If you were hoping to be inspired by Michigan State’s performance against Purdue, you’ll have to look for inspiration elsewhere. But, hey, in the waning weeks of a trying MSU football season, there were at least some uplifting moments in a 24-17 win over the Boilermakers. Mostly, in not blowing a 24-3 second-half lead, MSU kept its hopes of a 13th game alive, if you’re up for that sort of thing.
For a half, this had all the makings of a get-right game for the Spartans. Instead, it’ll go down as more evidence that MSU’s team is closer to the bottom of the Big Ten than it is the top right now. Because in the same game, MSU looked both well ahead of Purdue and then very much in the same realm, lucky to escape, lucky that Boilermakers receiver Jahmal Edrine dropped a pass with no one around him in the fourth quarter.
In one respect, this MSU football season has had enough ifs and buts go the other way that it’s unfair to get stuck on how close the Spartans were to losing this game. They won for the first time in a month. They won a fifth game, so there’s something still to play for next week. They came out of the gate like this season still means something to them.
On the other hand, whatever good energy they had earned at halftime, they squandered in the second half, when they were outplayed by the worst team in the Big Ten — outscored 14-0 and out-gained 204-73. MSU, which went 6-for-7 on third downs in the first half, went 0-for-7 in the second.
That’s an unacceptable and immature response to being ahead 24-3 and in control. The offense that looked multi-faceted and creative in the first half completely disappeared when the Spartans badly needed a drive down the stretch. Something to work on for next week, I guess.
There were positive elements of MSU’s performance that should be pointed out. We’ll start with sophomore quarterback Aidan Chiles, who’s now gone two straight games without an interception — even if this time was aided by a pass interference call. And he’s had two partially strong games in other ways, as well. He showed good awareness and movement in the pocket and was accurate on important throws in the first half, at all three levels. At halftime, I thought he was showing real growth.
We also saw MSU run the football pretty well for a while. Kay-ron Lynch-Adams finished with 85 yards on 18 carries, including two carries of 10 yards or more. The ground game was consistent enough in the first half and you can see the impact on the entire offense when that’s there. But in the second half especially, there were too many times runners were met in the backfield. Even Nate Carter’s 2-yard touchdown run in the second quarter should have been stopped, but Carter broke free and got to the corner.
MSU’s defense, which gave up quite a bit in the second half, also had its moments — including three sacks after six straight games without any and pretty consistent pressure on Purdue quarterback Hudson Card. A diving interception by Jordan Turner late in the game might have been the difference. Turner played well throughout. This is a vulnerable defense, especially in the back end. And that’s not going to change this year. But it’s a defense that kept on battling, even as it had to spend most of the second half on the field. In a tough season, that’s not nothing.
Regardless of what happens in Rutgers’ game Saturday against Illinois, the Scarlet Knights will come to Spartan Stadium next week as a team that weathered a midseason losing streak and is already bowl-eligible after wins over Minnesota and Maryland in November. This is a better Rutgers team than is perhaps perceived. And given what we’ve seen from MSU over the past month — Friday night included — it’s hard to argue the Spartans are the stronger team.
In other words, if MSU is to make a bowl game, it’ll be earned, rather than gifted by the schedule. Maybe it’s better that way. Nothing else about this season has come easy. If the Spartans are playing in a bowl game this year, they will have won their way there, with what they did against Rutgers, Iowa and Maryland — games they could have lost, against opponents with quality wins.
I think getting to a bowl game would be meaningful for the Spartans on a couple fronts. One, it would feel like momentum, which is no small thing for a program that hasn’t had much of it in the last three years. That’s important in recruiting and in retaining your roster — the sense that things are headed somewhere good. Maybe that’s felt internally anyway. Players say it is. It’s hard to know. It never hurts to see it tangibly. Beyond the extra practices and staff’s extra contact with its roster while the transfer portal is open — which may or may not be all that important — it would be nice for this program to be seen as a bowl team during bowl season, given that so many of its showcase games this year have gone poorly.
MSU should want this season to be its floor under Jonathan Smith. Having that floor be six wins and a bowl game has a different feel to it than the vibes that come with 5-7, with a Week 12 loss to Rutgers.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
