Mississippi State football: Marquiss Spencer is out for the year

The Mississippi State football team is losing some depth up front this season

Marquiss Spencer is officially done for the season. The Mississippi State football team will have to play the remaining eight games without the junior defensive end as he will miss the rest of the 2018 season due to injury issues.

That leaves the Bulldogs without another body on the defensive line. Spencer hasn’t been overly productive so far this season, but he’s been active for and had playing time in each game so far this year.

In Joe Moorhead’s press conference on Monday, the head coach of the Bulldogs mentioned that the 6-4 and 285 pound defensive lineman was done for the season so that he could have surgery to take care of what is apparently something of a persistent issue.

Up to this point in 2018, Marquiss Spencer has 3 total tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss according to Sports-Reference.com. A season ago, Spencer had 19 total tackles and 4.5 tackles for loss for the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Losing him takes away a solid amount of depth that the Bulldogs have on an incredibly talented defensive line. However, the Mississippi State football team should still be able to field a formidable defensive front throughout the 2018 season.

Spencer is a true junior for the Bulldogs, meaning that he hasn’t used up his redshirt year just yet. Given that he has only played through four games of the 2018 Mississippi State football season, it’s certainly possible that MSU will redshirt him to preserve a year of eligibility as well as letting him heal up.

The Bulldogs may not need Marquiss Spencer for much of this year, but MSU will certainly want him back at full strength for the 2019 season. MSU is loaded up front this year and it’s hard enough to get all of the talented defensive lineman on the field as it currently is.

However, there’s several seniors up front. Montez Sweat, Gerri Green, Braxton Hoyett, Cory Thomas, Grant Harris and Tre Brown are all seniors on MSU’s depth chart on the defensive line. Plus, you have to figure that Jeffery Simmons is probably going to go pro after this season. That means that MSU will need some returning depth and experience in 2019.

That’s where Marquiss Spencer comes in.

Hopefully Spencer will be able to heal up quickly and won’t be in much pain as he recovers from surgery. Good luck to you, Marquiss Spencer. We’re all looking forward to your return to the football field.