Michigan State football has a history of success after legit QB battles

It’s mid-August and Michigan State football still doesn’t have a starting quarterback named.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Noah Kim and Katin Houser have been battling during fall camp for the starting job and Mel Tucker has made sure to let everyone know that this is a three-man race with true freshman Sam Leavitt also pushing for the spot.

Realistically, however, this is just between the other two more experienced passers.

Houser is in his second season with the program and played a handful of snaps in 2022 while Kim is in year four and he looked good in garbage time last year.

This is a battle that may go into the first couple of weeks of the season.

Michigan State football has a history of success after QB battles

I stumbled across this tweet on Twitter (X) on Wednesday afternoon and it’s the reason I decided to write this. I’ve talked about this exact point before and it absolutely needs to be discussed.

Anthony is basically saying that Michigan State should go with the younger guy because that has yielded the best results in past quarterback battles.

And I tend to agree.

Payton Thorne beat out Anthony Russo before the 2021 season and led Michigan State to an 11-2 finish with a Peach Bowl win. Before that, it was Connor Cook who beat out Andrew Maxwell in a battle that stretched into the first couple of games of the 2013 season. How did that work out? Well, Michigan State had one of its best stretches in school history behind Cook, including a Rose Bowl win, a Cotton Bowl win, and a playoff appearance. The time before that? Kirk Cousins beat out Keith Nichol and that, too, led to a ton of success.

Those are the last three legitimate quarterback battles and they’ve all yielded some elite results. I expect the same from the 2023 battle.

While we may not see immediate success (ie. New Year’s Six bowl win or Big Ten title in 2023), it could benefit Michigan State for years to come.

So maybe we should go with the younger guy with the higher ceiling.