Couch: Large NFL draft class will test MSU's program, history shows

EAST LANSING – If the NFL draft projections are correct, this will be a banner week for Michigan State’s football program.

And if history is any indication, the celebration won’t last.

MSU is about to learn whether it has finally and completely conquered its tortured football past. This year’s talent loss is the latest test of sustainability for a program that sees itself as an emerging power.

At least five Spartans are expected to be selected in this week’s draft, which begins with Round 1 on Thursday night. A couple more could be picked before the draft closes on Saturday.

It’ll be the sixth time in the last 50 years that MSU has seen five or more of its players taken in the NFL draft — or the draft’s first seven rounds (there were at least 12 rounds until the early 1990s).

The years that followed each of those five illustrious drafts were struggles. The best of them: 7-6 in 2012.

That frustrating campaign came just after the Spartans’ initial rise under coach Mark Dantonio — and just after MSU ushered six players to the NFL, including quarterback Kirk Cousins, receivers B.J. Cunningham and Keshawn Martin and defensive tackle Jerel Worthy.

Just like then, the NFL wants MSU’s quarterback, its top pass-catching target and its most disruptive defensive lineman. That, and its left tackle and center.

Offensive tackle Jack Conklin is projected to go first, in the first round Thursday, followed by QB Connor Cook late in the first round or sometime Friday in the second round. Defensive end Shilique Calhoun and center Jack Allen are expected off the board somewhere in Rounds 2 through 4, with wideout Aaron Burbridge possibly going in the fifth round.

That’s a lot of big-time talent to replace. Never mind the handful of other senior starters, some of whom will also get a good look from the NFL.

When MSU tried this changing of the guard four years ago, the underlings weren’t ready. An anemic offense crippled the next season. It didn’t prevent the program’s eventual continued ascent, but it made the Spartans seem pedestrian again and temporarily dinged the belief that MSU football could be sustained at an elite level.

The heir apparent at quarterback is more proven this time. But many of the other dynamics are similar — at least from a birds-eye view.

What is hard to tell before September is how much MSU has improved its depth of talent since then. Recent recruiting classes are more heralded, and QB Tyler O’Connor has already won a game at Ohio State.

But he did that with Allen in front of him, Conklin protecting him, Burbridge getting open for him and Calhoun harassing his counterpart.

The Spartans didn’t see 2012’s woes coming, even if they should have. They knew they were a work in progress offensively, as they are now. But they thought it would happen for that group.

MSU recovered from that miserable blip. It turned out, the program’s foundation was stronger than a couple classes.

That hasn’t always been the case.

MSU’s previous five large NFL draft classes, not surprisingly, also followed success.

In 2002, five Spartans were selected. They were the last of the players to be coached by Nick Saban. MSU went 4-8 the next fall and fired coach Bobby Williams’ before season’s end.

Two years earlier, in 2000, MSU saw seven players taken (a program record for seven rounds). The 10-2 1999 season and the end of the Saban era quickly morphed into a 5-6 team without a passing game.

In 1991, six Spartans were picked in the first seven rounds, three in the first three rounds. The glory years under George Perles then came to a crashing thud, 3-8.

And, a half a century ago, in 1967, the last time MSU was this nationally relevant, the Spartans lost four first-round draft picks, five in the first seven rounds and followed up their famed 1966 season with a 3-7 record.

Dantonio has already done what many thought couldn’t be done at MSU. This is another hurdle.

A 7-5 season wouldn’t push the program into an abyss. But a 10-win season, following a five-player NFL draft, would further separate the program from its checkered history and further prove what’s happening is real.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

NFL Draft

► TV: ESPN, NFL Network

► Thursday: Round 1, 8 p.m.

► Friday: Rounds 2-3, 7 p.m.

► Saturday: Rounds 4-7, noon