Couch: Amid MSU's struggles, R.J. Shelton turning in a stellar season
EAST LANSING – R.J. Shelton is likely Michigan State’s most underappreciated football player.
He’s tied to too much that MSU fans don’t like: The overused jet sweep play call, which rarely produces a big gain; an unproductive return game, in which he’s often the returner; and now, he’s a leading man in a losing season unlike any the Spartans have experienced in two decades.
Heck, he’s the only backup quarterback Spartan fans aren’t clamoring to see. If Tyler O’Connor, Brian Lewerke and Damion Terry were all injured late this season, Shelton would be MSU’s fourth-string QB.
“If it got down to that point, I’d have to,” he said this week, after throwing three passes on gadget plays against Northwestern.
If Shelton doesn’t have your love, the MSU senior receiver should at least have your respect — should have for a while now. If not for his clutch catch at Rutgers and toe-tapping sideline grab at Michigan last year, MSU doesn’t win the Big Ten title or go to the College Football Playoff.
He’s also a big reason MSU is 2-4 this season … instead of 1-5. His eight catches for 80 yards and touchdown at Notre Dame were paramount to that win, even if overshadowed by Donnie Corley’s more spectacular TD catch and a briefly punishing ground game.
Shelton has become a bona fide go-to target and big-play weapon on a team that doesn’t have much it can rely upon. He’s an example of professionalism and perseverance, and a mature voice to a young group of wideouts that don’t yet always take their work as seriously as they one day will.
If folks are calling for MSU to turn to a full-fledged youth moment, Shelton is an example of why that’s a oversimplified and shortsighted point of view. MSU’s best chance to both salvage this season and enter next season with a group of savvy and emerging receivers is to keep feeding their best receiver now. That receiver is unquestionably Shelton, who had touchdown catches of 59 and 86 yards last week against Northwestern.
“That’s what he brings (to the receiver’s room), that serious tone,” MSU receivers coach Terrence Samuel said. “That stuff that I might forget to say, R.J. handles it.
“One of the best things I can say about him is the group continuously gets better even though we have young guys. It’s really a tribute to him.”
If gifted true freshman Corley and Trishton Jackson and others need an example to follow, they’ve got one right in front of them in No. 12.
Shelton didn’t arrive with the billing of Corley. But he’s turned himself into a viable No. 1 option and NFL prospect. “I don’t know if he’ll get drafted, but he will get a look (in the NFL),” Samuel said of the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Shelton. “It’s his willingness to do what the next man won’t do.”
Shelton arrived at MSU as a three-star running back out of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in 2013 and made the transition to wideout on the first day of practice. MSU needed help at the position and Shelton showed receiver instincts and a desire to get on the field quickly.
“We put him against the DBs as a freshman, and you saw the potential because he had the coordination, the timing,” Samuel said. “When you see a wide receiver, it’s just like a good center fielder. A good center fielder can get himself underneath the ball in timing and rhythm and then be ready to move.”
That’s not a natural transition for everyone. Jeremy Langford, for example, didn’t take to it. “J-Lang didn’t want any part of being a wide receiver,” Samuel said.
Shelton has gone from gadget-play specialist — mostly on jet sweeps, which he does not enjoy, by the way — to the guy MSU targets most often on deep routes.
“He is so sick of running that jet sweep. He hopes it works, but he’s like, ‘My grandma knows it’s coming,’” Shelton’s mother, Erin Broome, told me last year.
Much of Shelton’s work these days is beyond the line of scrimmage. He has 28 catches for 452 yards and four touchdowns — including two scores from 86 yards out — through six games, with all of those numbers coming in the last five games. Corley is next with 21 catches for 310 yards.
“The last couple years it was Tony (Lippett) and (Aaron) Burbridge being at the X (receiver) position (outside on the boundary),” Samuel said of being MSU’s most trusted target. “But he’s doing it from the F and doing it from the Z. When you got somebody that’s special in the offense, we can get you the ball.”
Shelton likes being an example. He likes being the go-to guy. “An honor,” he called it. The losing, though, doesn’t sit well.
“He gets so surly during the week, I don’t even talk to him sometimes,” Samuel said of Shelton’s unhappiness with losing.
“We want this program to be in a good position,” Shelton said. “It’s about winning and making sure this place stays where it’s supposed to stay and that’s at the top.”
To that end, Shelton sees his responsibility in not only making plays but showing younger players how much MSU football matters to him, how much winning matters.
“You’ve got to work with them. You forget that they’re 17, 18 years old,” he said.
“The biggest thing to take from R.J.,” Samuel said, “is he’s going to leave it on the field. He’s going to leave it out there. He is drained at the end of a game. Drained. And sometimes it takes a while for him to come back, to get himself back to where he can at least smile a bit. He’s one of those you trust.
“If I ever had a head coaching job, trust me, he’d be coaching my wideouts. That’s probably the best thing I can say.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
