Michigan State, once transfer portal darling, reeling as QB, WR look to leave

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Not even 50 days ago, Mel Tucker publicly announced Michigan State football would have an open quarterback competition in spring practice.

It now appears the Spartans will have a new starting quarterback for the first time since the end of 2020 as two-year starter Payton Thorne entered the portal as a grad transfer late Sunday morning. And with it comes even bigger problems for their offense.

Shortly after, MSU’s best wide receiver and top NFL prospect, Keon Coleman, did the same. Suddenly, Tucker’s building blocks for his fourth season are looking to leave. Might even have one foot out the door, even though they still could come back.

Welcome to “college” football in 2023 and a landscape Tucker and his backers helped create. And now must try and navigate in order to maintain the upward trajectory they have continued to project the program heading.

Thorne-y situation

Players may still return to their previous school, as MSU experienced with both Connor Heyward in 2020 when Tucker took over for Mark Dantonio and as Ben VanSumeren did in withdrawing from the portal last year.

But there may not have been a bigger bombshell in the portal era for the Spartans than the decisions by Thorne and Coleman that had teammates tweeting their shock and frustration.

NOW WHAT? Michigan State quarterbacks: Who replaces Payton Thorne, now in transfer portal

Despite starting 26 of MSU’s 32 games in the Tucker Era, Thorne — a Dantonio recruit in 2019 — never appeared to endear himself to the new staff. Tucker gave the starting job in 2020 to Rocky Lombardi, who went 2-6 that year before he got hurt and Thorne started the final loss at Penn State. Lombardi transferred out after that season when Tucker brought in Temple grad transfer Anthony Russo to push for the job.

In a battle that reportedly went deep into camp, Thorne beat out Russo and played almost every snap in 2021 as the Spartans went 11-2 and won their third New Year’s 6 bowl game since 2013. As one-and-done transfer Kenneth Walker III dominated on the ground, Thorne put together a magical year of his own by breaking Kirk Cousins’ MSU single-season touchdown record to finish with 27 TD passes and 3,233 passing yards with 10 interceptions.

Thorne entered as the incumbent last fall, but he got hurt in the first game against Western Michigan and took a few other early hits that changed his ability to run and hampered his throwing, with his passing numbers falling to 2,679 yards with 19 scores and 11 picks. And with Walker and a number of veteran offensive linemen departed from the year before, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Thorne’s rushing totals also dropped from 181 yards and four TDs as a sophomore to 42 yards and one score.

The Spartans went 5-7 last season for a number of reasons. Some of it was due to Thorne’s physical health and dip in production, but the lack of a run game and the offensive line's health from last spring hurt as well. MSU finished 96th in total offense at 353.0 yards and 110th in rushing at 113.0 yards a game, though Thorne guided the passing offense to 240.0 yards a game (57th) with the 63rd-best passing efficiency. The Spartans finished 127th in time of possession (26:13) and tied for 90th in points per game (24.4).

That doesn’t take into how poorly Tucker and Scottie Hazelton’s defense performed for the third straight year. MSU’s inability to stop both the run and the pass for much of the season also contributed to a four-game losing streak early and dropping the last two to miss a bowl game for the second time under Tucker. And the Spartans lost a third starter to the portal late Sunday night in junior cornerback Charles Brantley.

The 2022 downturn appeared to have lit a fire under Thorne and his teammates.

“For the guys that were here, and for me personally, absolutely you got a chip on your shoulder,” Thorne said in March when spring practice began. “And you do have something to prove. You got to prove yourself and then everybody else.”

Thorne’s 49 touchdown passes are fourth-most in MSU history, his 6,494 passing yards are sixth-all-time, his 60.9% completion percentage is fifth-best, and his 524 completions rank sixth. In his 26 starts, the two-time captain is 16-10. He has two seasons of collegiate eligibility left with the COVID waiver for 2020.

It is unclear when and how Tucker informed Thorne he planned to have a quarterback competition this spring. Tucker announced March 13, two days before practices began, that Thorne would have to battle junior Noah Kim and redshirt freshman four-star prospect Katin Houser to retain his role.

