Michigan State Football: 5 takeaways from win over Penn State

Nov 14, 2015; East Lansing, MI, USA; Michigan State Spartans cornerback Darian Hicks (2) gestures to the sidelines during the 1st quarter of a game against the Maryland Terrapins at Spartan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports

4. Secondary not completely “back”

Watching the Michigan State secondary over the past couple of weeks has been a pleasant surprise as they’ve shut down Maryland and even held the Ohio State Buckeyes to a mere 44 yards through the air from J.T. Barrett, but Saturday against the Nittany Lions was disappointing.

All year long, we have been waiting to see this group of defensive backs come together and shut down opponents like they did two seasons ago when Darqueze Dennard, Trae Waynes, Kurtis Drummond and Isaiah Lewis were haunting quarterbacks, but after two straight games of under 200 yards passing, Michigan State allowed Christian Hackenberg to air it out for 257 yards and two scores.

Although Hackenberg did throw two interceptions — one to Arjen Colquhoun and another to Malik McDowell — he did basically whatever he wanted to do against the secondary, tossing the ball to receivers on screens and they did the rest of the work, picking up chunk yardage.

Michigan State needs to do a much better job of guarding the short passes as opposing quarterbacks have scouted that and are picking up the fact that the Spartans play lax coverage and that allows receivers to take a step back and catch the ball with about 10 yards of wide open field ahead of them.

This needs to be fixed in practice leading up to the Big Ten title game.

Next: 3. Aaron Burbridge is best in the Big Ten