Oh yeah, and the Eagles have looked solid this year so far. Concerns are mounting.<\/span><\/p>\nNow let\u2019s take a look under the hood of the skill positions.<\/p>\n
Here’s where the depth of this team shines. After a dominant win against Prairie View A&M, Michigan State football was able to see more of the backups. Outside of the Spring Showcase, we haven\u2019t seen much from these guys. <\/span><\/p>\nLet\u2019s start at quarterback.<\/span><\/p>\nBackup QB: Tommy Schuster<\/b><\/h4>\n
Hailing from the University of North Dakota, the Michigan native got his first snaps of the season on Saturday. He looked every part of a quarterback with experience. He\u2019s sharp, he completed 80 percent of his passes against Prairie View A&M, and he is the exact guy you want as a backup. God forbid, if Aidan Chiles ever went down, I\u2019d trust Schuster to be a serviceable backup. That could come in handy towards the end of the year.<\/span><\/p>\nBackup RB: Brandon Tullis<\/b><\/h4>\n
This is the position group that got the least amount of shine against PVAMU. Taking snaps on the last series of the game, you can tell the freshman running back has the tools to be a certified starter in the Big Ten. With an awesome spring game and some good vision during his college debut, Tullis can slide into that secondary running back role behind Nate Carter or Kay\u2019Ron Lynch-Adams, if needed.<\/span><\/p>\nBackup WRs: Aziah Johnson, Antonio Gates Jr.<\/b><\/h4>\n
In my opinion, redshirt freshman Aziah Johnson was a pleasant surprise during the spring game. He\u2019s gotten more run than I was expecting this year, too. As the first guy to rotate in for the receiver group, Johnson will be a great option to replace Alante Brown. A serious big-play threat, he\u2019s caught three balls this year for an average of 24 yards per play.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the flip side, Antonio Gates Jr. was always expected to be a contributor by the time his career in East Lansing was over. One more injury to the receiver room could force him into playing a significant role in 2024. Against PVAMU, he caught three passes for 42 yards and appears to be a solid backup if one of our starters goes down.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBackup TEs: Michael Masunas, Brennan Parachek\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
I\u2019m still conflicted whether Michael Masunas should be listed here as a depth piece in the tight end room. He\u2019s played a lot of ball this year even if it isn’t in passing situations. The guy can block and he\u2019s shown flashes of being able to leak into uncovered territory. Since Michigan State football has tight end Jack Velling as the solidified No. 1 option, Masunas will stick here for now.<\/span><\/p>\nBrennan Parachek, on the other hand, has all the raw talent needed to be a great tight end. The problem will be that he\u2019s third in line. We\u2019ve seen plenty two-tight end sets out of the offense this year, one injury will have him playing in a blocking role at a minimum.<\/span><\/p>\nAll I\u2019m trying to point out with this article is that the offensive line is getting close to panic mode but the skill positions are better than expected. You\u2019re not getting the two guards back. You need someone to step up. Fincher, AJ Dennis, Rakeem Johnson, I\u2019m looking at you. An injury to a skill player may just be a bump in the road.<\/span><\/p>\nThe next five weeks could be really tough.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m excited to see how it all plays out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Biggest concern coming into 2024 was depth in the trenches.\u00a0Now that 25 percent of the season is complete, where\u2019s the depth?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":19246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[589,59,191,189,504,659],"class_list":["post-19228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-brandon-tullis","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-tommy-schuster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}