What a lot of fans don't realize is that while the stars shine the brightest on Saturdays during the fall, players behind the scenes help them reach that level of play during practice. Scout players don't get a ton of love but they're as important to the team as everyone else. Without the scout team, you don't get a good challenge in practice to get better.
Michigan State footbal has had plenty of scout team stars become actual stars over the years and under Jonathan Smith, it feels like that could happen again.
On Wednesday, Smith announced his "Scout Team Players of the Week" on social media which shows that the head coach cares about his entire team and not just the star players.
This is a great sign for the health of the program.
2024 signees Jaylan Brown and Kekai Burnett - along with PWOs Kyler Brunan, Caleb Gash, and Zach Gillespie - were named Scout Team Players of the Week by Jonathan Smith.
— SpartanTailgate.com (@SpartanTailgate) August 28, 2024
Seems like a new weekly tradition during the season that Smith is creating: https://t.co/4tsalRBOCL
According to Smith, Kekai Burnett and Jaylan Brown, two freshmen, were named as two of the scout team players of the week while preferred walk-ons Kyler Brunan, Caleb Gash, and Zach Gillespie were also named to the team. These five guys apparently did enough to help Michigan State prepare for FAU to be shouted out by their head coach.
I'm especially excited for Burnett and Brown for obvious reasons. They're the scholarship players in that bunch and they both were relatively highly-touted near the end of their recruitments.
Burnett was a Smith recruit from Oregon State and he should be a heck of a defender in East Lansing for the next few years and Brown was a late find by the staff at receiver. Both should have great careers at Michigan State, especially if they keep putting in the work on the scout team.
Love this cool new tradition.