Michigan State tight end Jack Velling reflects on foot injury and expresses optimism for 2025 season
Michigan State senior tight end Jack Velling discusses his recovery from a foot injury and why the Spartans will have a potent offense in 2025.
Tight end Jack Velling’s breakout sophomore season in 2023 with Oregon State raised the expectations.
Eight touchdown receptions, tying him for the FBS lead as a tight end with TCU’s Jared Wiley, was a huge reason for optimism for head coach Jonathan Smith, whom Velling played for at OSU and now at Michigan State.
Now with a year in East Lansing under his belt, the senior tight end is optimistic for his second season with the Spartans, and feels a little more like himself after battling a foot injury throughout fall camp.
“I’ve never really had that where I’ve kind of been out of fall camp, and it was tough,” Velling said on Tuesday, ahead of Michigan State’s Saturday night meeting with Boston College. “I just tried to be a good teammate, help out, especially the younger guys.
“Just try to learn from the other guys out there. Take mental reps every day of practice and just try to be a good teammate and help the guys around you.”
In the 23-6, season-opening victory over Western Michigan, Velling caught only one pass for three yards.
There’s no question Smith relishes the opportunity to find ways to get the ball more into the hands of one of his trusted leaders on offense.
“He’s working his way back into it,” Smith said about Velling. “But we do feel like he moved around well. We’d love his part to grow as a factor in the pass game.”
The 6-foot-5, 245-pound Velling established career-highs in both receiving yards (438) and touchdown receptions (eight) during his final season with the Beavers.
A Seattle native, Velling followed Smith and quarterback Aidan Chiles from Corvallis, Oregon a year ago as a key piece to the offense Smith and offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren would be installing at MSU. Velling grabbed a career-high 36 passes last season, but only found the end zone once – in the regular-season finale against Rutgers.
Chiles, Velling and the rest of the Spartans’ offense had its collective ups and downs on the way to going 5-7 in 2024. In Smith’s first season in East Lansing, the unit finished 13th in the Big Ten in total offense (333.4 yards per game) and 11th in the conference in passing (218.1 yards per game).
