247Sports' Bud Elliott expects Michigan State football's win total to drop in 2022

There's been nothing but positive vibes coming out of East Lansing, but not everyone is buying...

Author:
Matthew Lounsberry
Publish date:
Apr 8, 2022 2:13 PM EDT

After exceeding all expectations in 2021, Mel Tucker and Michigan State football have built a lot of momentum for the future. The Spartans expected win total heading into last season was four, and MSU shattered that with 10 regular season wins.

And, if 247Sports' Bud Elliott is to be believed, Michigan State still has more doubters to prove wrong for the upcoming 2022 season.

Elliott has recently released regular season win total expectations for every Power 5 conference, including the Big Ten. Here's how the college football analyst sees things playing out for Michigan State and it's conference rivals:

As you can see, Elliott set the line at seven wins for the Spartans this season, and his explanation won't make Michigan State fans all that pleased either.

“Michigan State had a lot of close-game luck last year," Elliott said. "They won more games than people expected."

The college football analyst noted that he's been higher than most on the Spartans in recent years, but pointed to the lack of depth at offensive line and a tough schedule this season for MSU.

"I’ve been on their ‘Over’ for two years in a row, but this year I have them projected for seven. They have heavy losses along the offensive line, the schedule is not super friendly," Elliott said.

"I’m sure Michigan State fans won’t be super happy about this, and I’ll get some tweets about it. I’ve been on that bandwagon for two years. This year, I’m thinking they are kind of in that six to eight range, so I went with seven as my central number.”

Even more alarming is where Elliott projects Michigan State to finish in the Big Ten East division — fourth place behind Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

The analyst expects the Buckeyes to return to the summit of the conference.

“Ryan Day is an excellent head coach and offensive play-caller. C.J. Stroud, at quarterback, is back, and they have a ton of young, offensive talent that will become household names in the very near-future," Elliott said.

“New defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has his work cut out for him on the defensive side, but already we’re hearing promising reports out of Buckeye practice about the defensive line, which really could be a difference-maker here in some big-time games.”

After 11 wins in 2021, with their lone loss coming at the hands of the Spartans, Elliott projects a small step back for reigning the Big Ten champion, Michigan.

“It’s going to be a different team. Michigan’s going to have to have an offense that carries the defense a little bit better than it did last year, where the defense with all those great pass rushers was basically unbeatable," Elliott said.

“Michigan has a really cake-walk early season schedule that should help them to figure out who needs to play where in the defensive secondary, and maybe even solve a quarterback battle.”

After a disappointing 7-6 campaign in 2021, Elliott expects Penn State to take a step forward in 2022.

“Penn State has a lot of talent on defense," he said. "I think they will take a step forward on offense this year, and they might even be favored in 10 games. However, a couple of those games in which they’re favored could be tricky, like games at Purdue, games at Auburn, hosting Minnesota and Michigan State.”

Finally, Elliott expects Nebraska to be a surprise team in the Big Ten West, climbing from three wins in 2021 up to seven in this coming year.

“We talked about close-game luck with Michigan State, the worst close-game luck in the entire country was Nebraska," Elliott said. "I don’t think if you played 1,000 seasons you could have another result like they had last year, based on the quality of team. Now, they should be a lot better this year in some areas, I think marginally better overall. I’m just projecting neutral luck here.”

Michigan State has one final week of spring practice ahead of its 2022 Green-White game on April 16.