PHOTO: East Carolina quarterback Katin Houser survived Michigan State’s tumultuous 2023 season and found his new home leading the Pirates.

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By TOM SHANAHAN

GREENVILLE — East Carolina’s Katin Houser knows football rivalries can blow up in a moment. He’s seen it happen twice. And that’s two times too many, he says.

The Pirates’ redshirt junior quarterback doesn’t want a repeat of the ECU-NC State brawl that broke out at the end of last year’s Go Bowling Military Bowl in Annapolis, Maryland. But a scheduling oddity created a tinderbox for the 2025 opener.

East Carolina travels 83 miles north to face NC State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Carter-Finley Stadium. The game is on the ACC Network.

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My guest appearance on The Drive with Jack discussing Katin Houser and more.

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“We played a bowl game against a rival and now we’re playing NC State again to start the season,” Houser said. “It should be fun.”

By fun, he meant the true nature of an in-state football rivalry.

His experience dates to his high school days in Southern California. He played for Bellflower St. John Boscoe, a strong program yet nevertheless in the shadow of Santa Ana Mater Dei. The latter is to high school football in California what Notre Dame is to college football nationally — you love ’em or hate ’em.

“It doesn’t get better than rivalries in football,” Houser said. “I was in a big rivalry in California. That was my start. Then came my first Michigan State-Michigan game. That is a huge rivalry.”

But In 2022, the Michigan State-Michigan rivalry turned ugly. A post-game fight in the tunnel broke out when two Michigan players ran among a group of Spartans and taunted them in their defeat.

“That tunnel fight was crazy,” Houser said. “The tension was intense in there.”

In video of the fight that made the Internet, Houser, wearing No. 12, can be seen among the smart Spartans stepping back from the simpletons who were goaded into fighting. Didn’t they know the sucker who retaliates is the one who gets caught?

The smart guys were spared the net cast by Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who didn’t see the fight yet called for criminal charges in the post-game press conference. The Washtenaw County prosecutor, a Michigan graduate, accommodated, charging seven Spartans.

Houser was equally prudent at the 2024 ECU-NC State bowl game after a brawl erupted with 38 seconds left in the Pirates’ 26-21 win.

“These games are what you live for in college football,” Houser said. “Yeah, I’m fired up.”

But, of course, he meant minus the fights, this time.

THE FACE OF THE PIRATES

Houser’s journey to ECU has been a circuitous one, but it was clear from a recent media session he’s landed with the right fit as the face of the program. Heads turned as he crossed the threshold of a glass doorway leading to a booster suite high above Dowdy-Ficklin Stadium’s playing surface.

“Katin has taken ownership and not just as a quarterback,” said ECU head coach Blake Harrell. “He’s the leader of our team. With transfers now, there are different ways to navigate a career. He came from Michigan State, and he got his feet wet the first year. Now we’re looking forward to big things from him not only on the field but off it.”

So, how did he go from California kid to promising Midwest recruit to being forced into re-starting his career in the South?

“I have no bad things to say about Michigan State at all,” Houser said. “I really loved East Lansing. I had good friends there. It’s a great community. I enjoyed playing there, the coaches were great. But things didn’t work out. I had to go somewhere else.”

Funny, just three short years ago, Houser’s commitment to the Spartans as a 4-star recruit signaled fresh recruiting muscle under former coach Mel Tucker. Houser sat and learned in 2022 behind an established starter, Payton Thorne. Sam Leavitt, a 4-star quarterback from West Linn, Oregon, followed Houser in the 2023 class.

But two games into the 2023 season, off-field events overnight blew up on everyone.

Tucker was fired for sexual harassment reported by USA Today on September 10, 2023. The story surfaced less than 24 hours after Michigan State opened the season 2-0. The Spartans floundered, winning only two of the final 10 games under interim coach Harlon Barnett for a final 4-8 overall.

Houser and Leavitt were thrown into untenable circumstances when starter Noah Kim was injured five games into the doomed season. They learned on the run behind a weak offensive line while searching for open receivers struggling to gain separation.

PHOTO: Katin Houser ran for one touchdown and threw for two others in a 2023 game at Rutgers, but the Spartans’ fourth-quarter collapses on special teams and defense allowed Rutgers to win 27-24.

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When the season mercifully ended with a 42-0 loss to Penn State, the fallout for Houser and Leavitt continued.

Michigan State named Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith as the Spartans’ new coach three days after the season. Word quickly spread Oregon State freshman quarterback Aiden Chiles, a 4-star prospect Smith recruited out of Southern California’s Downey High, was following his coach to East Lansing.

“I had a conversation with coach Smith,” said Houser, noting he also was recruited by Smith out of high school. “Coach Smith was honest with me. He said, ‘Look, we’re probably going to bring in Aiden Chiles; we really like him.’ I felt they had their guy locked in, and I had to find a new opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Leavitt was still stinging from Smith recruiting Chiles over him in the same 2023 class, even though he was an Oregon kid down the road from the Corvallis campus. Leavitt departed, too, landing at Arizona State.

Soon enough, Chiles, Houser and Leavitt were ships passing in the night.

Under former NCAA rules, Chiles, Houser and Leavitt transferring required sitting out a year of ineligibility, but the new rules permit immediate playing time. And it turned out each one booked passage that expedited their career to QB1 status at a new school.

Chiles opens his second season with ESPN/College Football Hall of Fame coach Nick Saban labeling him a Heisman Trophy dark horse.

