As we progress through the final month of the offseason, Michigan State football fans are trying to figure out what the realistic expectations should be for the 2025 season.
Some fans are optimistic, others are cautious with their approach on expectations, and some are not expecting anything. There's a pretty even mix across the board, and it's a weird place to be for a football program. Usually there's overwhelming optimism or pessimism. Not this year for MSU.
Optimism is slowly climbing, however.
What's aiding this uptick in optimism is the praise for the Spartans' offensive line. The coaching staff has been praising the line for the past month, starting with Jonathan Smith singing its praises at Big Ten Media Days. On Thursday, offensive line coach Jim Michalczik had some good things to say about his (deeper) group.
According to SpartansWire, Michalczik spoke to the media on Thursday and had some major praise for the Spartans' offensive line heading into the 2025 season.
"We have a bunch of dudes that can play. The fun thing with this camp is that every day the bar just got higher. Every day we have improved, (but) I still think we have a lot of improvement to go... We are so much further advanced in understanding the offense, understanding football. We are talking about things we never talked about last year. We have so much more of the offense in now so (I'm) optimistic, yeah, but still have a lot more work to do."Jim Michalczik on his OL
It's clear that the coaching staff likes what it has in the trenches, but Michalczik did say that there are still starting jobs up for grabs. I have high hopes for this group because it feels like it will be 10 deep, at least. There are "dudes" that can play, according to Michalczik.
We've heard this for years, but not quite to this level of hype from the coaching staff in the preseason. This year feels a little different.
Time to see it come to fruition.