Jordan Hall is seeing all his hard work at Michigan State pay off

Jordan Hall was about 10 yards away from Turbo Richard, the Boston College running back who had just broken a tackle at the 13-yard line and was heading full-steam to the endzone. Hall was taking the only angle he could if he wanted to have a chance at making a play on the ball before Richard stretched the ball across the goal line.

His co-captain, Quindarius Dunnigan, was doing essentially the same thing and got to the ball carrier a fraction earlier than Hall did. This allowed Hall to reach in with his left arm and strip the ball away. Michigan State DB Armorion Smith quickly pounced on the fumble for a touchback and the early Boston College momentum was quickly snuffed out by the Spartan defense.

“(Richard) kind of got out on us a little bit, so I just decided – let me try my best to get this ball on the ground as I’m going in to make the tackle,” Hall recalled after the game. “Ball carriers – (when) they get close to the end zone they like to reach the ball. So, I just went in and punched it. And then, you know, it bounced in our favor.”

The ball popped free, the Spartans recovered, and the tone of the game shifted. That single Hall strip wasn’t just a turnover – it seemed like a declaration of sorts. Hall had seen enough of being on the wrong side of games like this.

It was just one play, yes, but it carried the weight of months – actually, years – of work, patience, and preparation.

This Spartan success has been a long time coming.

In fact, 18 months ago, there were times when Hall would walk through the football facility and not recognize the guy passing him in the football building.

“Last year we had 61 new guys – those early spring days, early winter days, you might walk through the hallway and might see a guy you’ve never seen before,” Hall told Spartans Illustrated in July as the team was preparing for fall camp. “And that’s when you go introduce yourself. But it takes some time to kind of grow that trust and relationship with one another.”

That was Michigan State football in transition.

The faces were new, the energy was unsettled, and the program felt like it was still being pieced together week to week. Players were learning names, learning schemes, and slowly learning how to trust one another as the Jonathan Smith era began to take shape.

Photo credit: Marvin Hall/Spartans Illustrated

Hall was a sophomore linebacker, fighting for snaps, and still trying to find his place in the shuffle. His rise in the program wasn’t inevitable. After Joe Rossi, MSU’s defensive coordinator, told Hall that he’d have a backup role as a sophomore, he thought about leaving. In today’s era of NIL and the transfer portal, that would have been the easy path.

Instead, he leaned on the man who taught him the game, his uncle.

“My uncle was my first ever football coach when I was six years old up until I was 12,” Hall said prior to fall camp. “He’s always been a shoulder for me to go to. I know I can name a thousand people who have done the opposite of what I did and jetted out there right away because they didn’t get the response that they were looking for.”

His conversations with his uncle helped him clarify what he was going to do.

“After talking to (my uncle) and him pouring into me, we knew that (leaving) wasn’t the best option in this case,” he said. “Sometimes you got to stick things out a little bit and it might sting a little, but what’s most beneficial for you and your growth and your development. And that was here under Coach Rossi and Coach Smith’s coaching.”