Michigan State Football: 3 hot takes from impressive win at Northwestern

Unlike a season ago, Mel Tucker had his Michigan State football troops ready to go to open the season against a Big Ten foe.

Last year, Rutgers took advantage of a handful of Michigan State turnovers to beat the Spartans on the road, handing them a tough loss. This season, Michigan State handled Northwestern on the road and looked prepared from the opening kickoff, scoring on the first play of the game and never looking back.

Getting a real offseason had to have helped matters and the fact that Northwestern is not the same team as it was a season ago was also a factor. But Michigan State deserves plenty of respect for winning 38-21 against the reigning Big Ten West champs on the road.

Let’s dive into some hot takes from the season-opening win.

3. Offense far ahead of defense for first time since 2014

For the first time in what feels like decades, Michigan State’s offense is ahead of the defense to start the season. Usually, it’s the other way around. The one time that it seemed like the offense caught up in the past seven years was the start of the 2018 season when Utah State scored 31 points and gave the Spartans all they could handle despite Michigan State’s 500-plus total yards.

But we all found out as the 2018 season progressed that the defense was really the side of the ball that would carry the torch and 2019 was much more of the same.

The 2017 season saw a strong offense led by a healthy Brian Lewerke, but the defense wasn’t bad at all. And in 2016, neither side of the ball was great, but the defense probably stole the show more often than not — outside of the Notre Dame win.

On Friday night, the offense was very clearly ahead of the defense with over 500 yards of total offense while giving up nearly 400 yards.

Could this change? Sure, but it feels like the offense turned the corner after a few nightmare seasons. No more allowed 5-yard passes to wear the defense down.