Jordan Hall | Aidan Champion, Michigan State Spartans On SI

The Michigan State Spartans are hoping to improve the defensive side of the football in the 2025 season.

Preparations are underway for Jonathan Smith’s second season in East Lansing. The team showed promise at times, but a poor conclusion to the season doomed the Spartans and cost them a spot in a bowl game.

The defense did not play particularly well down the stretch, allowing an average of 35.8 points per game in the season's final four games. If the team wants to turn things around in 2025, that will not get it done.

This Spartan defense will look far different in 2025 after multiple departures and new additions. Will defensive coordinator Joe Rossi put the pieces together and form an elite unit, as he has at past stops?

Michigan State's Jordan Hall looks on form the sideline against Rutgers' during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. | Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

One player the team will lean on is linebacker Jordan Hall. The junior had an impressive freshman campaign in a lost 2023 season but regressed significantly in 2024.

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Oftentimes, new coaching staffs will have a blank slate when approaching how to construct a depth chart. Smith, Rossi, and the rest of the staff decided Jordan Turner and Cal Haladay were more suited to play significant snaps than Hall.

According to Pro Football Focus, Hall saw his snaps fall from 514 in 2023 to 251 in 2024. Now, with Turner and Haladay gone, Hall will take back the starting middle linebacker job.

Hall is a smart, instinctual linebacker with a tremendous ability to diagnose the run. He is athletic enough to hold his own in coverage, and he could be in for a big year in 2025.

MSU believes in Hall, as they sent him to Las Vegas as one of the team’s representatives for Big Ten Football Media Days, alongside offensive lineman Stanton Ramil and wide receiver Nick Marsh.

Jul 24, 2025; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Michigan State linebacker Jordan Hall speaks to the media during the Big Ten NCAA college football media days at Mandalay Bay Resort. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images | Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

Why did Hall play so much less last season, and why should the team now expect him to be a leader on defense? Was his sophomore season a test run? Was the staff just more comfortable with more experienced linebackers?

Whatever the reason, 2024 is in the past, and Hall is now a defensive cornerstone. MSU will rely on him to lead the way for the rest of the defense as he is now an upperclassman.

We’ll see what Hall is capable of.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/michiganstate as Can MSU Rely on Jordan Hall to Bounce Back?.