Michigan State football must fix egregious turnover problem in 2021

If you tuned into any Michigan State football games last season, one thing stood out from the opening week of the year: turnovers.

The Spartans coughed the ball up more than just about everyone in college football, averaging a turnover about once every five possessions. That’s just not a sustainable number for a team that’s hoping to turn things around and get back on track offensively and it’s why the offense was so horrid against the likes of Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, and Ohio State.

Michigan State lost eight fumbles and threw 12 interceptions last season, totaling 20 lost turnovers on 102 drives which was good for a 19.6 percent turnover rate — ranked second-to-last in the country with that egregious number.

Receivers were catching passes and coughing the ball up after making moves (Jayden Reed against Rutgers), running backs were losing the ball, and quarterbacks were throwing picks left and right (Rocky Lombardi vs. Iowa). That led to the four aforementioned horrific offensive games when the Spartans scored 27 on Rutgers with what seemed like a dozen turnovers, seven on Iowa, 12 on Ohio State, and they were blanked by Indiana.

This is an issue that needs to be corrected before the offense can even worry about improvement in play-calling or execution.

Ball security has to be Michigan State football’s top priority

Sure, quarterback play and the growth of the offensive line is important in terms of building a successful program after a 2-5 first season under Mel Tucker, but he even admitted last year that ball security was essentially a joke.

Players couldn’t make a cut without coughing up the ball and quarterbacks were making far too many awful decisions and forcing too many passes.

Tucker needs to harp ball control and security this fall and make sure players know that it won’t be taken lightly because it did cost them the Rutgers game, hands down. That win to start the season could have conjured up some early momentum.

Turnovers crushed the offense last year and didn’t allow it to grow under Jay Johnson.

Let’s worry less about play-calling this season (which should improve with better personnel anyways) and more about protecting the ball. Averaging one turnover every five drives is horrendous.