Michigan State Football: What went wrong in loss to Arizona State?

Michigan State football lost a tough one on the road to Arizona State on Saturday night. What went wrong for the Spartans against the Sun Devils?

This is one of those games that fans want to forget. Michigan State traveled to the desert and was unable to end the Big Ten’s Tempe curse, losing 16-13 at the hands of Arizona State.

Must Read: MSU football: 5 takeaways from heartbreaking loss to Arizona State

It wasn’t all bad for the Spartans, though. Brian Lewerke played a decent game, outside of one interception in the end zone early on, the receivers were solid and Justin Layne and Josh Butler locked down the Arizona State receivers on deep routes, for the most part.

That begs the question, what went wrong for Michigan State in the loss?

Well, here’s a quick list followed by explanations:

• Offensive line was bad — This is an understatement because the offensive line couldn’t stop anyone from penetrating on Saturday night. The Sun Devils were able to get into the backfield, slow the run game and make Lewerke run for his life.
• Safeties were lost — Khari Willis, Matt Morrissey and David Dowell did not play their best games. They couldn’t locate the ball much and it cost the team a couple of sure interceptions into coverage. Manny Wilkins picked the Spartans apart thanks to the safeties.
• Coaching mistakes — Clock mismanagement, play-calling and a fourth-quarter meltdown attributed to this loss.
• No tight end involvement — Remember when Michigan State was going to use Matt Sokol and Matt Dotson regularly? Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet this season as Dotson, Sokol and Lewerke are clearly not on the same page with each other.
• Penalties — Arizona State finished with only four penalties while Michigan State had nine for 82 yards. That’s a momentum-killing stat right there.
• No pass rush — The defensive tackles got a good push up front, but the ends were nowhere to be found and often over-pursued, leaving gaping holes for Manny Wilkins to run through. The push was non-existent as the only sack came from cornerback Tre Person.
• Missed tackles — After a long offseason and in the second game of the year, you’d think a defense that returned nine starters would be better at corralling ball-carriers. Too many missed tackles led to easy first downs for the Sun Devils.

I’m sure there were plenty more mistakes, but this was the gist of it. One play that could have also changed the game was a forced fumble by Person on the lone sack where he jarred the ball out of Wilkins’ hand for a fumble, but instead of falling on it deep in Arizona State territory, Raequan Williams tried to scoop and score. Arizona State ended up recovering.

This game was winnable, for sure, but the Spartans found ways to lose, and that’s the most disappointing aspect of this defeat.