Michigan State Football: Defense to thank for Penn State upset

Michigan State football marched into Happy Valley and stole a win from Penn State, thanks to a strong game from the Spartan defense.

Facing an offense that averages about 40 points per game and can drop 500-plus yards with ease, Michigan State knew it would have its hands full.

The Spartans were facing a Heisman hopeful in Trace McSorley and one of the conference’s best running backs in Miles Sanders, but the defense had arguably its best game of the season outside of two big runs allowed to the latter.

If not for two chunk plays by Sanders, we could be talking about an absolute domination. Sanders, though, is a freak and there’s a reason Mark Dantonio wanted desperately to flip him from Penn State to Michigan State during the recruiting process.

Outside of Sanders and the poor tackling and big holes on his two runs, the Spartan defense looked stout.

The Nittany Lions were averaging the second-most passing yards per attempt coming into this one, but McSorley couldn’t find any open receivers down the field. He averaged just 6.0 yards per attempt and was held to just 37 yards rushing on 13 carries. He couldn’t make the Spartans pay with big runs or with his home-run threats at receiver.

Not only did the secondary step up, the front-seven made him uncomfortable in the pocket.

Blitz plays as well as dominance from Mike Panasiuk, Raequan Williams and Kenny Willekes wreaked havoc on the Nittany Lions.

Was this finally the coming out party for the Spartan defense? It sure felt that way as Michigan State came up big, drive after dive.