Michigan State football disrespected in 2024 Big Ten preseason poll

The start of the Michigan State football season is about a month away, and now more than ever is the perfect time to make your predictions for the upcoming season.

This year may be harder than ever to predict how Michigan State will do because of their new staff, players and the four new teams coming to the Big Ten. But that won’t stop me or anyone else from making our best predictions.

A lot of the sports media are beginning to release their Big Ten football preseason predictions for the upcoming season, and one ranking in particular just isn’t sitting right with me.

In the above poll done conducted by news site Cleveland.com, they rank the Spartans No. 16 out of 18 teams in the Big Ten. Yes you read that correctly, they think 15 teams in the Big Ten will be better than Michigan State this season.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think MSU is one of the best teams in the conference. But I don’t think they’re one of the worst either. If it were up to me, I’d probably put the Spartans somewhere in the middle of the pack of the Big Ten this year.

But there are a few reasons why I think Michigan State is ranked far too low in these rankings.

Improved roster compared to last season

Anyone who’s paid attention to Michigan State’s offseason would tell you that they have a much improved roster compared to last year. And last year’s team still went 4-8, but it could’ve been much better.

Michigan State arguably should’ve beat both Iowa and Rutgers last season if it weren’t for embarrassing collapses. Even the Minnesota and Maryland games could’ve gone MSU’s way as well.

So knowing that the roster is better this year and last year’s team could have won six games tells us that MSU on paper should win 6-7 games this year. And that many wins would put Michigan State much higher than No. 16 in the Big Ten.

No off-field drama

This point goes along with the last one, but Michigan State thankfully won’t have all the off the field drama like they experienced last season.

So if last year’s team can win four games with all the drama that ensued during the season, then this year’s team can do much better than that with Jonathan Smith in charge.

Somewhat favorable schedule

Lastly is the fact that Michigan State has a somewhat favorable schedule this season. The way I see it, there are nine winnable games on the schedule. The only games where I don’t think Michigan State has a chance are Michigan, Ohio State and Oregon.

Now will MSU win all nine of those games? Probably not. But I think it’s a fair assumption to think they can win at least six of them, which would certainly put them higher than No. 16 in the conference standings.