Michigan State Football: What can we expect from Itayvion Brown in 2021?

Michigan State released its list of official incoming transfers earlier this week but one name was missing: Itayvion Brown.

Obviously, this was met with plenty of panic because, well, Michigan State football fans can be crazy, but it quickly subsided a day or two later as the school officially announced Brown was on campus and enrolled in classes. He was just waiting on transcripts from Minnesota and now that he’s officially a Spartans, it’s time to really get excited about him.

Brown is a highly-regarded newcomer, even listed as one of the top-100 transfers in college football for 2021. He is ranked the No. 98 transfer in the entire portal class which saw over 2,000 players looking for new homes. He’s one of three Spartans to make the list as Kenneth Walker III was ranked No. 79 and Quavaris Crouch came in at No. 82.

The Spartans now have a strong linebacker corps and it’s led by some potential future stars such as Chase Kline, Crouch, Ma’a Gaoteote, and Brown.

But what can we expect from the latter this season?

Brown could be a fixture of Michigan State football’s defense

Brown was actually one of the incoming transfers I was most excited for when he committed. He could earn a starting job right away and I think he’ll prove to be more talented than some of the more experienced guys.

It’s completely fair to expect Brown to start out in more of a pass-rushing linebacker role as an athletic 6-foot-3, 218-pound outside backer. He could be a pass-rushing specialist early on before proving he can handle every-down duties in the 4-2-5 defense. However, since the Spartans run a 4-2-5, it’s likely that he’ll be splitting a lot of time with guys like Kline and Gaoteote.

I see Crouch winning a starting job over Noah Harvey and Brown eventually sliding into that other starting role, but we won’t see that until about a month into the year.

Brown will have a strong redshirt freshman season and he’ll prove to be one of the conference’s top up-and-coming stars.