If anyone in East Lansing was wondering who Kenneth Walker III is, all they had to do was ask someone in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Last season at Wake Forest, Walker topped the 100-yard rushing mark 3 times and also had 3 games with a trio of touchdowns.

When Walker transferred to Michigan State in January, it would have been hard to imagine the junior tailback would make such an instant impact on the Spartans offense as he did Friday night against Northwestern.

During the opener against the Wildcats, Walker touched the ball for the first time as a Spartan and turned the corner and blew past the Wildcats defense for a 75-yard touchdown on MSU’s first play from scrimmage. He would add 3 more touchdowns and finish with 264 yards in the Spartans 38-21 win in Evanston.

Again, this should be no surprise to Demon Deacons fans, as they saw Walker rush for 1,158 yards and 17 touchdowns over his 20 games while at Wake Forest, including breakaway runs of 96 and 75 yards.

So who is Kenneth Walker III?

A 3-star recruit from the 2019 class out of Arlington High School in Arlington, Tennessee, Walker spent 2 seasons at Wake Forest. In each of those seasons, he ran for 579 yards, with 13 TDs last year after just 4 as a freshman. He entered the transfer portal in December and committed to Michigan State in January.

Interestingly, MSU and Wake Forest met in the 2019 Pinstripe Bowl, and the Spartans held Walker to 24 yards on 8 carries that afternoon.

No surprise to the Spartans

The power sweep with Walker had been in 2nd-year Michigan State coach Mel Tucker’s plans for the opening touch for quite some time.

“We wanted to start fast,” Tucker said. “We were able to do that. It was a momentum play, obviously. We see that every day in practice from him. That’s what he does.”

Spartans linebacker Xavier Henderson had been looking forward to seeing Walker in Spartan green and white.

“All week I was saying I can’t wait to watch Kenneth run, because that’s the kind of stuff he was doing against us in practice,” Henderson said after the win over Northwestern. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait for him to do that against someone else.’ Y’all ever seen ‘The Longest Yard?’ He looks like Nelly off ‘The Longest Yard.’ Or we call him Boobie Miles – he can do it all.”

Payton Thorne, who was announced as the Spartans starter at quarterback, is also among those who weren’t surprised by the outcome of Walker’s first carry with the Spartans.

“I’ve seen it in practice about 50 times,” he said.

Will Walker keep it going?

The East Lansing crowd will get their first glimpse of Walker when the Spartans host Youngstown State on Saturday for their home opener.

It’s not expected that the Penguins will be much of a test for Walker and the Spartans’ offense, but the following week’s matchup with Miami will give us a look at whether the offensive explosion against the Wildcats was a fluke, or if Walker and the new faces at Michigan State are the real deal.

Defenses will obviously be adjusting to what they saw in Week 1, and now expectations have been raised and the broader college football world will be tuning in.

“I told (the team) I was proud of them and that it was a good team effort and we played complementary football,” Tucker said. “It was one game; we didn’t win it all. We expected to come in and play good football — we did that for the most part.

“This is not the end, this is the beginning of this version of this team. … We’re gonna celebrate the victory — it’s hard to win football games, it’s hard to win against good teams and it’s hard to win on the road. So, that was an accomplishment for us. But we have a lot of football ahead of us; we’ve got to keep it in perspective.”

Other than Miami, the schedule lends itself to Walker and the MSU offense being able to build some momentum and develop some chemistry heading into the final games of the season.

The question is will they, or was the opener just a one-time deal?