“One thing I can say from last year was just fighting through adversity. That was a tough year last year for everybody. And for me, it brought new challenges I've never had to deal with, really,” Thorne said a day after Tucker’s announcement in March. “It was being on the losing side quite a bit. And not just be on the losing side, but also to be on the losing side at a place like Michigan State. A lot comes with that. And when you're the quarterback and if you're not playing all that great, there's a lot that comes with that. …

“One day, I'll look back and say, 'I'm thankful for that season, and there was a reason for that season.'”

The QB competition appears to now be between Kim, Houser and incoming four-star freshman Sam Leavitt.

Greener pastures?

Coleman, like Thorne a year earlier, put together a breakout sophomore season in 2022 and appears on the verge of stardom.

So much so that he got a tattoo this spring that read: “The world is yours,” which may or may not be an allusion to the riches-chasing tale of Al Pacino’s “Scarface.” His explanation for it seemed to predict something big was ahead.

“A tattoo is kind of like I call it a hidden therapy for me. Because life hurts, too,” Coleman said in March. “Tattoos don't feel good, but it's always greener on the other side, the outcome. They look good after all the pain, and you keep getting more.”

Searching for greener pastures in the portal did not seem like it would be the case.

With Jayden Reed banged up early, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound junior wide receiver from Opelousas, Louisiana, led the Spartans with 58 catches, 798 receiving yards and seven touchdowns while starting all 12 games. That followed a freshman season in which the two-sport star finished with seven catches for 50 yards and a touchdown at Ohio State.

Coleman planned to play basketball for a second straight year, returning to school after Christmas for practice in late December. But a week later, it was announced he would focus on spring football and not play hoops. Tucker and basketball coach Tom Izzo promised him a chance to play both sports in college as part of his recruitment.

In March, Coleman said he battled a partial muscle tear near his hip flexor, near the groin. Healing that injury and improving his pro future were the reasons he gave for not playing basketball in the winter. It is unclear how much that affected him this spring, but Coleman did not participate in the Spartans’ final spring football practice.

Even though he said in March how much he felt he’d grown as a leader during the offseason, particularly for the younger receivers who now appear as if they might need to replace him.

“Being more accountable and being watched more by more of my teammates,” Coleman said. “They see, 'He's a leader. So if he's not really stepping right, then how are we supposed to follow him?'”

Changing landscape

What seemed to be a great experiment going into Tucker’s second season in 2021 — adding 21 transfers and watching 27 leave from the 2020 roster in the first real mass exodus from a Football Bowl Subdivision program — is now the norm. His program, like many others, has become a revolving door of players coming and going via the portal over the past three seasons.

Two years later, college football recruitment seemingly has become an entirely transactional process, with few guiderails to slow it down.

And as more big-named schools catch up with the federal government-approved pay-for-play booster employment program known as “name, image, likeness collectives,” the Spartans are learning that even a head-start in that realm can’t make up for the significant money that is luring recruits and rostered players to other programs.

That makes a valuable commodity of budding stars like Coleman and proven leaders like Thorne. And many programs are making back-channel contact trying to broker deals to get top players to leave for greener pastures, as Southern Cal did in getting wide receiver Jordan Addison to transfer from Pitt after the Spartans beat the Panthers in the 2021 Peach Bowl.

“I think we're the great plagiarists of athletics in football,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said about Tucker’s experiment in the summer of 2021. “So if it works, absolutely people will emulate it.”

Now with Thorne and Coleman potentially leaving, the onus is on Tucker to prove he is a leader who can execute the vision of competing for Big Ten and national championships he promised his fans, donors and recruits. That requires establishing stability through the constant shifts — and win football games — amid seemingly annual change in his off-field personnel and roster.

Tucker parlayed the Spartans’ 2021 success, with Thorne guiding his offense, into a 10-year, $95 million contract extension. He is 23-21 in four seasons as a collegiate head coach, and 18-17 at MSU, with just one bowl appearance. If MSU were to fire him, it would owe 100% of Tucker’s remaining salary, which now sits at $87.5 million over the next nine years (it would owe nothing if there is just cause because of a crime, an NCAA violation or moral turpitude).

In other words, Tucker’s job security appears safe for the foreseeable future.

As for his team and program? Everything is in flux.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.

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