Pat Fitzgerald held a team vote this week to determine who “The Spartan” on the 2026 Michigan State football team would be. Basically, this is like choosing the most worthy player of representing the team and the university, and the winner of the vote was pretty surprising.
The team voted a first-year transfer as the first-ever wearer of the No. 1 jersey which will go to “The Spartan” every fall under Fitzgerald. It’s a cool new tradition that the first-year head coach has implemented and carried over from his Northwestern days.
Who is the first-year transfer that earned the team vote? Kenny Soares Jr.
Are you surprised? The favorites to earn that No. 1 jersey had to be guys like Nikai Martinez or Jordan Hall or even Alessio Milivojevic but the Spartans picked one of their newest teammates.
Talk about an honor. This is probably the highest praise that a newcomer could get in his first year. Getting voted as the most worthy of the No. 1 jersey is basically like being selected as a captain which is also something that Soares could earn.
This has to be cool for Fitzgerald as well, considering Soares was one of his last recruits while he was still at Northwestern. The reunion in East Lansing is going better than planned so far.
Kenny Soares Jr. will now attempt the impossible
Along with being voted as the first No. 1 wearer of the Fitzgerald era, Soares will be in charge of doing something that has been deemed impossible by the fanbase.
He’ll now try to revive the pass rush.
It’s been years since Michigan State had a pass rush with a pulse. Jacoby Windmon was probably the last real pass rusher that the Spartans had, but Soares showed during the spring just why the coaching staff wanted him in the transfer portal. He showed flashes of being a really good pass rusher off that edge.
Soares played linebacker last season for NC State and had a career year. He finished with 80 total tackles, four tackles for loss, and just 0.5 sacks, but this move to the edge may just be what he needed. We’re about to see the birth of a star in East Lansing, and this vote for the No. 1 jersey is just the start.
The NC State transfer has already surprised us once, so why not again by delivering with the first effective pass rush in East Lansing in years?
Expectations for this team are slowly rising.
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