Couch: Michigan State football headed for a 2018 season full of hype and hope

SAN DIEGO – One of the few questions about next season’s Michigan State football team was answered on Thursday night.

Running back – Check.

LJ Scott is coming back. Make that 21 returning starters. Fourteen of them could around for 2019, as well.

The examples of college football programs recovering from a 3-9-type season faster and stronger, with a more promising future, are few — mostly pre-World War II — and arguably nonexistent.

Scott’s return is no small boon.

“I think he could be a tremendous tailback, a guy that we can hand the ball to 250 times and do great things, much like when Shilique Calhoun and Connor Cook made the decision to come back,” MSU coach Mark Dantonio said Thursday night, following the Spartans’ 42-17 Holiday Bowl win over Washington State. “They followed with a ring, a Big Ten championship ring, and I think those things become possible.”

“Those things become possible” — those are interesting words from a coach who understands the inches between greatness and something less. As if having Scott changes MSU’s ceiling.

I don’t know that Scott’s return is as important as Cook’s or Calhoun’s were to the production and psyche of the 2015 team that made the College Football Playoff. But he undoubtedly makes the Spartans better. He’ll be an NFL-caliber running back playing college football. He’s a runner who can make something out of nothing. It wasn’t clear MSU would have that otherwise.

Next season comes with big dreams for Spartans and it should. Ten-win teams never have so much coming back. For example, only one team in college football this season had more than 18 returning starters. That was Syracuse, which returned 21 from a four-win team and won four again, which leads me to the old Jud Heathcote line: “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is we have everyone back from last year. The bad news is we have everyone back from last year.”

Better comparisons are Wisconsin and Georgia — teams that returned 17 or 18 starters and were in the playoff discussion into December.

The cautionary tale is Penn State — an 11-win team in 2016 that returned 18 starters and, this season, finished 10-2, including a loss at MSU. This was supposed to be the Nittany Lions’ year. It was close. But it wasn’t.

Back to MSU’s 2017 checklist:

Quarterback — check. Receiver — check. Defensive tackles — check. Linebackers — check. Safeties — check. Cornerbacks — check. Kicker, punter — check, check.

At each of these positions, the Spartans appear to have a player or players on their way to being able to compete with the best in the college football, assuming natural progression and sweat equity.

The critical questions for next season, with Scott announcing his return, I believe are two-fold: The development of MSU’s offensive line and, on the other side of the ball, whether it can find a rush end to wreak havoc.

MSU returns five offensive lineman with starting experience. But unlike the rest of the roster, it isn’t clear if this group is on its way to being a dominating line, or even one that can get a regular push in the Big Ten. And whether that happens, I think, will decide whether or not the Spartans truly take the next step and can win the East Division and adequately protect against and compete with a top-notch defensive line.

And, of course, they’ll be without their best lineman from this year, senior Brian Allen, an All-American-caliber center.

“He was instrumental in getting this group going,” MSU offensive line coach Mark Staten said on the field after the Holiday Bowl. “And he knew how to handle those freshmen and push them when they needed to be pushed and put an arm around them when they needed it. Brian Allen led this group and now we’ve got to find the guy who’s going to do it next year. A lot of viable candidates.”

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Allen’s younger brother, Matt, figures to step in at center. Junior-to-be Cole Chewins returns at left tackle, with junior Tyler Higby at left guard, sophomore Kevin Jarvis at right guard and sophomore Luke Campbell at right tackle, and with David Beedle also perhaps at either guard position. Same goes for sophomore Jordan Reid at the tackle spots. A true freshman like 6-foot-4, 345-pound James Ohonba could also wind up in the mix.

“Guys went through tough times, droughts, but stayed the course and kept getting better,” Brian Allen said in San Diego. “Young guys like Kevin Jarvis, the whole O-line, even Beedle, every week, kept getting better, learning from our mistakes and I think they’re going to carry that into next year.”

Can they survive without you?

“I think so. I think so. Five starters coming back, with Higgby in there and some more guys are going to be pretty good eventually.”

MSU’s passing game, with junior QB Brian Lewerke and every scholarship receiver returning, should be able to shoulder a big load. Its backfield, with Scott and senior Madre London and perhaps sophomore Connor Hayward and a freshman like La’Darius Jefferson, should be among the most talented and deepest around.

Yet, that won’t be enough. Too much is decided up front. Scott wasn’t held to 898 yards this season, and a career-low 4.5 per carry, because he’s slowed down or become an impatient runner. London and Gerald Holmes didn’t average 3.7 and 3.6 yards per rush, respectively, because they aren’t Big Ten-level running backs. These three might have been the strength of this Michigan State football team had they been running behind a more polished run-blocking line. There was a decent and regular push in only two, maybe three games all season.

MSU won’t win the Big Ten East if that doesn’t change. Ask Penn State, which had everything other than the ability to get a push for arguably the best back in college football, Saquon Barkley.

The other spot in question, defensive end, exists in part because of premature personnel losses. Josh King and Auston Robertson, gone from program and facing sexual assault charges, might have fit here. Robert Bowers, a would-be senior, hasn’t been with the team since mid-November.

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MSU got seven sacks from sophomore surprise Kenny Willekes and another 2.5 from senior Demetrius Cooper, who had a solid final season. In all, the team finished with 28 sacks — up from 11 a year earlier — and put fairly consistent pressure on quarterbacks, generated from all sorts of places. That includes an interior line with juniors-to-be Raequan Williams and junior Mike Panasiuk and sophomore Naquan Jones, which has a chance to be special.

Most elite teams in college football, however, have an edge rusher opponents fear and have to game plan for. Maybe Willekes becomes that. I wouldn’t put it past him. But, like with the offensive line, I have less faith in that becoming a strength on this team.

It’s going to be a fascinating and heavily hyped 2018 MSU football season. It’s a roster with as much skill position ability and depth offensively as perhaps any the Spartans have ever had. It could be that good, if Lewerke, Felton Davis, Cody White, Darrell Stewart and Co. take the next step, and with Scott still in the backfield — a 1,200-yard season from finishing in the top four all-time on MSU’s career rushing list.

The defense appears sound at most positions at all three levels, with a legitimate chance to get back to a standard set a few years ago, if it stays healthy and hungry.

The schedule sets up well with Michigan and Ohio State visiting East Lansing. There’s an early test at Arizona State on Sept. 8 — the Lewerke homecoming game — and a potential season-determining game at Penn State on Oct. 13. The Nittany Lions are going to be very good again. As will the entire East Division. Returning 21 starters guarantees nothing. Other than excitement and realistic hope.

“I am excited,” Mark Dantonio said, closing his press conference Thursday night after the Holiday Bowl win, his 100th at MSU in 11 seasons. “I think we have a good football team coming back. I think we have an outstanding recruiting class coming.

“I think we're hungry. I think we're humble. We will work hard, believe in each other — belief is such a big part of it. We have confidence in each other. We will play hard and we will play tough. If you look at that (Holiday Bowl) football game, we won because we won it physically. That's the reality of it.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.