Michigan State football: 3 takeaways from ugly win over Rutgers

Thankfully, ugly wins still count the same as pretty wins. For Michigan State football, it’ll take an ugly win any time this year because it’s been that kind of season.

Michigan State picked up an ugly win over Rutgers on Saturday afternoon, winning 27-21 after leading by 10-plus for a good chunk of the second half. A fourth-and-a-mile conversion late in the fourth quarter which happened to be a touchdown pass made the final score much closer than the game felt.

Mel Tucker will take this win and move on to Indiana, but there are some glaring issues on both sides of the ball that need to be corrected.

What’d we learn from this fifth win of the year?

3. This offense can be so effective with more tight end usage

We saw something on Saturday against Rutgers that we hadn’t seen all year: tight end usage.

Early on, it was evident that tight ends were going to be the focus of the offense as Daniel Barker scored the first touchdown and finished with four catches for 64 yards and that score. He wasn’t the only tight end who looked good as Maliq Carr had two catches for 22 yards.

The offense is effective when the tight ends are getting the ball because they are such mismatches in the passing game.

That needs to continue.