Maverick Hansen says Michigan State football has depth, culture to win national title

Expectations for Michigan State football's 2024 season aren' exactly sky-high.

At least not among the fanbase.

The players and coaches seem to have different expectations than the casual Spartan fan and that's fair because they see what goes on behind the scenes. They've put in the work and they know what they have to do to exceed expectations.

While you won't hear Jonathan Smith say anything about the team's expectations for the upcoming season because he doesn't want to set the team up for failure, he absolutely has major goals.

His players aren't so bashful.

We've seen some guys making strong statements this offseason like Charles Brantley and Ken Talley laughing at the preseason predictions for the Spartans (16th in the preseason Big Ten poll) and now Maverick Hansen has a massive goal set for his final season in East Lansing: a national title.

Obviously players aren't going to say "no, we can't win it all" but hearing Hansen say that he believes that the team has the depth and the newfound culture under Smith to actually get the job done this year is interesting. The confidence cannot be understated because that's half the battle. If the players believe, it's almost like they can accomplish anything.

Unfortunately, this is not going to happen although I'd love to be proven wrong by Hansen and Co. I just think this team is in the middle of a 2-3-year rebuild under Smith and the Spartans likely won't compete in the Big Ten until about 2026 or 2027.

But I'm not going to say Hansen is crazy for having this kind of confidence.