Justin Thind

In other news: Former #MichiganState OC Jay Johnson has been named Oregon’s offensive playcaller for the rest of the year, per Dan Lanning. MSU’s offense ranked 131st in PPG in his last season in East Lansing. He gets another chance.

Kayd Coffman’s first career TD throw is a swing pass to Kenneth Williams Jr - following Devin Vaught’s long fumble return. Some sparks early on. Not sure how reliable of an indicator the scoreboard is though, as UCLA was running the ball at will after Ben Roberts got hurt. Still, great to see for now. Injuries piling up to an unreal extent every play.

We keep seeing flashes. A $20M offense ran by Nick Sheridan would very fun to assess.

Kenneth Williams Jr. returning the kickoff out of the endzone and then 3 MSU gunners failing to down that at the 1-yard line is roughly 35 yards of “hidden yardage” given away by special teams.

Wild roughing the passer call against Michigan. That was the equivalent of waving a hand in front of a jump shooter’s eyes in basketball. Officiating is in a dark place with CFB right now.

This past offseason, the Indiana Hoosiers: - had the cache of being the defending champs - could sell that their last QB went 1.01 - had essentially unlimited money - had elite talent evaluators …and the best they could do was Josh Hoover. So what makes fans of good, average or bad programs think they can significantly upgrade the QB position via the transfer portal - assuming your current guy is just flawed but not bad?

Here’s what Kayd Coffman looks like from traits & abilities standpoint. He’s a pass-first, pro-style QB without a doubt, but still multi-faceted & athletic. In December 2024, he told me that turning around Michigan State really appealed to him. “I like that it's a rebuild. I get to be a part of bringing a new era to MSU football." 22 months later, he gets his chance to accelerate the rebuild - as MSU travels to #9 UCLA…

Tall task for true freshman QB Kayd Coffman & Michigan State’s passing attack vs UCLA today. Here’s a look at the Expected Points Added per drop-back by opposing QBs vs UCLA... JKS & Malik Washington are highly-touted QBs & that’s how they performed. Let’s see if Coffman is allowed to struggle without major backlash. (Graphic Credits: @Cover3Podcast)

NEWS: #MichiganState true freshman QB Kayd Coffman is expected to start vs UCLA today. His first-career start comes against a top-10 team on the road, with Alessio Milivojevic out injured. Of note, the Spartans have their bye next week. Read (FREE): 247sports.com/college/michig…

Quick bullets on new Michigan State deputy AD and CEO of Spartan Ventures Mike Polisky: - Comes from Intersport (big sports marketing firm) - Overlapped w/ Fitzgerald for 11 years at NW - Grew pickleball for 4 years as Pres. of PPA - President/GM of an Arena Football team - President of an AHL hockey team - Developed Cubs x Northwestern partnership TLDR: He’s done it all. Marketing, strategic & innovative partnerships and, of course, being a fundraising rainmaker are the qualifications.