Michigan State Football: 5 biggest questions facing defense in 2019

2. Can the defense force more turnovers?

If you only looked at certain numbers from last season, you’d be led to believe that both the secondary struggled and the defense was average based on turnover margin being just plus-1.

Well, the run defense was No. 1 in college football and the total defense was ranked 10th nationally, so the lack of turnovers forced and No. 62 passing defense in the country didn’t hurt the Spartans. The passing defense numbers were actually a little misleading, especially since most of the big passing performances came against the Spartans in the first month of the year and they buckled down shortly after.

However, the turnover margin was concerning.

Mark Dantonio touched on that concern at Michigan State media day on Monday, stating that if there’s one thing he wants the defense to improve on, it’s turnover margin. You can’t blame him for saying that because the defense was almost perfect outside of forcing more turnovers.

Joe Bachie, Kenny Willekes and Raequan Williams also touched on that during Big Ten Media Days, so it’s clearly a point of emphasis within the team.