'Strength in Numbers' Will Be Pivotal for MSU's Defense This Season

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Aidan Champion | Last updated Aug 31, 2025 4:00 PM ET

Depth all across the board is going to be key for Michigan State this season, but defense is where you're really going to see its true impact.

Every team wants to be able to have depth on defense. And not every team has it. Fortunately for the Spartans, they have a lot of it at every position group.

That was evident in Michigan State's 23-6 win over Western Michigan when 25 Spartans saw the field on defense.

"It does feel good," Smith said of being able to rotate as deep as they did. "I think it feels good with that locker room in there. A lot of guys playing a lot of snaps, with different rotations. You guys saw the packages coming in. Defense linemen rotating almost every other play. Some of that was strategic in regard to when they substitute, but we feel like we got some depth on that side, and they played really hard together."

We knew linebacker, in particular, was an area we were going to be seeing a lot of faces this season, as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Joe Rossi had said as much last week.

"We're going to pay more guys than I've ever played before at linebacker," Rossi said. "And how do we do that? Well, there's going to be guys with roles and different packages and guys that have different jobs to do. And so, we'll see a lot of guys in there.

"Now, I will say, the guys who are the guys, which we'll see on Friday, those guys are obviously the guys for a reason, and they're going to get the bulk of the reps. But we're going to play a variety of guys, and we'll have different packages to feature different guys' strengths. And so, I think it is a really good room."

Rossi was true to his word, as almost 10 linebackers got in on the action on Friday.

"That's one of our emphases as a defense is having strength in numbers," said junior linebacker Jordan Hall. " ... We have so many guys in so many positions that are able to just keep guys fresh that maybe haven't (been) awarded that starting role, but I think collectively as a team, everybody plays their part in their rotation whether you're with ones or whether you're a rotation guy, everybody kind of plays their part in that role and keeping their body fresh, which makes us outlast other teams longer."

This is going to be a major strength of Michigan State's this season. And it already proved to be effective.

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