Nearly two weeks into fall camp, the Michigan State University football team is beginning to look less like a newly assembled roster and more like a unified team.

MSU head coach Pat Fitzgerald has made building a cohesive football team a priority since taking over, emphasizing the importance of players buying into a shared vision and developing trusting relationships with one another. 

“The whole team is completely different than it was in spring ball,” Fitzgerald said at Monday’s media availability. “It’s a much more, I think, cohesive group. I think they’ve bonded together, and we’re starting to create a brotherhood.”

This brotherhood didn’t form overnight. It has been built gradually through the winter and spring and continued to grow throughout the summer. 

Fitzgerald said the team started to develop its chemistry during winter workouts, when players began to get to know each other. Those relationships continued to flourish throughout spring ball, and now the Spartans hope that chemistry translates onto the field.

“I really think that started in earnest somewhere in the middle of winter workouts when the guys are really kind of like, ‘OK, I know who you are, I think,’” Fitzgerald said. “And then spring ball, it was like, ‘Yeah, we know who each other are.’ And then that carried over into the summer.”

Perhaps the most memorable part of this relationship-building process came during the seven nights the Spartans spent in Case Hall. 

The Green and White took over the dorm directly across the street from MSU’s football facilities — a tradition emphasized by former coach Mark Dantonio. 

And according to the players, they embraced it.