Michigan State football: 3 positives heading into bye week

Michigan State football finally ended its lengthy losing streak in Week 7 with an overtime with over Wisconsin in thrilling fashion.

Like everything else this season, even that win didn’t come easy as the Spartans had a handful of opportunities to make sure the game was over and they bobbled them — quite literally on one occasion. Two dropped interceptions, poor defense on fourth-and-goal, and giving up a wide-open touchdown in overtime can all be blamed for our heart rates being through the roof on Saturday night.

Anyways, there are still some positives to take from the game and to build on heading into the bye week before hate week.

Here are what we can consider positives for the bye week.

3. Defense got its leaders back

Going into the bye week, this is usually a time to get healthy. Luckily for Michigan State, it got healthy right before the bye and Xavier Henderson and Jacob Slade shook the rust off.

We didn’t see either of them make any incredible plays, but just having them out there makes the defense better. Their presence and the attention they draw are both important. This defense thrives when those guys are fully healthy and we saw it against Wisconsin.

Not only did the defense look like a different unit in the second half, but it held Wisconsin to just 130 passing yards which is the lowest in the Mel Tucker era and it was the best performance this season.

Clearly getting those guys back helped.

Also, playing Jacoby Windmon at linebacker was a massive win.