Kirk Herbstreit Names "Biggest Surprise" Team In CFB This Season

The 2021 college football season hasn't played out the way most people expected - ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit included. But of all the surprise teams of 2021, one really stands out to him.

In his preview of Saturday's Michigan-Michigan State game for ESPN, Herbstreit called the Michigan State Spartans "the biggest surprise in the country" - not just in their conference. He credited the team with undergoing a complete turnaround from last year - head coach Mel Tucker's first with the team.

"I think Michigan State has been the biggest surprise in the country, not just in the Big Ten. To think about where they were in Mel Tucker’s first year. Keep in mind, like a lot of other first-year coaches in 2020 – it’s a global pandemic, heavy restrictions, no spring football, cancel the season, oh no, now we’re going to have a season, and it’s just unprecedented what he went through his first year. They looked like, obviously, a severe work in progress," Herbstreit said.

Herbstreit credited part of Michigan State's success with their transfer portal moves. The most notable one, to him, was getting running back Kenneth Walker III to join the Spartans from Wake Forest.

"I don’t know if anybody took advantage of the transfer portal as much as Mel Tucker did. And you look on their roster now, most notably Kenneth Walker from Wake Forest and it’s sprinkled all throughout their roster. They’ve upgraded and taken advantage of the 2021 way of doing business, and now they’ve got a confident football team."

Walker has 997 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in just seven games.

The end result has been a 7-0 start with a 4-0 in-conference record and a No. 8 overall ranking.

Michigan State will be putting that record on the line this weekend against their in-state rivals, the Michigan Wolverines.

Are the Spartans the biggest surprise in college football this year?