MSU secondary toasted last season; 2022 looks different
EAST LANSING — About midway through last season, Harlon Barnett informed the players in Michigan State’s stressed secondary that Angelo Grose led the nation in snaps.
In reality, Xavier Henderson, Grose’s wingman on the back end, held that dubious distinction. Through the first seven weeks, Henderson had lined up at his designated position 583 times — averaging 83 plays per game.
“We want to give those guys a break,” said Barnett, the team’s secondary coach.
But, as it turned out, they never could. Henderson’s heavy workload revealed a troubling trend that would continue until the final whistle in the Spartans’ Peach Bowl victory over Pittsburgh in December. Throughout Michigan State’s impressive resurgence in 2021, the pass defense was skewered, flambéed and eventually charred to a crisp. No other team in the Football Bowl Subdivision conceded more yards through the air than the Spartans, who remarkably went 11-2 despite their vulnerabilities.
“We definitely have taken how we did last season very, very deep to heart,” Grose said.
Grose bears all the scars he suffered last fall, when he wore a cast over his lower left arm and a brace on his right elbow at different points. By the end of the year, he became a symbol for MSU’s battered battalion on the back end, part of a defense on the field for the most plays in the Power Five. Only three other FBS players logged more snaps than Grose, who surpassed Henderson’s final total as he kept fighting through injury and the insult of playing on one of the worst-performing pass defenses in the country.
Still, the harsh reality of the situation was enough to make everyone around MSU sick, including the prideful Grose. The same program that once boasted of a “no fly zone,” whose past two head coaches were defensive back specialists, that regularly churned out NFL draftees from the secondary, had suddenly become a feeding ground for quarterbacks. Western Kentucky’s Bailey Zappe, Michigan’s Cade McNamara, Purdue’s Aidan O’Connell and C.J. Stroud all gorged themselves on the green-and-white buffet in front of them. They each contributed their own sizable share to the 4,222 pass yards MSU conceded, 456 more than any other FBS team.
Speaking of his players, Barnett said, “They know the elephant in the room. They know what it was and how it worked. And we all know that it just doesn’t fall on the secondary.”
Which may explain why the two biggest personnel moves Mel Tucker made this offseason focused on extracting improvement from the front seven more so the back end.
Following the departure of cornerbacks coach Travares Tillman in December, Tucker restructured his staff. He parted with defensive line coach Ron Burton, hired Marco Coleman as his replacement, and created a new role — pass rush specialist — and hired private trainer Brandon Jordan.
Tucker then appointed himself the team’s de facto cornerbacks coach — copying the model established by his old boss, Nick Saban. Tucker’s hands-on involvement is one of several subtle adjustments made this offseason. The framework of the defense has also changed slightly. Instead of a distinction between the free and strong safeties, overlap will exist between the positions, allowing more flexibility.
Barnett is hopeful the tweaks will make a major difference. Last season, MSU’s struggles occurred while the Spartans predominantly defended in zone coverage, which some players played as much as 65% of the time. But the defensive backfield is now stocked with bigbodied corners capable of jamming receivers at the line in press man. The 6-foot-3 Georgia transfer Ameer Speed is one of them. Early enrollee Ade Willie, two inches shorter than Speed, is another. They should help contribute to the makeover of a sector that fell short last season but is now long on experience with Ronald Williams, Marqui Lowery, Darius Snow, Chester Kimbrough and Charles Brantley.
“Guys are working to help each other to get better, even though they are competing with one another, which is a sign of a good, cohesive unit,” Tucker said in March. “And, at the end of the day, we’re going to need them all, anyway, to play at a high level.”
At the very least, they must be better than they were in 2021.
No one knows more than Grose, who wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time on the sideline this season watching the offense.
“Yeah,” he said, “you don’t want to be playing that many snaps.”