Michigan State is about to drop a FAT PIG on the B1G's doorstep next season
Michigan State is about to drop a FAT PIG on the B1G's doorstep next season
MSU tailback Nathan Carter could be on the verge of seeing a huge uptick in production in 2024 with the new coaching staff in place.
There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you’ll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.
- Nick Saban, The Godfather of College Football
Disregarding personal opinions on Nick Saban's coaching prowess, there's a unanimous sentiment that I know for a fact we can all agree on: The Sabester was swagged out of his fucking mind when he was at Michigan State.
Regrettably, I write this article on the day that the GOAT himself, Coach Saban, otherwise unaffectionately known as Satan, or whatever else you want to call him, has announced his official retirement from coaching at Alabama. A sad day for the sport indeed. In his honour, I have fast tracked an article topic that I had planned to write at a later date. The subject of today’s writing— MSU’s RB Nathan Carter, is an intriguing player in CFF for 2024. I’ll explain why in a moment.
As many know, Nick Saban coached for many years in East Lansing. Admittedly, this was much before my time as a CFB fan. I imagine those Spartans teams were grimy, though. Saban’s preferred brand of football was not only well defined, but good for the game, in my opinion. I also always thought his insights and opinions on the direction that the game was going were pretty spot on, and insightful. Here’s hoping he becomes CFB’s first commissioner, or maybe a consigliere for Kirby’s UGA football? Hey, one can dream…
So, I just thought I’d take a moment in this article to pay my respects to the best to ever do it in the sport of college football. #GOAT
Now, on to today’s business. The man who is currently the head coach in East Lansing, also apparently prefers hard nose football. This man, one Jonathan Smith, joined the fold late in 2023 by way of Oregon State.
Smith’s system has been known as a strong one for RB production amongst the CFF crowd in the last handful of years. We’re going to investigate that by the numbers today, and take a look at a player who could be a huge beneficiary of the new staff this season.
Coaching & System
Jonathan Smith spent the last six seasons coaching the Oregon State Beavers (2018-2023). As alluded to earlier, his track record with the RB position was quite fruitful. This past season — despite having his TDs vultured early and often — Smith’s RB1, Damien Martinez, finished the campaign with 194 carries for 1185 yards and nine TDs (16.2 PPG). It should be noted that six of his nine rushing TDs came in two games: four vs. Stanford, and two vs. UW.
The previous year was a split backfield, with Martinez as a true freshman ascending late in the season. The 2021 campaign was BJ Baylor’s backfield. The Beaver runner accumulated 227 carries for 1337 yards and 13 TDs.
Second ballot VP-HoF’er Jermar Jefferson had a fantastic campaign during the COVID year, rushing for 858 yards and seven TDs on 133 carries in only six games.
The year prior (2019) is one I remember vividly. I actually rostered Artavis Pierce in a P5-only league I was in for a solid stretch in the season, but that backfield overall was Jefferson’s when he was healthy. The aggregate numbers of this season don’t look great, but it’s because Jefferson missed time, and then took over pig duties when he returned.
The 2018 season was another stellar year for Jefferson, who was a true freshman at the time. He dashed for 1380 yards and 12 TDs on 239 carries.
Before Oregon State, Smith OC’d the Washington Huskies for four seasons (2014-2017). He didn’t so much as have a track record of pigs as he had one pig who he loved during this span. Myles Gaskin, for three seasons in a row, was leaned on heavily by Smith’s UW offence, rushing for over 1300 yards in each year (2015-2017). The 2014 season was a split backfield, however.
So when people say that Jonathan Smith’s squads are a good system for CFF value, they are correct. The question now becomes, will this be a year where there is a pig in the backfield for his program? I think the answer is yes.
RB Nathan Carter — 5’10, 200
Enter MSU’s Nathan Carter. A native of Rochester, NY, Carter began his CFB career in 2021 with the UConn Huskies (coincidently, a lot of mention of Huskies today). He played two seasons at UConn, averaging 8.5 and 8.9 PPG, respectively.
His 2022 season, in particular, was off to a very good start prior to injury. In his first three games, Carter touched the football 18 or more times, and he scored 19, 21.1, and 9.3 points vs. Utah State, Central Conn (FCS), and Syracuse, respectively.
He actually had multiple 100 yard games as a true freshman with UConn as well. In the 2021 season, he rushed for 123 yards vs. Vanderbilt, and 136 vs. UMass.
His first season at MSU started off hot as well. He rushed for over 100 yards in his first two outings (vs. CMU and FCS program Richmond). Ironically, he was already sort of a volume pig under the previous regime. He averaged over 20 touches per game in his first seven outings. The problem was that MSU was so poor as a team, that Carter’s output production did not match his input volume.
At the very least, we can identify Carter as a potential dark horse to supersede Will Sheppard as 2024’s Mr. September. MSU plays FAU, Maryland, ULLaF, and BC in its first four games next September. While the sledding gets tougher in the middle of the schedule (OSU, Iowa, UM, Oregon), they do get to finish the season with Indiana, Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers. So Carter may be a first around here— not only securing 2024’s Mr. September title, but also the first ever CFF Mr. November title as well.
Closing Thoughts & Concerns
The immediate concern with Carter’s profile is on the output end of the equation. We already saw him see strong levels of volume last season, and he only averaged 11.2 PPG by season’s end. That’s not good enough for CFF. The games where he struggled the most were vs. UW (understandable), UM (understandable), OSU (understandable), Indiana, and PSU (understandable).
I think we’ll know ahead of time what games to not play Carter in. But, he’ll still be valuable if he’s the go to runner in this offence in September and November, I think.
One thing to consider is that Carter, joining MSU last year, is not one of Smith’s guys, and MSU could still bring in a transfer. But as of now, given what they have on the roster, one would assume Carter gets first crack at being the designated pig in this offence.
Another important consideration is that MSU could be greatly improved in year one under Smith’s tutelage. Do I expect that? No, but some level of improvement is reasonable to presume. Whether MSU scores more as a team will have a big impact on how valuable Carter is (duh).
As mentioned previously, volume at times was quite good already for Carter last year. It’s the actual production that let him down, which is in large part because the offensive line play was not good enough last year. It’s not a given that they’ll be improved, but there’s really only one way to go from here.
The Volume Pig mantra generally holds up in a large sample size, but there are edge cases like this one where the player plays on a program that is so outmatched most of the time, that the touch volume is rendered null. Perhaps naively, I don’t expect that to be the case for MSU this upcoming season. I like Carter as a late round gem as of writing this article.
Article on Jeremiah Smith Published at Campus2Canton
For those interested, I also published an article at C2C on OSU’s incoming freshman WR Jeremiah Smith. The article is linked here and above.
Farewell to the Volume PIG of Coaches: Nick Saban
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