Michigan State Football: Report card for loss to Northwestern in Week 9

Michigan State football couldn’t overcome a porous defensive effort against Northwestern on Saturday. Here’s how the Spartans graded.

This is the first Monday we have had to talk about a Michigan State loss since the end of September when Notre Dame beat the Spartans. Unbeaten in Big Ten play heading into Saturday’s game against Northwestern, Michigan State just couldn’t hold on for a big road win.

The Spartans raced out to a 10-0 lead before Northwestern tied it up before half. The conservative defense, not necessarily play-calling, was the Achilles heel for the Spartans Saturday. Clayton Thorson and Northwestern dinked and dunked the Spartans for 5-10 yards all game long.

After the triple-overtime defeat, which position group graded out the highest?

I’d have to go back and really dive into what went wrong in the run game. It seemed as if the holes were clogged instantly, which is on the offensive line, but the coaching staff needs to realize that running between the tackles 80 percent of the time won’t work. It’s time to go back to what worked against Minnesota (pitches and stretches).

Michigan State couldn’t set up the run game to prepare for some play-action passes that usually work and that would have been a bigger issue if Brian Lewerke didn’t have such a solid game.

The line generated essentially no push early on in the run game and that continued through the third quarter and Michigan State just completely abandoned it in the fourth and overtime. The Spartans should never be stuffed on fourth-and-one with all the talent and potential they have up front.

As for the pass protection, these guys did fairly well. In fact, Lewerke was given plenty of time to get the ball out and was sacked just once in over 57 drop-backs. He was forced to scramble for yards here and there, but just one sack in that many drop-backs is impressive. Maybe these guys are starting to gel.