Michigan State wrapped up spring practice last month with several options in the backfield and it will be less crowded in fall camp.

Coach Mark Dantonio, while speaking on The Drive with Jack Ebling radio show Thursday afternoon, said running back Weston Bridges is changing positions.

“Weston Bridges is coming off an injury, we’re going to move him to wide out,” Dantonio said.

Dantonio typically declines to get into the specifics of injuries and didn’t elaborate about Bridges, a redshirt sophomore who has already torn the ACL in his left knee twice. A program spokesman said in a message to MLive that Dantonio was referring to previous injuries.

Bridges, a former three-star recruit from Copley High School in Ohio, signed with Michigan State’s 2017 recruiting class after tearing an ACL in the final game of his prep career. After surgery and rehab, he tore the same ACL in fall camp as a true freshman, resulting in him missing the entire year and wondering if his career was over.

“I just stuck with it," Bridges said last August. “I had the right people around me, people still believing in me, and I had to believe in myself at the end of the day. So, I just kept telling myself ‘just keep rehabbing, it's all going to pay off.’”

LJ Scott missed most of his senior year due to injury last season and that resulted in Connor Heyward getting the bulk of the carries, followed by true freshman La’Darius Jefferson. Bridges cracked the lineup and had 16 carries for 53 yards in six games.

Heyward, now a junior, entered the spring as the most experienced running back in a group that including Jefferson, redshirt freshman Elijah Collins, true freshman and early enrollee Anthony Williams Jr. and Bridges, who had seven carries for 17 yards in the April 13 spring game. Brandon Wright, a three-star recruit from Euclid High School in Ohio who signed with the 2019 recruiting class, will join the program in the summer.

Following the spring game, Dantonio called Michigan State’s backfield “a work in progress” and said he was still looking for someone to give the ball to 200 times in the fall.

“We’ve got people, we’ve got numbers, we’ve got the horses,” Dantonio said Thursday, “but we’ve got to wait for somebody to take it.”

Bridges, 5-foot-11 and 202 pounds, joins a receivers group that lost Felton Davis but returns a pair of starters in senior Darrell Stewart Jr. and junior Cody White. Sophomore Jalen Nailor is the frontrunner to take over the other starting spot while junior Laress Nelson, redshirt sophomore Cam Chambers and sixth-year senior Brandon Sowards are among the top backups.