Michigan State football: Revisiting Week 4 goals vs. Maryland

3. Look alive

I’ll give the team a solid ‘B’ for this goal. They showed a pulse and finished the game with more yards that Maryland. What killed them is turnovers and dumb mistakes.

Noah Kim threw some of the most head-scratching interceptions, most of them while rolling out from the pocket, where throwing the ball into the sidelines would have been perfectly fine and live to see another play. Instead, he decided to choose plays where he needed to place the ball where only the receiver could make a play but his talent level doesn’t allow for it. Take what the defense gives you, don’t play hero. He also wasn’t helped out with some bizarre play calls (shocker) and an egregious drop by Montorie Foster Jr. and a ball that should have been caught by Christian Fitzpatrick in the endzone.

But they moved the ball and the bad throws and fumbles are things that can easily be cleaned up by watching film and working on these things in practice.

Defensively, they did as much as they good given that Maryland was given short fields in the first half which is tough no matter how good your defense is or how bad the offense is.

Like I said, when they pressured Tagovailoa, he looked bad. We were even treated to a red zone interception. When the pocket was clean, he looked like an All-American. This team isn’t good enough to win on talent alone so they need elite coaching during the week to get the offensive unit and defensive unit to play cohesive, complimentary football and we all agree that the players aren’t getting that either. They can’t afford make mistakes and they made just too many to overcome.

This team should still be able to win a few games, but it’s going to be on the coaches to get these guys to execute just the basics of football.