Michigan State Football: 3 takeaways from win over No. 8 Northwestern

Michigan State football raced out to a big lead but Northwestern clawed back into the game and made things interesting late. What’d we learn?

Who could have seen this coming? Two weeks after getting shut out by Indiana in East Lansing, the Spartans took Northwestern down to the wire with the Wildcats’ playoff hopes hanging in the balance.

Michigan State needed a late push to come back from a 20-17 deficit to take a 23-20 lead on a knuckleball field goal by Matt Coghlin.

The game ended on a failed lateral attempt by Northwestern in the final seconds which resulted in a touchdown by Kalon Gervin to make it look like a bigger win than it really was.

What’d we learn from this thriller in East Lansing?

3. Ross Els may soon be out of a job

Michigan State’s special teams are bad. Like really bad. Like worse than at any point in the Mark Dantonio era bad.

We saw plenty of gaffes on Saturday evening which were easily-avoidable mistakes by the Spartans. Things like a missed field goal from straight away near the end of the first half (we can blame Mel Tucker for not being more aggressive there) or a fair-catch inside their own 10-yard line or even failing to let a kickoff go out of bounds in the fourth quarter.

Or having your punter kick it 15-20 yards to lose the field position battle or your backup punter drill it into the end zone with no touch from 40-50 yards out.

Ross Els is the special teams coordinator and linebackers coach for Michigan State and after the latest poor performance from the unit.

These things are unacceptable five games into the year.