The Core: We have three Juniors, Tatum, Spencer, and Mangham, who make up the heart of the secondary. How they go, we go.
Tatum is a stud. He has played in 21 career games, with 9 starts. He has over 660 career defensive snaps (along with 200+ on ST), 59 career tackles, and 8 PBUs.
Spencer has 8 starts across 17 games in the past two seasons. Logging 77 career tackles and 6 PBUs. In 2023 played 634 snaps on defense and 142 appearances on ST.
Mangham's logged 840 snaps in 20 games with 12 starts and has 73 total tackles with four interceptions and three pass breakups. Mangham was Honorable mention All-Big Ten in 2023.
CB Depth:
Rucker (So) returns after a promising Freshman year, with 575 snaps across 8 starts in 12 game appearances, logging 23 tackles, a few PBUs and an INT.
Brantley (r-Jr) has 15 starts in 22 career appearances over the past three seasons with 76 career tackle
Coley (r-So) has played 9 games across 2022 and 2023. In 2023 played 19 snaps on defense and 28 on ST
Willie (Jr) has 6 games in limited action).
Melvin is a holdover Mel transfer who played more at Wisco (23 games at Wisco prior to transfer) than here.
Crump is interesting. When healthy he's been alright. But he's only been on the field for 10 games in 3 seasons.
Safety Depth:
Grose is back for what seems to be his 10th season. He provides durability (10 starts the last 3 years), versatility (21 starts at Safety and 14 at Nickle), and experience (2,500 snaps with 231 career tackles).
A. Smith started last year as the S3-4 (2023: played a total of 75 snaps on defense at safety the first 4 games before injury. 2022: Played in 12 games for Cinci w/ 20 tackles. Smith played 185 snaps on defense and 145 plays on special teams, offering some versatility).
Denson is a highly-rated S recruit coming in and could fill in as a multi-year starter down the road.
Packing Their Pags
Marqui Lowrey Jr. (Sr) played in a handful of games the last few seasons. When healthy, he was okay. But he was often injured and constantly got jumped in the 2-deep by younger players. It would have been nice to have a veteran body in the room. But it is not the end of the world to lose him and open up a scholarship for a player Smith and staff can handpick.
Malcolm Jones (r-So) played in 11 career games, mostly ST. While highly recruited out of HS, it failed to translate early at MSU. Like Lowrey, we can now use this scholarship to fill another position of need or let the staff find a new DB replacement.
Sean Brown (R-Fr) played in seven games in 2023, burning his redshirt. The 6-foot-3, 196-pounder played limited snaps on defense and special teams. He was one of the tallest players in the DB room, which I thought could get him a specialized role. He could have been an interesting project. Similar to the above, this opens more roster room to fill more glaring needs (DT...)
I'm interested to see how the starting rotation plays out. There's talk of Tatum at Safety, which I assume kicks Spencer to the nickel role. Mangham seems plugged in at Free Safety. Racker and Brantley have proven to be capable CBs, while Grose has done a bit of everything..
At the end of the day, I don't expect the staff to roll into the season with the room as it is. My guess, as of writing this on 4/24/24, is that they bring in more talent from the portal to help out. With the staff opting to bring in proven players vs projects.
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