Michigan State football: 3 not-so-quick takes from rewatching Washington loss

3. The Michigan State football program is teetering

By teetering, I mean that this season is headed in one of two directions. Will this team pull a 2016 and just lay down by any team with a pulse? Or will they pull a 2017 when they got blown out by Notre Dame under the lights at home (sound familiar) only to rally and finish the season 7-2 and end the season ranked in the top 25?

Sure, there was a glimmer of hope that the news around Mel Tucker would galvanize the players and there would be a Disney-esque ending, but the reality is that Washington is a team that is vying for a national championship and probably the best team they’ll see all year. With the slight exception of Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan (all have looked average at best through three games), there are no sure losses in the Big Ten schedule.

Maryland has faced no one and still had to dig out of 14-point deficits in each of their last two games. Iowa doesn’t look nearly as sharp early, and Minnesota and Nebraska are back to having offenses that match the 2019 Michigan State Spartans without the defense to bail them out.

All the noise should be out of the program now and it’s back to business as usual. All contingency plans are in place and all eyes are on Maryland at home where the homecoming crowd will be amped up and starved for a victory. Expect boos (and booze) to be heavy if this team starts out slow again.

While I expect the entire coaching staff to be gutted at years’ end, they need to show to a Group of Five school that they can get these players to focus and that they deserve to be on a coaching staff, just not at a top 20 revenue school.