Michigan State football did the unthinkable on Saturday afternoon, losing to Rutgers in the season opener. Time for some hot takes.
Hot takes have been flying after Michigan State’s first-ever loss to Rutgers since the Scarlet Knights became members of the Big Ten.
The Scarlet Knights took advantage of seven Michigan State turnovers, turning them into a couple of touchdowns and stealing a 38-27 win in East Lansing. This was the first taste Mel Tucker had of the Big Ten and you can bet he didn’t expect to be 0-1 heading into Michigan week after that matchup.
Here are three of my biggest hot takes after Michigan State’s season-opening loss.
3. Jay Johnson looks like Dave Warner 2.0
OK, I know we’ve only witnessed just under 30 minutes of Jay Johnson’s offense (based on time of possession), but the Spartans didn’t do a ton to impress on the offensive side of the ball.
I will give it to the new offensive coordinator: he has done a solid job with Rocky Lombardi, making him a serviceable quarterback for the Spartans. The junior quarterback had over 300 yards and three touchdowns through the air and made just a couple of severe mistakes while missing a couple of wide open guys for potential big gains.
Outside of Lombardi looking decent, he still made some serious gaffes as a play-caller, giving the ball to Connor Heyward just a little too much in the run game when he should be used primarily as a pass-catcher out of the backfield. And running up the middle on every first down and third-and-short play.
And what the heck were those fourth-down play-calls? Terrible.
Hopefully this hot take is proven wrong, but Johnson doesn’t look much better than Dave Warner after one game.