EAST LANSING – Cam Edwards believes he can be the best running back in America.
For Michigan State football, just getting its run game back to serviceable would be a major step forward in Pat Fitzgerald’s first season.
“I want to win a lot of games here,” the Connecticut transfer said Wednesday, Aug. 12. “I want to win a national championship, I want to win a Big Ten championship. I want to be the best running back in the country. So those are my goals, and we’ll see how everything goes and falls in line for me.”
The Spartans have produced just one 1,000-yard rusher since 2014, a magical season by 2021 Doak Walker Award winner and recent Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III. MSU finished 53rd nationally that season behind Walker’s singlehanded dominance but otherwise has finished outside the top 100 in rushing yards in the Football Bowl Subdivision every other year since 2018 and has not led the Big Ten in conference run yardage since 1990.
Fitzgerald and his staff made it a priority to beef up its offensive line, including adding Edwards’ UConn teammate in tackle Ben Murawski. They also sought to improve the depth in the backfield, bringing in the 5-foot-11, 206-pound fifth-year senior Edwards after he ran for 1,240 yards on 210 carries with 15 touchdowns. That included closing the Huskies’ season with three straight games with more than 100 yards.
“There’s a lot of competition, and I think Cam is learning every day,” new offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan said Wednesday. “He’s played a lot of football, he’s had a lot of carries. He understands some of the intricacies of run schemes, for sure. And the things that he was asked to do, there’s carryover. He was well-coached at UConn, and their staff did a nice job, for sure.”
To say Fitzgerald is well-versed on how important running the ball is to the Spartans’ identity as a program would be an understatement.
Walker’s 1,636 yards ranks fourth all-time in MSU single-season history, including a 264-yard debut against Fitzgerald and Northwestern in 2021 that is the seventh-best single-game Spartan total. Fitzgerald also watched from the Wildcats’ sidelines as Mark Dantonio’s 13-year tenure produced six of the 24 1,000-yard rushers in program history – Javon Ringer (2007, 2008) and Jeremy Langford (2013, 2014) twice apiece, along with Edwin Baker (2010) and LeVeon Bell (2012).
“I said it and I mean it: When I was playing and then coaching against Mark’s team, there was no doubt who the toughest team in the Big Ten was. And that was Michigan State,” Fitzgerald said at Big Ten media day in Chicago on July 29. “And we’ve let that slip through our fingers, and now we gotta go snatch it back. And that’s what we’re working on.”
The Spartans finished 109th in the FBS in rushing last season at 122.8 yards per game and have struggled to generate any ground game for closing in on a decade. Other than Walker’s big year, MSU has averaged less than 128 yards rushing per game every season starting in the final two years under Dantonio in 2018 and 2019. Mel Tucker’s tenure, despite generating 175.6 yards a game with Walker in 2021, also produced two of the worst rushing offenses in school history (91.4 yards in the COVID-shortened 2020 and 89.5 yards in 2023 when Tucker was fired early in the season). Jonathan Smith’s two-year stint showed some growth from the bottom-out under Tucker, with Brandon Tullis the top returnee from last season after rushing for 301 yards with four TDs on 69 carries.
Leading rusher Makhi Frazier left the program for Mississippi after posting 520 yards on 116 attempts with two scores in nine games, and Elijah Tau-Tolliver graduated. That meant replenishing the cupboard for Fitzgerald.
Edwards played 36 games over his four seasons at UConn, totaling 2,690 rushing yards and 27 touchdowns on 480 carries along with catching 47 passes for 467 yards and four more scores.
“I can do everything you ask me to do,” Edwards said. “I can catch the ball out of the backfield. I can run the football. If you need me to pass block, I’m really good at that. So I mean, whatever you need me to do, I’m gonna do my best, and I’m gonna give you my best effort.”
But Edwards wasn’t the only portal addition who will join Tullis and top 2025 recruits Jace Clarizio and Zion Gist in competing for carries. Coaches are raving about Marvis Parrish (5-11, 209), who had 576 yards on 106 carries along with 36 catches for 203 yards as a true freshman last season at Western Kentucky. MSU also brought in two transfers with Big Ten experience in Jaziun Patterson (Iowa) and Kenneth Williams (Nebraska), who also is a dangerous return man.
“The running back room, Marv looks great,” Fitzgerald said after MSU’s first practice on Aug. 6. “The whole group looks just different than they did when they first started off.”
Sheridan said he is keeping load management in mind with his running backs. Whether that means carries will be split or if Edwards or someone else ends up as a bell cow like Walker and Bell were previously at MSU remains to be determined during preseason practices and potentially after the Sept. 4 season opener against Toledo.
“Number 1, we want to win,” he said. “So, whatever combination that is to help that. I think there is a longevity piece with the running back. … I think it’s good for the group to have multiple guys that can carry. But they gotta earn that.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State on mission to revive moribund running game
Reporting by Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
