Michigan State Football: Naquan Jones calls 4-4 predictions “disrespectful”

With the Michigan State football schedule released on Saturday, everyone gave their best predictions on a final record. Naquan Jones has high hopes.

Saturday was a big day for Michigan State football. No, there was no game played on a September Saturday (weird, right?) but the Big Ten released its updated eight-game schedules for each team and the Spartans got to see who they’d be facing when the season begins next month.

Michigan State opens the season with Rutgers before traveling to Michigan and Iowa before three winnable games against Indiana, Northwestern and Maryland. The Spartans then end the season with Ohio State and Penn State and fans and media members immediate got to predicting.

The assumption is that Michigan State is going to suffer through a transition/rebuilding year, but players don’t feel that way for obvious reasons.

No current Spartan wants to believe they’ll be anything but contenders for the upcoming season, but that might not be all that realistic.

Still, Naquan Jones made sure he made everyone realize the expectations are not being lowered just because of a new coaching staff and after back-to-back disappointing seven-win seasons.

https://twitter.com/thealmightynay/status/1307392615873085441?s=20

Seeing a student-athlete saying something like this when the common assumption is that Michigan State will win anywhere from 2-4 games is actually refreshing. We see it every year, but there might be a culture change in East Lansing, turning the mindset around from being OK with 7-6 or 6-7 seasons to wanting more and realizing more is possible.

“Disrespectful” is an interesting term to use here seeing as 4-4 would be a nice season considering what Michigan State lost and how bare the cupboard is, but Jones expects more.

Is this going to be one of those surprise seasons that we’ve seen a few times over the past decade (most recently 2017) where the Spartans just blow past expectations? It seems like Spartan players are expecting to contend for a Big Ten title and that’s great news for fans.