How will Michigan State football replace LB Darius Snow after season-ending injury?
EAST LANSING — Mel Tucker thought Darius Snow could make an immediate impact in the middle of Michigan State football’s defense.
Then came some errant friendly fire, a teammate’s helmet hitting the junior in his right leg. He crumbled to the ground immediately. And his season crumbled to an end.
Tucker said the linebacker will miss the remainder of the year after suffering the injury during the 14th-ranked Spartans’ 35-13 season-opening win over Western Michigan on Friday night.
“I feel terribly for him,” Tucker said. “He worked hard and was playing at a high level.”
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Tucker added that safety Xavier Henderson “is sore, so we'll just have to see how he comes along with his treatment. But he'll be ready when he's ready.”
Snow needed to be helped off the field with an apparent right leg injury after nickelback Chester Kimbrough ran into him on a turnover with 2:17 left before halftime. He did not return but was spotted in the stadium tunnel in a wheelchair after halftime.
During the spring, the junior switched to linebacker from safety and nickelback, where he tied for third on the Spartans with 87 tackles to go with an interception among his 650 defensive snaps played in 2021. He made three stops against the Broncos and brought speed and pursuit in the middle of the defense in his reconfigured role.
Tucker said Snow was the reason he and his staff stopped giving players “extra effort points for production” in their practice grading.
“What Snow brought to the table was first of all, he's a good player, he's really smart. And he gives tremendous effort in practice,” Tucker said. “He was one of the guys that we would point to on a routine basis, every day giving maximum effort to the ball. … We said, ‘That’s the standard, why are we giving extra effort points? That’s how it should be all the time.’”
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Tucker did not specify what type of injury Snow suffered, but the third-year coach added MSU is still awaiting more test results to determine what comes next. He said he spoke with Snow’s father, former Spartan and NBA basketball player Eric, after the game.
“It's good when you got a pedigree like that …,” said Tucker, who said he played basketball against Eric Snow when they were in high school in Ohio in the late 1980s. “I (told Eric), ‘Yeah, man, it's just unfortunate. He's doing such a good job.’ And his dad told me, so 'That's just a different type of work that he has ahead of him.'”
Henderson tapped out of the game with 8:53 left in the second quarter following his pursuit on a third-and-goal scramble by WMU quarterback Jack Salopek. Henderson was not involved in the stop as Salopek ran out of bounds. The third-year captain, who finished with a pass breakup, returned to the sideline after halftime wearing a brace on his right leg and walking with crutches.
“We'll just have to go through the process with the treatment and things like that and see what all he's going to need,” Tucker said of Henderson. “But that's really all that I'm willing to talk about right now.
Senior Kendell Brooks replaced Henderson at safety and also got injured but went in and out of the game afterward. Opposite safety Angelo Grose also went in and out, giving freshman Jaden Mangham snaps in the defensive backfield. Tucker also said cornerback/nickelback Justin White is expected to take more reps at both safety spots during practice.
MSU also suffered injuries to wide receiver Jayden Reed, who left late in the second quarter after taking a hard fall but returned and played the second half, and defensive end Avery Dunn in the third quarter. The Spartans played without defensive tackles Dashaun Mallory and Jalen Hunt, defensive end Michael Fletcher and wide receivers Montorie Foster and Terry Lockett Jr.
Tucker said Foster, who missed spring practice, “has been a little sore, but he’s starting to come around a little bit.” Otherwise, the third-year coach remained tight-lipped about other injuries, particularly after freshman quarterback Katin Houser revealed Reed had been “in and out with injuries” during preseason camp.
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“I told the players do not talk about your injuries or anyone else's, and I'll handle all the injuries with the players,” Tucker said. “That's what I told them again today. It's not the first time they've heard that.”
A number of teams around the country watched key players get hurt in the first full week of games, which is often just due to the physical nature of football. The NCAA in recent years have changed rules limiting how much full-contact and tackling Football Bowl Subdivision teams can have during preseason camp, which has been a point of frustration for coaches as they prepare for a season.
Pointing out that Snow’s injury wouldn’t fall in that category, Tucker said MSU uses the “thud” technique of making upper-body contact without bringing a ball-carrier to the ground during many practices.
He also added that he and his coaches “have to pull back from some of that contact because we're trying to get our guys to the game.”
“We all talk about it as coaches, and the NFL scouts talk about it when they come in here,” Tucker said. “We go through camp and we have injuries. I even talked to NFL guys about their preseason approach, and they're saying they're getting to the point where they don't even want to hit in practice because they don't want to get guys hurt so they can't play the game. Then they get in the game, they haven't been hitting as much, and (NFL scouts) are telling me that injuries are way up early in the season. …
“In camp, like half of the half of the injuries that we had were a result of guys being on the ground when they weren't supposed to be on the ground, being out of control and not have a contact balance, being on the ground and someone tripping over a guy or a guy falling on his shoulder and getting an AC (joint) deal or something like. That's all technique and balance and body control. I don't think that what we're seeing in particular from our team right now, any injuries as a result of not having enough contact.”
Options at LB
Ben VanSumeren put together a hard-hitting, fleet-footed display at linebacker, finishing tied with Grose with a game-high 11 tackles.
The senior previously moved to the position from fullback before transferring from Michigan to MSU last season, then entered and withdrew from the transfer portal in the spring after emerging as a potential key cog in coordinator Scottie Hazelton’s defense that traditionally uses just two linebackers.
“Ben, he's just he's fast. I mean, he can flat-out run,” Tucker said. “You talk about a linebacker who can run sideline-to-sideline and do that, that's who he is. That's part of his game, that's part of his skill set — his speed and explosiveness.”
MSU also used Cal Haladay (10 tackles) extensively and transfer Aaron Brule (one sack) in spots in the middle of the defense. Tucker said Windmon can still slide back to linebacker, and sophomore Ma’a Gaoteote remains an option even though he did not play Friday.
“We still have good players at that position, and they're all going to have to play for us,” Tucker said. “They're all gonna have to play winning football for us to be able to get the job done.”
Windmon honored
A day after winning the Walter Camp national defensive player of the week award, defensive end Jacoby Windmon was named Big Ten defensive player of the week for his four-sack performance against WMU.
Tucker called the UNLV transfer, brought in as a linebacker, “an unselfish, hard-nosed” player at both positions.
“He had an outstanding game with his sack production and just the way he played the game with a very high motor. Showed a lot of skill, played hard,” Tucker said. “He's a very unselfish player. We asked him to move the defense end a couple of weeks ago — may not even have been that long — and he said, 'Coach, whatever I can do for the team, I'm willing to do that.' And he did it.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What's next for Michigan State football after LB Darius Snow injury