Houser revived his career and led a win in his first bowl game.

Leavitt guided Arizona State to a Big 12 title, and the Sun Devils earned a first-round bye in the College Football Playoffs. Fourth-seeded ASU finished 11-3 after falling to Texas in the quarterfinals.

Now comes their second season as starters with established identities.

STARTING OVER

Houser’s career came together in the second half of last season despite bumps in the road. Not long after he committed to the Pirates, Jake Garcia arrived from previous stops at Missouri (2023) and Miami (2022 and 2021).

Garcia won the starting job to open the season, but he struggled. After ECU lost to Charlotte 55-24 to drop to 3-3, former head coach Mike Houston promoted Houser to start the next game at Army West Point.

Houston was fired after Army beat ECU 45-28, but Houser completed 24 of 38 passes for 282 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

Harrell, the Pirates’ defensive coordinator who was named the interim head coach, stayed with Houser the next week. He threw for 269 yards and five touchdowns in a 53-34 win over Temple. Of the TD tosses, one was 52 yards and two others 42 and 45.

The Temple victory launched a four-game winning streak with three more wins over Florida Atlantic (343 yards, four TDs), Tulsa (314 yards, one TD) and North Texas (298 with a 50-yard TD). The streak ended with a regular-season finale loss to Navy, but the Pirates rebounded to beat NC State in the bowl game behind 220 yards rushing from senior Rahjai Harris.

Houser saved the season – not to mention Harrell’s employment. The interim tag was removed three days after the regular-season finale.

Meanwhile, Garcia reentered the transfer poral and oddly enough ended up with Michigan. Transfer portal critics point to Garcia’s four schools in five years as an example of what’s wrong with the new era. But proponents cite Houser as an example of what’s right.

In today’s climate, Houser’s success could have led to him cashing in by transferring back to a Power 4 school. The Group of 5 and Football Championship Subdivision schools have become a minor league for Power 4 schools in need of filling a position.

Case in point: Duke signed Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah to a deal that pays him $8 million over two years.

Another case in point: North Carolina coach Bill Belichick brought in Gio Lopez from South Alabama. Lopez is reported to be earning $4 million similar to Mensah.  Belichick coached NFL quarterbacks in his career who didn’t make $4 million in a season.

But Houser remained at ECU rather put himself up for bidding.

“I’m not that type of guy to jump ship,” Houser said. “The Michigan State situation didn’t work out, but it has worked out here. I didn’t see a need to make a change.

“More money wasn’t what I was looking for. I just wanted a place to feel like its home and to have a good coaching staff and players around me. I can enjoy being here. That’s the biggest thing. I enjoy it here and there was no reason to leave. We’re building something here.”

THE NEXT STEP

Houser was named to the Manning Award Watch List, but he’s far from satisfied with his play. He finished last year playing in nine total games with seven starts, completing 149 of 245 passes (60.8 percent) for 2006 yards with 18 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

Improvement can equal a 3,000-yard season. Maybe 4,000.

“I need to be more consistent,” he said. “I had some good games and bad games. I had lot of interceptions I need to clean up. I forced some balls by trying to do too much.”

ECU offensive coordinator John David Baker compared the transfer portal to speed dating. The coaches need to learn as much as they can as quickly as possible. Sometime the coaches must weigh conflicting reports.

“Everything I heard about him is what I wanted to hear,” Baker said. “He’s tough and an ultimate competitor. He has leadership qualities.

“He got knocked around a little in the seven games he started at Michigan State, but he continued to battle and compete. That’s what I wanted to hear the most. When you get around Katin, he has an edge to him. He has that look in his eye you want in a QB.”

Baker, who was the co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach at Mississippi from 2021 to 2023, adds he sees NFL potential in Houser, who has two years eligibility remaining.

Two past NFL draft picks Baker coached were Jaxon Dart (2022 and 2023) and Matt Corral (2021). Dart was the second pick of the 2025 NFL draft by the New York Giants. He also coached Matt Corrall in 2021, a third-round pick by the Carolina Panthers in 2022.

The Ole Miss QBs included Luke Altmeyer, who transferred to Illinois and is a third-year starter in 2025, and Spencer Sanders, who signed as a free agent in 2024 with the Kansas City Chiefs.

“I’ve been around NFL draft picks, and he’s as talented as any of them,” Baker said. “He has to continue to progress, but he has the tools you want.”

The winding roads that Chiles, Houser and Leavitt navigated are now straightaways with the 2025 season upon us. Imagine the three Michigan State-pedigreed quarterbacks as ships passing in the night of 2024 eventually crossing paths to an NFL port of call in the future.

“Yeah, that is crazy,” Houser said. “Sam and I were close friends and seeing his success was really cool. We were in same quarterback room going through the same things as young guys. The Michigan State quarterback room in general is really cool.”

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Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s,” and a children’s book, “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.” Shanahan’s 2022 story on the 1962 Rose Bowl, Alabama and segregation was awarded first place for Enterprise from the Football Writers Association of America.

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I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.

Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation awarded first place by the Football Writers Association of America. I tell untold stories on Michigan State’s leading role and the true pioneers of college football integration. Click here to read the summary as a first-place story.

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Click here to purchase The Right Thing To Do

THE RIGHT THING TO DO

The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s

Foreword by Ruffin McNeill

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Click here to purchase Raye of Light.

RAYE OF LIGHT

Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the 1ntegration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans

Foreword by Tony Dungy

DUFFY CHILDREN’S BOOK purchase links: Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.