EAST LANSING — On a Michigan State football roster with a lot unknowns, Alessio Milivojevic and Jordan Hall are welcomed knowns, each offering a baseline of production that’ll hold up in the Big Ten.
Having the quarterback of both the offense and defense returning is no small thing for MSU. Yet on a team perhaps short on true difference-makers, what Milivojevic becomes in his first full season as the starting QB and Hall becomes in his fourth year and second as the Spartans’ middle linebacker, could determine quite a bit about what sort of season the Spartans have.
They are the faces of the team as fall camp begins. MSU needs them to be true headliners on the field in October.
Milivojevic gave the Spartans a jolt last season as a redshirt-freshman, taking over for Aidan Chiles, who lost confidence in his protection and then began leaning too heavily on his athleticism to escape at the first sign of trouble, rather than hanging in the pocket to find his target. Early in the season, Chiles seemed to have made strides in keeping his head up and finding his second option. But old habits die hard when you’re blessed with fast feet and you’re living with a face mask in your chest.
Milivojevic was a welcome change in November, in part because of his contrasting style in the pocket. His greatest attribute so far as a college quarterback is his willingness to stand in and take the hit. And he took some whoppers. His fearlessness allowed MSU’s offense to get back its ability to put together drives.
“It’s been something I’ve kind of done my whole life, being known as a pocket quarterback. It’s the nature of the role,” Milivojevic said last week, after the Spartans began fall camp. “You’ve got to stand there and take a few shots when when you have a guy about to break (open). But ultimately, I want to avoid as many hits as I can. I think this year … the reads, getting (the ball) out even faster, so I don’t have to take some of those unnecessary hits.”
He was really good for a redshirt-freshman, a promising start to a career. It was enough to earn being the No. 1 guy coming into this season, without any need for MSU to chase a high-end transfer.
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What we don’t yet have a sense of is Milivojevic’s ceiling as a college quarterback and as a passer. We don’t know yet if he can elevate a limited offense and be efficient in the red zone. These are traits that’ll determine whether he’s just another decent QB in a long line of them at MSU. Or whether he’s memorable — and someone who can help pull this program out of the abyss of the past few seasons.
If he’s just OK this season — fearless in the pocket and more solid than not with his decisions — that might not be enough for this team to have a winning season. If this were 2013, it might be enough to be a Rose Bowl-winning QB. But this team needs someone to elevate it, the way Connor Cook was able to by 2014 and ’15.
Likewise perhaps with Hall on the defensive side. The Spartans lost a lot of last year’s defense, and while there are a number of intriguing transfers and some familiar names of proven quality, Hall will have to be a playmaker, as well as an organizer and facilitator. This defense doesn’t have the playmakers the squad did that his position coach, Max Bullough, directed 13 years ago.
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“We sit down in the linebacker room and we both have kind of a good sense for each other and how we break down different things, and some things that he’s pointing out schematically, football-wise,” Hall said of Bullough. “He’s been to a lot of different places where a lot of good football has been played, and so I think just me being older, being in this scheme more, we kind of break down things maybe on a different level than some guys who are just now learning the defense.”
Hall led the team in tackles a year ago, with 4.5 of them for loss. But there’s another level still. I think he knows it. That’s why it was so important to him that Joe Rossi return as defensive coordinator, so that he could be in a defense that he knows so well that he’s able to think the game not just for himself, but for his teammates, and play fast and free.
Maybe the Spartans have more talent than we realize on both sides of the ball. In the transfer portal era, that can happen.
But even if they do, it’s hard to imagine this year going well if their two frontmen don’t also play starring roles.
SPARTAN SPEAK PODCAST: Graham Couch and Chris Solari discuss MSU football under Pat Fitzgerald as fall camp begins
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Couch: MSU football needs frontmen Alessio Milivojevic and Jordan Hall to also play starring roles this season
Reporting by Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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By Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal | USA TODAY Network
