Michigan State Football: 5 takeaways from 2019 spring game

Michigan State football held its annual Green-White Game on Saturday afternoon, ending in a 42-26 win for the defense. What did we learn?

The general expectation heading into Saturday’s spring game was that the defense would win. That happened, but not without a fight from a clearly-improved offense led by Brian Lewerke.

Actually, the offense had some big plays, including a 50-yard catch and run by Connor Heyward in the fourth quarter to cap off an impressive day. The defense did win 42-26 — the scoring format is interesting with the defense recording three points every five minutes and three per turnover as well — but the offense reached the end zone three times.

There’s still a long way to go, but we did get a good feel about the 2019 Spartans from the Green-White Game.

What’d we learn from the Spartans’ 2019 spring game?

5. Tight ends need to be utilized more

One thing I was looking forward to seeing in this spring game was how the new offense would utilize its tight ends. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much noise from that position group on Saturday.

Theo Day missed a wide open Noah Davis in the end zone in the third quarter which should have been an easy six, but that’s not on the tight end. Other than that, there were just glimpses of Trenton Gillison, Matt Dotson and even Matt Seybert on the field, but no other plays involving them.

If the Spartans want to take pressure off Brian Lewerke in 2019, they need to make sure the tight ends are involved more. That didn’t seem to be the case on Saturday, but the offense still managed to move the ball.