Michigan State Football: 3 takeaways from pull-away win over WMU

1. Payton Thorne had first-game jitters

You’d think that Western Michigan’s quarterback who had never played a collegiate game before would have the first-game jitters on Friday night, but it was second-year starter Payton Thorne who suffered through that.

You could tell from the first two drives that he was a little nervous and had happy feet in the pocket, leading to no completions through those first couple of possessions and four total yards.

Thorne settled down a bit, throwing for 233 yards and he did have a career-best four touchdowns, but he threw a really bad interception at the end of the first half in the red zone and made some questionable decisions. On the interception, he could have tucked the ball and picked up some yards which would have led to some MSU points, but he threw across his body and it was easily picked.

Although he completed just 50 percent of his passes, he still made some really good throws that should have been caught but it’s still a learning game.

After the game, you could see he was unhappy with his play so expect a ton of improvement moving forward.