Michigan State Football: PFF ranks Kenneth Walker III 5th-best returning RB

Michigan State football landed a big running back transfer last week and Kenneth Walker III is highly-regarded by Pro Football Focus.

Instant impact transfers are not something Michigan State football fans are used to seeing in East Lansing because Mark Dantonio didn’t target a ton of them in his decade-plus as head coach.

Conversely, Mel Tucker is hitting the portal hard and has already landed a handful of guys who can come in and contend for starting snaps right away. One of the biggest names Michigan State landed this offseason was Wake Forest transfer Kenneth Walker III who rushed for 579 yards and 13 touchdowns in a COVID-19-shortened season.

This was the second straight season in which he reached 579 yards and he did so on 4.9 yards per carry which he hopes he can improve upon in East Lansing.

Walker III may have seen his yards per carry dip by a total yard in 2020, but Pro Football Focus is still very high on the Wake Forest transfer. In fact, they have ranked him the fifth-best returning running back for 2021, according to their grading system.

Walker III trails only Christopher Rodriguez Jr. (Kentucky), Tyler Allgeier (BYU), Jerrion Ealy (Ole Miss) and Deuce Vaughn (Kansas State). Not too shabby.

While many people question the grading system by Pro Football Focus, it says something that they believe he’s one of the five highest-graded returning running backs in the entire nation.

Michigan State also has former top-100 recruit Harold Joiner coming in to aid the backfield depth and Jordon Simmons is set to be a sophomore after a breakout freshman season. Don’t forget Elijah Collins who nearly rushed for 1,000 yards as a redshirt freshman in 2019. It doesn’t look like missing out on Audric Estime will be a crushing defeat, after all.