Tim Staudt

For the Lansing State Journal

Not the best week of publicity for Michigan State football.

The school’s release Thursday indicates that a staff member associated with the football program, along with three players, were suspended while the school investigates sexual assault allegations. Who knows where this is headed. As it is, the Spartans continue to lose key players, such as offensive lineman Thiyo Lukusa for apparently no other reason that he did not want to play anymore. And then Demetrius Cooper is reported to have allegedly “spit on a parking ticket officer.” What’s next? When outside investigators get involved and discipline is removed from coaches, guessing the future becomes far more difficult.

Big-time college athletes who compete in golf, tennis, baseball, softball and the like don’t face as much public scrutiny and the pressure has to be less than what football and basketball players face. Lukusa seems relieved to finally have made his move back home to a small college in Traverse City. If he’s happy, good for him.

Michigan State likes to brag about its spring football attendance and like most schools I always believe the numbers are inflated. This year’s game is now moved up three weeks to April 1 and who knows what the weather might be like. The game will be carried live on the Big Ten Network - so that date and the option of watching on television don’t encourage in-stadium attendance by fans.

As it now stands, underclassmen Malik McDowell, Montae Nicholson and Lukusa are gone and who knows who else may not return. That’s at least three projected starters gone who will need to be replaced beyond the departing seniors. Seems like a number of inexperienced players will get a chance this fall when the season begins with four straight home games against Bowling Green, Western Michigan, Notre Dame and Iowa.

Best in the Big Ten: Who in the world is the Big Ten’s most valuable basketball player this season? Is it Caleb Swanigan of Purdue, who nearly became a Spartan a year ago? He is perhaps the leader in the clubhouse with less than a month of the regular season remaining. He joins Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Michigan’s Derrick Walton, Jr., Wisconsin’s Ethan Happ and Indiana’s James Blackmon on my current All-Big Ten first team. I’ve moved Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes and Maryland’s Melo Trimble out of my top group - to this point I don’t think either has lived up to his preseason billing.

Downsizing: Michigan’s announced crowd of 11,800-plus for Tuesday’s home game with Michigan State was the smallest Crisler Arena crowd to watch the rivalry game since 1974. And I thought nearly one-third of the crowd consisted of Michigan State fans. Michigan basketball interest is tepid to say the least amongst the school’s fan base.

Big game for MSU women: Michigan State’s women’s basketball team hosts Maryland at 2 p.m. Sunday and this clearly will be the Spartans’ best home draw of the Big Ten teams coming to the Breslin Center this season. Notre Dame was the only other high quality team I saw play here on the women’s side this winter. Maryland has the best athletes in the Big Ten by far and if the Spartans win, I consider it a significant upset. The Spartans still play at Michigan and the Wolverines may end up being the most improved team in the Big Ten.

Too young to recruit: Michigan State received a hockey verbal commitment this week from Cam Knuble, according to various media reports. What caught my attention is that he won’t be eligible until the 2019-20 season, three years from now. It’s typical in hockey to recruit players that far in advance, but talk about guess work. How can any hockey school know that far in advance how good a current teenager might become that far down the road?

Hoke finds new job: It’s been a wild three years for Brady Hoke, who obviously does not want to give up big-time college coaching. In 2015, he watched his Michigan team finish 5-7 and got fired. In 2016, he was defensive coordinator at Oregon where the Ducks finished 4-8 with a porous defense and head coach Mark Helfrich got fired along with Hoke, who had just begun a three-year contract at a reported $800,000 per year. Now Hoke joins head coach Butch Jones’ staff at Tennessee as defensive line coach. Better fit?

Let them play: It’s a shame Lansing United cannot use Michigan State’s DeMartin Stadium for its home soccer games. I think it would be a win/win for all parties and in United’s first three years, games played on campus have drawn well. But lights are being added this summer so United has to play all of its home games, as usual, at the East Lansing soccer complex, which simply does not have the same snazzy look.

Prep rivalries going away: Various high school football rivalries across the state are being discontinued for a variety of reasons, and differences in school enrollment have become key factors. It’s great Grand Ledge and DeWitt are now playing each other - such a matchup fosters interest in the sport across the area. I thought it was great when Haslett played both East Lansing and Okemos, but those games, which were good draws, no longer exist. And now Belding has cancelled this fall’s game against Greenville, which would have been the 100th in the series. The schools are six miles apart and they’ve split the past 28 games but Belding school officials reportedly believe their enrollment is not close enough anymore with Greenville to make the games fairly matched.

Being a caddie pays off: Congratulations to Lansing Catholic High School senior William Meaton. He has received a full Evans Scholarship to Michigan State, given to golf caddies, and he is one of 20 to be so rewarded across Michigan to attend either MSU or Michigan. Meaton plans to study pre-medicine beginning in the fall. It’s a four-year deal worth more than $100,000 and includes housing. Currently 935 golf caddies are enrolled in 20 universities across the nation as Evans Scholars. Meaton had two cousins who received Evans Scholarships and decided to follow their leads.