Although it was quiet weekend for Michigan State football players in the 2026 NFL Draft with only two Spartans getting selected, there have been several undrafted free agents signing their first pro deals.
Michigan State has had several former players signed and invited to rookie minicamps, and those are always fun storylines to follow. Seeing which former Michigan State stars end up on which NFL teams is exciting to keep up with, and it can lead to these guys making 53-man rosters by the start of the 2026 season.
The last former Michigan State player who went undrafted to make a 53-man roster was Nate Carter last season with the Atlanta Falcons and we’ve also seen it with Ben VanSumeren.
Quindarius Dunnigan is going to attempt to be the next one but he’ll be facing an uphill battle. He’s officially signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent and I’d assume that he’s being looked at as a practice squad guy, but he was a captain at Michigan State and one of the more consistent performers on the defensive line.
Although he started just one of 12 games as a seventh-year senior in East Lansing this past season, he managed to record 25 tackles, five tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks. In his two-year career at Michigan State after transferring over from Middle Tennessee, Dunnigan had 42 total tackles, nine tackles for loss, and 3.5 sacks. He didn’t exactly light up the stat sheet, but he was solid.
Now the 6-foot-3, 250-pound defensive lineman is going to spend his first NFL offseason attempting to make the Jaguars’ 53-man roster.
Quindarius Dunnigan is no stranger to fighting for his keep
When Dunnigan committed to Middle Tennessee out of high school, he was a two-star recruit with just one offer out of high school — and it was to MTSU. He was ranked the No. 3,135 player in the country and the No. 100 prospect in Tennessee. It was safe to say that no one was really considering him for a roster spot outside of the Conference USA program that offered.
Dunnigan had to battle for a spot with the Blue Raiders and redshirted in 2019. In 2020, he had six tackles in eight games and played just 103 snaps all year. He then sustained an injury as a redshirt sophomore and missed the whole year.
In 2022, he battled back from injury to play in all 12 games and he started two of them, recording 27 tackles, seven tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks. He followed that up with an All-Conference-USA season in 2023 where he finished with 35 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, three sacks, and eight pass deflections. He parlayed that into a Power Four scholarship at Michigan State.
There, he battled for starting snaps and played primarily a backup role. Now, he’s back to fighting for his keep again, but he’ll have to do so against NFL talent.
Dunnigan is no stranger to earning his keep, so I have no doubt that he’ll make the Jaguars’ decision difficult when it comes time to trim down rosters to 53.
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