Shortly after Michigan State’s courtship of Brian Lewerke was complete and the former Pinnacle High School star quarterback committed to the Spartans back in the spring of 2014, MSU agreed to a future home-and-home series with his hometown school who also was in hot pursuit of the talented signal-caller.
This weekend Lewerke will be coming home to play Arizona State (1-0) in a game which holds much greater meaning than just the next one up on the schedule.
“It’s pretty exciting,” he said to Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat Tuesday. “It will be the first time playing a college game in the state of Arizona in front of all my family and all my friends. It’s going to be really fun.”
The skilled, well-liked quarterback’s success in East Lansing didn’t happen overnight. Lewerke redshirted his freshman season, then suffered a season-ending broken leg against rival Michigan the next fall playing his first season for the Spartans. However, after some typical early freshman year away-from-home growing pains, he began to grow as both a person and a player. “I’ve put on somewhere between 20-30 pounds since I got here,” he explained. “So physically I gotten a lot bigger. I’ve just been a completely different quarterback in terms of my knowledge of football. I’ve learned so much here.”
Last year as a sophomore Lewerke burst onto the national scene, taking the reigns as the starter and setting a Michigan State single-season record for total offense (3,352 total yards) while also being named the Holiday Bowl Offensive MVP.
He’s spent time picking the football minds of former MSU standout quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins, Connor Cook and Drew Stanton, who played the past five seasons with the Arizona Cardinals before signing last spring with the Cleveland Browns.
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“I love the decision I made to come to Michigan State,” he said. “I’m pretty comfortable where I am right now.”
Spartan Nation most certainly agrees.
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Eric Sorenson
A Valley native, Eric has had a passion for the Arizona sports scene since an early age. He has covered some of the biggest events including Super Bowls, national championships and the NBA and MLB playoffs in his near 20 years in local media.