MSU OC Jay Johnson discusses QB battle, says Spartans are 'light years ahead' from a year ago

Jay Johnson is entering his 4th season as OC for Mel Tucker’s Michigan State program. After a disappointing 2022 season, Johnson remains optimistic for the trajectory of the Spartans to bounce back in 2023.

On Tuesday, Johnson met with the media to discuss spring practices. He particularly pointed to a healthy OL group as an area making MSU a “completely different team” compared to the 2022 squad. Johnson also said the Spartans are “light years ahead” from where things stood a year ago.

Johnson on MSU’s spring practices with healthy OL compared to last season: “We are a completely different team than we were a year ago.” Says the Spartans are “light years ahead” of where the team was.

— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) March 28, 2023

Another important area for the Spartans this offseason is the QB competition. Despite two-year starter Payton Thorne returning, Michigan State has made things an open competition considering the 5-7 record a year ago.

To this point, Johnson said Thorne, Noah Kim and Katin Houser are all about equal in terms of reps. Thorne’s experience and poise are certainly strong selling points at this point but Johnson also highlighted things starting to come together a bit for Houser, a former 4-star prospect in the 2022 recruiting class.

For now, there is no timetable for making a decision regarding the QB battle.

Johnson says that Thorne’s experience, poise and command of the offense has been prevalent, Kim has been solid and he likes his ability to run and that things are “starting to slow down” for Houser. He thought Houser “took a big step” during last Saturday’s team scrimmage.

— Ryan O’Bleness (@ryanobleness) March 28, 2023

We’ll see how things shake out heading into 2023, but Johnson’s current assessment should be some encouragement given how things played out a season ago.