Michigan State Football: 3 goals for the defense in 2023

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EAST LANSING, MI – SEPTEMBER 02: Angelo Grose #15, Darius Snow #23 and Xavier Henderson #3 of the Michigan State Spartans break up a Western Michigan pass in the first half at Spartan Stadium on September 2, 2022 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Jaime Crawford/Getty Images) /

2. Big Ten average completion/completion percentage

Opposing quarterbacks completed a staggering 66 percent of their passes against Michigan State. Couple that with an average completion of 7.9 yards per catch and it spells exhaustion for your defense.

So, if a team completes a pass on first down, on average, they’re looking at second down and two to go. Or say it’s a classic Big Ten team and they run the ball on first and second downs and then pass on third, they need to get two yards on the first two downs in order to get a new set of downs if they complete an average pass against the Spartans.

The Michigan State defense just made it too easy for teams to throw up and down the field, putting up such little resistance.

Again, pressure on the quarterback can solve a lot of these problems and it did seem like the defensive back field got better as the season went on, but it just means they went from utter garbage to just dreadful.

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