EAST LANSING – There are only 10 days left before Michigan State opens the season at Northwestern.
And there’s still no official word on who will be the starting quarterback for the Spartans.
Since the spring, the two clear frontrunners in the race have been redshirt sophomore Payton Thorne and Anthony Russo, a graduate transfer from Temple. Michigan State coach Mel Tucker in July said the goal was to figure out the competition in fall camp. The team began practice on Aug. 5 and already had both scrimmages but a starter hasn’t been named.
“We’re going to talk about it a little bit more this week, a lot more this week,” Tucker said after practice on Tuesday, “and then we’ll make a determination at some point before the game.”
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Thorne made four appearances last year, including throwing for 325 yards, three touchdowns and an interception in his first career start as the Spartans lost at Penn State in the season finale. At 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, he’s the more mobile of the two options and had three of the team’s five runs of at least 20 yards last season.
Russo, 6-4 and 240 pounds, joined the program in January and is the veteran in the room. He posted a 16-10 record as a starter at Temple and ranks third in program history in career completions (536), passing yards (6,292) and passing touchdowns (44). He has a strong arm but also threw 32 interceptions in his final 28 games with the Owls while admitting he tried to do too much at times.
During practice periods open to the media, including to wrap up the spring and during fall camp, Thorne and Russo split time working with the first-team offense while redshirt freshman Noah Kim is third on the depth chart, followed by true freshman Hamp Fay. That was also the order in the open practice during “Meet the Spartans” on Monday night at Spartan Stadium.
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Thorne made a few nice throws on Monday, including a completion of about 25 yards down the right sideline to wide receiver Jayden Reed. Russo shined throwing the deep ball, with a 52-yard touchdown to Reed and a 67-yard touchdown to receiver Jalen Nailor.
More effective quarterback play will be key in the Spartans improving an offense that ranked among the worst in the nation in recent seasons. There will also be a heavy focus on limiting turnovers after Michigan State quarterbacks combined to throw 41 interceptions over 33 games in the last three seasons.
“The ball security has been good,” Tucker said of Thorne and Russo. “It hasn’t been perfect but it’s been good. We’ve emphasized that the entire out of season and in camp. Obviously we know turnover margin is huge and we learned that a year ago. Ball security is job security and we talk about it all the time. I feel like our ball security has improved during this camp.”
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Michigan State QB competition going down to the wire - MLive.com
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