EAST LANSING — Conner Moore arrived with All-American expectations. Caleb Carter quietly emerged in August as a surprise starter along Michigan State football’s offensive line.
Both know a thing or two about the Football Championship Subdivision competition. Because they played that competition not even a year ago.
“I have a lot of respect for the FCS level,” Moore said after practice Tuesday, Sept. 9. “Obviously playing there, I know there’s a lot of good players at that level, there’s a lot of good guys on every team.”
When the Spartans (2-0) host Youngstown State on Saturday, Sept. 13, at Spartan Stadium (3:30 p.m., BTN), two of their likely starting offensive linemen, brought in as transfers in the winter, both spent their formative years playing at FCS schools.
Moore, a 6-foot-5, 306-pound native of Millbury, Ohio, with two years of eligiblity, started MSU’s first two games at right tackle after earning FCS second-team All-American honors last season and Freshman All-America honors in 2023 at Montana State.
Carter, 6-3, 305, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, started half of his 36 games in four seasons at Western Carolina.
“It’s definitely a lot faster in everything,” Carter said Tuesday of what he has noticed between the two levels. “Dudes are a lot bigger, a lot stronger. … I think since I got here, I started to play a lot faster, which is what (offensive line coach Jim Michalczik) wants.”
Coming off an exhilarating, emotional and electrifying 42-40 double-overtime win over Boston College on Saturday, Sept. 6, that thrilled a national TV audience, coach Jonathan Smith was asked whether he was concerned about a potential letdown. After all, going against the Penguins (2-0) is a step down in competition based on the hierarchy of NCAA football.
“I’ve never been a believer in this idea of a trap game,” Smith said Monday, Sept. 8. “If you get into this trap game (mindset), your focus is in the wrong spot.”
It is not unheard of for a small-school underdog to upset one of the big boys of the Football Bowl Subdivision.
In the first two weeks this season, FCS opponents have four wins over FBS foes. That includes Eastern Michigan’s stunning 28-23 loss to Long Island University on Saturday. FBS schools lost six times to FCS opponents last season, four times in 2023 and eight times in 2022 — including Northwestern’s loss to Southern Illinois, which was the last time a Big Ten school lost to a lower-division team.
And perhaps the most stunning upset in the history of the interdivisional play came in 2007, when Appalachian State stunned then-No. 5 Michigan in Ann Arbor, seven years before the Mountaineers moved into the FBS.
In the past, players from power programs in the FBS (previously I-A) would transfer into the FCS (previously I-AA) for an opportunity to get more playing time while also being immediately eligible to play by going down a level. That all changed as the NCAA began the portal in 2018 and as coaches in every division started weaponizing it as a tool for roster rebuilding when transfers received immediate eligibility to play in 2021.
Recent roster limit legislation by the NCAA blurred one of the historic differences between the divisions, with both now permitted to provide up to 105 scholarships starting this year — previously, FBS schools were allowed only 85 full-scholarship players, while FCS programs could divvy up 63 scholarships for 85 players.
Smith and his staff have dipped into the FCS transfer market, with Moore and Carter among five FCS transfers (plus receiver Rodney Bullard Jr. from Division II) added this offseason. Last year, MSU brought in starting guard Luke Newman from Holy Cross and backup quarterback Tommy Schuster from North Dakota as one-year transfers to provide experienced depth in Smith’s debut season.
“There’s good players at every level,” first-year MSU quarterbacks coach Jon Boyer said Tuesday. “There’s players at every level that can play for us. And we’re seeing that with Conner now, he came in here and was able to earn a starting job.
“When you start to look at it now from a recruiting standpoint, I’m not looking at (YSU’s) roster to see who I could recruit. But there’s definitely that piece of it that sticks out to us. Like, ‘Oh, this guy can play.’”
MSU is 9-0 all-time against FCS opponents and 3-0 against Youngstown State, including a 42-14 win in 2021. Mark Dantonio got the Penguins on the 2011 schedule as the Spartans’ first FCS opponent. Dantonio was an assistant there from 1986-90 for Jim Tressel, whose YSU teams won four Division I-AA national championship from 1991-97 before the NCAA’s nomenclature changed.
The Penguins have 20 wins and a tie in 56 games against higher division opponents since the creation of the I-AA/FCS level in 1979. Those predominantly came over Mid-American Conference foes, but YSU stunned Pittsburgh in 2012. Still, the Penguins have never beaten a Big Ten opponent in nine attempts, also losing three times to Ohio State, twice to Penn State and once to Illinois.
“They’re big, they’re physical, they’re strong,” Penguins coach Doug Phillips said of MSU on Tuesday. “Coach Smith has shown — he got there last year and, just like he did at Oregon State and built the program. And you can see how much better (the Spartans) are this year.”
Along with Moore and Carter, MSU’s staff has plenty of experience coaching at the FCS level, albeit much of it coming more than a decade ago. Nine of the Spartans’ 12 full-time coaches — including Smith — have worked at an FCS school at one point during their coaching career.
Boyer was Northern Colorado’s quarterbacks coach in 2004-05 as the Bears moved from Division II into the FCS, then returned there as an assistant and offensive coordinator from 2011-18, before joining Smith at Oregon State. A quarterback at Northern Colorado in 2000-01 before it moved up a level, Boyer said the key for making sure Goliath slays David on Saturdays is to treat the FCS school like every other opponent on the schedule.
“And at the end of the day — I can’t speak for them — but it is truly about us (as a team),” Boyer said.
“The way that (the Penguins) are coached, they’re disciplined. So to me, this is a great opportunity for us to continue to go out and play against a really good opponent and see where we’re at in our next stage of development.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the “Spartan Speak” podcast for new episodes on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football finds lower-division gems as FCS foe Youngstown State awaits
Reporting by Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
