Michigan State Football: Kristian Phillips highlights trio of Week 1 OL standouts

With Michigan State football facing Maryland in a few days, I elected to take one last glance back to FAU. In this, I used PFF’s numbers.

Michigan State football started its season off with an admittedly ugly win against FAU last week. The offense struggled to sustain drives, and the Spartan defense made the difference in a shocking turn of events.

One of the main areas that received criticism was the offense line and their lack of a push. On a few plays, such as Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams’ 63-yard touchdown run, the group fired off and we saw what that push could do. With PFF publishing and updating their grades for the weekend, we saw how the group was graded.

The results surprised me, and I’m sure they will surprise you.

The offensive line graded… not bad?

The group rated as the third-best in the Big Ten as a whole. You read that right. The Spartans had a top-three offensive line on Friday. Against the run, the group only trailed Rutgers. The Spartans did play Florida Atlantic, but of all 17 conference members, only three (USC, Penn State, and Minnesota) played a Power Four opponent. Additionally, this FAU defense was quite good. They returned two starting defensive linemen, and one of their transfers was a former Deion Sanders player at Jackson State. This defense held the high-flying Michael Pratt Tulane offense to 24 points in 2023.

This FAU defense is better on paper than you might think. This is a great sign.

With all 18 Big Ten teams in action, 90 conference offensive linemen got the start over the weekend. In addition, 31 other players played at least 10 snaps to qualify for the grading metric GLF compiled. This grading system isn’t hard to explain: the player’s offensive grade is added to their run block grade and pass block grade. All of these are out of 100, so a perfect score is 300. Out of all 121 players who got a metric score, the Spartans (shockingly) placed three players in the top 10.

The first player to talk about is transfer center Tanner Miller. He was a second-team All-American last year via ESPN, and he proved that selection right. Among all players who played in 51 or more snaps, Miller graded out sixth among offensive linemen. Even with all players over 10 snaps, Miller still graded out as the 10th-best lineman in the Big Ten last week. Among centers, he was the second-best in the conference, and top among players who played an FBS opponent. Not bad for a player with his first career snaps in green and white. Jonathan Smith brought over a good one.

Speaking of players making their first career game in the green and white, how about Stanton Ramil? The former four-star from Alabama graded out as the eighth-best lineman in Week 1. He spelled Brandon Baldwin for 25 snaps against FAU, and Ramil cleared out quite a few holes and kept Aidan Chiles’ jersey clean during his time on the field. He had a few injuries hold him back from the field at first, but he shined in his first career action against the Owls. While a small sample size, he clearly outplayed Brandon Baldwin (109 of 121 whilst playing 44 snaps). Could Ramil get his first start this weekend?

And last but not least…

Kristian Phillips was a force of nature on Friday

Kristian Phillips was another player making his first career start Friday night, and he capitalized on the opportunity. Even watching the game from the press box, there were a few plays where “Big Dooley” mauled a defensive lineman on a rush of one yard. Phillips was a menace. PFF agreed with this assessment. He was rated as the third-best offensive lineman in the entire conference from Week 1. His overall grade of 243.1 on our metric comes courtesy of his fourth-highest grade against the run, at 81.6.

Among all right guards, Phillips was second overall. Additionally, he played in more snaps than the two players above him. Even when I interviewed him this summer (coming soon), Phillips would not commit to naming himself as a starter but sounded very confident in himself and his technique. We all saw him as a bright spot entering the year, and he validated that on Friday night.

While it is hard to celebrate a lineman as having their “coming out party” moment as we did with running backs Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams post-game or Kenneth Walker in 2021, Phillips certainly should have put Michigan State football fans on notice last week. Here’s to him doing it again. Running behind him could be a key to the win on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network.