The final week of fall camp has officially gotten underway and Michigan State football is not only working on figuring out the depth chart, but it’s identifying team leaders.
On Monday afternoon, the Spartans announced six new team captains which is the most for any Michigan State team in recent memory (they had five a year ago). That can’t be a bad thing, however. Having six guys capable of leading the team is a good sign for the upcoming season.
There was one surprise regarding the newly-named captains: half of them are first-year transfers.
Your 2026 Team Captains. pic.twitter.com/V2dKwJESZv
— Michigan State Football (@MSU_Football) August 24, 2026
Kenny Soares Jr., Trent Fraley, and Rhys Dakin are all new transfers this season while Nikai Martinez transferred to Michigan State prior to the 2024 season. That means that there are only two truly homegrown captains on this year’s team: Alessio Milivojevic and Jordan Hall.
It’s good to see Milivojevic get the nod for one of the captain spots so we can just avoid that unnecessary dialogue that exhausted everyone when Connor Cook wasn’t picked in 2015.
Hall and Soares Jr. are the obvious picks for two of the captain spots, but it’s a little surprising to see Fraley and Dakin voted to the six-man group. Fraley spent last season playing in the FCS and now he’s a captain for a Big Ten program. Dakin is a punter but that’s kind of par for the course at Michigan State which is starting to become “Punter U”.
Soares was voted “The Spartan” and will wear the No. 1 so he was obvious and Hall has kind of been the leader of the defense for a couple of years now and he was the first three-year captain in IMG Academy history — he just makes sense.
The only thing this group of captains does is raise the excitement level for 2026.
Almost every Michigan State position group has its own representative
The vision is becoming clearer: the team wanted almost every position group represented by a captain.
The offense has Milivojevic representing the backfield, tight ends, and receivers (as well as quarterbacks, obviously), Fraley speaks for the offensive line, Soares is there for the defensive line, Hall is in place for linebackers, Martinez has the defensive backfield covered, and Dakin is representing special teams as a whole. This feels like a perfect strategy.
Having a captain representing nearly every position group is something that could pay major dividends when it comes time for team meetings and having voices heard.
At first, the six captains seemed like overkill, but when you look closely, it makes sense.
Also, shoutout to the first-year transfers who have won their teammates over and have been voted captains despite only being on campus for a semester.
Add us as a preferred source on Google