Michigan State Football: Report card for win over Indiana in Week 8

Michigan State’s secondary was tested plenty on Saturday afternoon. It faced off against one of the conference’s best receivers, and the young cornerbacks held their own. Simmie Cobbs is known for being a sure-handed target and he’s capable of making incredible plays down the field.

However, the Spartans bottled him up and didn’t let him break out for any huge gains. He finished with 53 yards on seven receptions and 29 of those came on a catch early in the game with Indiana deep in their own territory — it looked to be a push off by Cobbs, but the referees didn’t see enough to call it. He was held to just 24 yards on the other six catches combined.

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Luke Timian also had seven catches, but just for 33 yards as the secondary allowed Peyton Ramsey to completed 22-of-34 passes, which doesn’t seem good, but most of them were inside 10 yards, or so. In fact, he averaged a measly 4.6 yards per attempt.

Justin Layne was the top performer, in terms of tackles, and he fared well against Cobbs, not letting anything behind him. He has proved to be a much-improved tackler in the open field, finishing with 10 and a pass deflection. On the other side, Josiah Scott had two tackles and rebounded nicely from the Minnesota showing.

Khari Willis had seven tackles, Matt Morrissey had three and David Dowell had two. The secondary got beat a couple of times, but luckily Ramsey overthrew his targets. Still, this unit is defending well, especially against screen passes that have burned them in years past.