Michigan State football has new punter, LJ Scott makes trip to Indiana

Update: Tyler Hunt, a redshirt freshman, punted after the Spartans' opening drive stalled. Bryce Baringer punted in the second quarter.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — There’s a new name on a Michigan State football jersey for Saturday night’s Big Ten opener at Indiana.

There also at least one important player here as well.

Whether Bryce Baringer punts for the 23rd-ranked Spartans against the Hoosiers instead of backup quarterback Rocky Lombardi remains to be seen.

The same holds true for senior running back LJ Scott, who made the trip to Indiana and was warming up after appearing to tweak his right hamstring at Arizona State on Sept. 8, and missing all but two plays of the second half of the Spartans' 16-13 loss to the Sun Devils.

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Also in uniform for MSU are DE Jacub Panasiuk, LB Tyriq Thompson, LG David Beedle and LT Cole Chewins. Panasiuk did not make the Spartans' trip to Arizona State after suffering an arm injury against Utah State, and Thompson was left at home after being arrested for a misdemeanor noise violation. Chewins played one play at ASU before tweaking a preexisting injury. Beedle suffered a leg injury late in the game. 

MSU coach Mark Dantonio did not mention Baringer's name on his pregame radio show, but he was punting alongside Lombardi during warmups with his last name on his jersey. Baringer is wearing No. 99 during the game.

Baringer's name was not on the online roster or game notes throughout the week, but a school spokesman confirmed his addition about an hour before kickoff. The Waterford native and Pontiac Notre Dame Prep graduate was a preferred walk-on at Illinois last year after previously committing to Southern Illinois. Illinois Insider said Baringer was granted his release by the Salukis less than a month later.

He was listed at 6-foot-3, 195 pounds on Illinois’ roster last year, and took a redshirt before leaving the program in December 2017.

Baringer took a visit to MSU in 2016, according to his Twitter post from Nov. 12 that year, and he is listed in MSU’s student directory as a kinesiology student.

MSU spokesman Ben Phlegar said Baringer enrolled at MSU in the spring and attended the team's walk-on meeting then. He joined the Spartans last week after being cleared by compliance. Because Baringer never accepted any recruiting money or took any official visits, he was cleared to play immediately by the NCAA, Phlegar said.

According to the Southern Illinois Daily Egyptian newspaper, Baringer was on the Kornblue Kicking Fab 50 Top Punters list as the No. 8 punter in 2017, and Illinois Insider said he was ranked the No. 21 punter in the Class of 2017 by Kohl's Kicking. Baringer's Illinois bio says he did not begin kicking for his high school until his junior season.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. 

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