Recapping Michigan State Athletics’ fantastic four-day stretch

MSU football

Michigan State raced out to a 17-point lead against Northwestern and held the Wildcats off by a final score of 29-20. The offensive line was much better (no sacks surrendered) and Connor Heyward played one of his best games in a Spartan uniform as he finished only a few yards shy of 100 rushing yards.

Certainly, it would have been ideal to see the Spartans blow the game open but half of their approach was strategy (eating-up the clock with 47 carries for nearly 200 rushing yards) and the other half was out of necessity, running the ball so frequently, realizing their limitations throwing the football (quarterback Rocky Lombardi only completed 11 passes all game and was intercepted once). Granted, Lombardi complete two key passes for scores (a 75-yard strike to Jalen Nailor and a 15-yard toss to Jayden Reed).

Let’s not lose sight of the fortitude and execution of the defense as they didn’t allow a single touchdown pass. They also limited Northwestern’s ground game to 37 carries for 63 total yards, which equates to a paltry 1.7 yards per rush attempt.

The linebackers played lights-out. To no one’s surprise Antjuan Simmons continued his stellar play as he makes a strong push for first-team all-conference honors (13 tackles). Fellow linebackers Noah Harvey and Chase Kline each finished with eight tackles a piece as they made life miserable for every Wildcat ball-carrier. They helped force four turnovers as they forced and recovered two fumbles and picked-off a couple of passes.

Cornerback Shakur Brown intercepted both throws which brings his season total to five (that number leads the nation). He has quickly become one of the top defensive backs in all of college football. Don’t be shocked if he were to leave school early to enter the 2021 NFL Draft.

On a windy day, some credit has to go to Matt Coghlin who drilled a pair of critical field goals from longer than 40 yards. His accuracy started to dip at the beginning of his junior year but he responded in a major way to help MSU secure a win against Northwestern.

The coaches deserve some credit for preventing collapses after Week 1 and Week 4. An unexpected loss to Rutgers could have derailed the entire campaign but Tucker’s staff made sure the players rebounded in time to conquer Michigan.

After suffering demoralizing losses on consecutive weeks to Iowa and Indiana, the coaches motivated the players shake out of their funk in time to bounce back against Northwestern to obtain a huge win.