurking somewhere on the field.
That’s where Wheatland fits. He’s likely to be the No. 3 linebacker, which is not an easy role to sell in the transfer portal era, especially for a player in his final season of eligibility.
He could start in plenty of places. Instead, he was one of the first portal commitments for MSU, announcing for the Spartans on Jan.
- Crawford’s arrival on Jan. 11 complicates the snap picture, but Wheatland still looks like a player Michigan State can trust in a rotation.
His path to East Lansing is a little unusual on paper. Wheatland technically transferred from Auburn, but Maryland is where he played almost all of his football. He stayed eligible because he appeared in only three games for Auburn in 2025, which let him redshirt and keep his fourth and final season.
The best tape on Wheatland comes from his Maryland days, especially in 2023 and 2024. Over those two seasons, he piled up 83 tackles, along with 12.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. He finished second on the Terrapins in sacks in 2023 with 3.5, then led them in 2024 with 4.0.
That 2024 season gives the clearest look at what he can do. Wheatland started all 12 games for a 4-8 Maryland team and posted a 67.5 overall defensive grade from Pro Football Focus.
His best work came as a pass rusher and in coverage, where he earned a 72.2 pass-rushing grade and a 74.4 coverage grade. Tackling, though, was a different story.
He was graded at 36.0 there, and his missed tackle rate was 28.8%, well above the roughly 15% average. The year before, his tackling grade was 48.9.
Michigan State may be able to live with that weakness because Hall and Crawford are expected to handle most of the tackling load. Both finished last season with missed tackle rates below 10%.
What Wheatland brings that really stands out is pass rush. That matters for a Spartan defense that has struggled to get home.
Michigan State averaged just 1.83 sacks per game last fall, which ranked 83rd in the FBS and 14th in the Big Ten. The year before, the number was even lower at 1.58 sacks per game, good for 103rd nationally and 15th in the conference.
The bigger issue was the lack of a true finisher. Six different players tied for the team lead with either 2.5 or 2.0 sacks last season, including Hall, Jalen Thompson, and Quindarius Dunnigan at 2.5.
That tied the program’s lowest sack total for a leader since the stat started being tracked in 1984, matching Demetrius Cooper’s 2.5-sack lead in 2016. Another six players finished with either 1.5 or 1.0 sacks.
Wheatland isn’t being asked to become some double-digit sack machine. But his 4.0-sack season at Maryland shows he can at least be a real factor.
If he ends up leading Michigan State in sacks, that probably says something troubling about the rest of the pass rush. If he’s second, third, or fourth on that list while producing at that level, that’s a much better sign.
His coverage ability matters just as much. College linebackers often get exposed there because they’re used to playing downhill and attacking the ball, not matching up with receivers or tight ends.
Hall is valuable in part because he can do both; he had an 83.1 coverage grade last season. Crawford, by contrast, posted a 28.9 coverage grade at Buffalo in 2025.
That’s the appeal of Wheatland. He gives Michigan State another linebacker who can line up inside or outside, rush the passer, and drop into coverage when needed. In a room that already has Hall and Crawford, that kind of flexibility has real value.
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