With the 2026 season right around the corner, Michigan State fans are starting to lose focus at work, day-dreaming about a Pat Fitzgerald-led team getting to the College Football Playoff in year one.
Yes, that’s just a dream and there’s probably a 0.01% chance of it happening (thanks to the FPI we can put numbers on these hypothetical scenarios) but there’s still an excitement in the air. Michigan State is entering a new era where Fitzgerald is returning the Mark Dantonio-style of old-school toughness. He’s said multiple times that toughness was born in East Lansing.
Although toughness is returning, it’s still good to have the perfect amount of finesse mixed in. That’s where the offensive stars come into play.
These three offensive players are the most important to Michigan State’s turnaround this year.
1. Alessio Milivojevic
The No. 1 player on this list is the most obvious because he has to be. Alessio Milivojevic is the most important player on the offensive side of the ball for the Spartans and it’s really not up for debate. He had a great finish to the 2025 season with 1,267 yards and 10 touchdowns with only three picks and a completion percentage of nearly 65. He was fantastic in a small sample size.
If Michigan State is going to do anything this season, it’ll have to be because the quarterback play was the best that the program has seen since Payton Thorne in 2021.
Michigan State can’t really afford another setback under center.
2. Conner Moore (really anyone on the starting OL)
Like the title says, you could really put any Spartan offensive lineman here and I wouldn’t argue. I nearly put Trent Fraley, Ben Murawski, Luka Vincic, Nick Sharpe, and Rustin Young here but I settled on Conner Moore because he’s a veteran who could help the talented newcomers assimilate to the returning group with ease.
Moore is also an All-Big Ten candidate and Fitzgerald getting him to return for another season in East Lansing was huge and I think we’re all going to see very soon just how important that was.
3. Cam Edwards
It’s been a few years since Michigan State had a running back room this intriguing, and that’s thanks to some offseason transfer portal additions by Fitzgerald. He landed 1,000-yard UConn star Cam Edwards and also breakout Western Kentucky freshman Marvis Parrish to lead the way this season. And I think one of those two is going to be arguably the top breakout candidate on the team.
You could say that Edwards already broke out at UConn, but having a huge season there compared to in the Big Ten is a levels thing. He’s about to become a household name on the national level.
The last time a running back was this important was back in 2021 when a guy named Kenneth Walker III was busy making defenders look silly for 12 games.
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