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Michigan State football top 30 players countdown: No. 9

Michigan State Spartans On SI · Jul 21, 2026 13:00 · 5 min read

Michigan State Football Top 30 Players Countdown: No. 9 — Michigan State's head coach Pat Fitzgerald addresses the team at the end of the football Spring Showcase on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The Spartans are keeping this key offensive lineman for the 2026 season.

Michigan State’s offensive line will be one of the team’s biggest determining factors this fall.

The Spartans will have four new starters this coming season. Conner Moore is set to be the only constant for MSU’s starting five in the trenches. He’s entering his second year with the program after transferring from Montana State and his redshirt senior year. Michigan State is hoping for a resurgence from its offensive line, and Moore is a big part of those hopes. He’s at No. 9 on my ongoing “top 30 players” list for the Spartans this coming fall.

How Moore Got Here

Moore was one of MSU’s more reliable offensive linemen last season. He was actually Michigan State’s only player up front to start all 12 of its games in 2025. His 765 offensive snaps (out of 798 possible opportunities) were also the most on the team.

PFF also graded Moore as the second-best offensive lineman on the team last fall among those with at least 200 snaps. Moore received an overall grade of 68.3. That was only behind center Matt Gulbin, who got drafted this spring in the sixth round by the Washington Commanders.

Michigan State's Matt Gulbin, right, hugs quarterback Aidan Chiles before the football game against Boston College on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Moore came to Michigan State as a pretty high-profile transfer, finishing ranked 133rd overall in his portal class and 21st among offensive tackles, according to 247Sports. He was a Second Team FCS All-American at Montana State in 2024. The Spartans were battling Ohio State and a few other Power Four schools for him, but MSU did enough to land him.

Year 1 for Moore at Michigan State, at least individually, could probably be said to be slightly under expectations. Not much really met expectations, in fairness. What likely didn’t help was MSU making Moore shift often between left and right tackle for the first seven or eight games of the season.

That’s a more difficult shift than perhaps left to right guard, just because there is absolutely nobody on the outside there to help you. The footwork is also reversed, with some subtle differences. Some linemen have described it like writing with your left or right hand. It’s the same task, but it’s tough to do it both ways.

Some of the changes stem from Stanton Ramil being out of the lineup most of the year. Michigan State’s former starting left tackle only got into five games last year and 163 total offensive snaps. Moore was pretty much the coaching staff’s first choice to fill in at left tackle, which takes precedence over right tackle because it's Aidan Chiles’ and Alessio Milivojevic’s blind side.

It’s easy to see why the staff turned to Moore at first. That’s the spot he played at Montana State, getting more than 1,400 snaps of experience. Right tackle was new to him when he came to East Lansing. Switching him back to the left side mid-season was asking a lot, though, and Rustin Young eventually began starting at left tackle, with Moore shifting his focus back to the right side.

Hopes for 2026 With Moore

The hope is certainly that Moore won’t have to move around so much. That isn’t entirely within his control, but the Spartans have another new left tackle. UConn transfer Ben Murawski is one of the highest-rated portal prospects Michigan State landed this offseason. A highly regarded run blocker, Murawski was actually the very first transfer portal player to publicly commit to MSU this winter.

Michigan State's Ben Murawski and the rest of the offensive line participate in a drill during spring football practice on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, in East Lansing. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

If Moore can put all his energy into being the right tackle for the Spartans, rather than being both the right and left tackle, there should be a jump in the quality of his play. Moore has added five points between the end of last season and the spring, going from 306 pounds to 311, and there have also been a few more months to add on some more weight before the fall.

Moore is also not a transfer portal mercenary. He grew up in Millbury, Ohio, and was a slight contrarian for rooting for Michigan State rather than the home-state Buckeyes. Millbury is also pretty close to Toledo and, thereby, the Michigan-Ohio border, so that’s relatively disputed territory, anyway.

Michigan State mascot "Sparty" celebrates during a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game against UCLA at the United Center on Friday, March 13, 2026. | Starr Portice, Michigan State Spartans on SI

How well Moore plays will be huge for the overall outlook for MSU’s offensive line. The tackles are a huge part of everything, and every team wants its best linemen there. As said earlier, they don't get any help on the outside while also dealing with the best pass rushers the other team has to offer. If Moore is off, the quarterback is likely to go down a lot, which means the offense is off, which means the whole team is off.

The fact that Moore should be the only returning starter also means he’ll be looked to for a leadership role. Projected right guard Luka Vincic is a returner from last season, but he only got into two games before suffering a season-ending injury in his first year with the team after transferring in from Oregon State.

South Carolina transfer Nick Sharpe should also take a leadership role. He’s new to Michigan State, but he’s certainly not new to new MSU offensive line coach Nick Tabacca. The two of them overlapped at Wake Forest for four years, with Sharpe eventually becoming a starter for the Demon Deacons.