A 3-1 start to the season heading into a bye week isn't the worst thing in the world, but when you're a Michigan State football fan and you've seen this movie before (literally a year ago), you're cautious in how you approach your expectations for the remainder of the year.
Especially after witnessing the defense crumble over the past three weeks.
Michigan State is 3-1 with a lone loss to No. 25 USC on the road, but the Spartans are going to get an extra week to prepare for Nebraska in October.
Before we get into that, though, let's take a look at some key stats from the USC loss.
1. Zero (!!) turnovers
Aidan Chiles has been much better this season both with his accuracy and his decision-making. He's making throws that he wouldn't have a season ago, and he's not forcing anything. I could count on maybe two fingers the number of poor throws he had against USC.
In his first road action of the season against a ranked team, he protected the ball, made very few mistakes, and came away with four total touchdowns to zero turnovers.
This is a trend that needs to continue.
2. Zero (!!) negative plays for USC
Outside of penalties, USC had exactly zero (!!) negative plays on Saturday night. That's the sign of a bad defense. Michigan State was unable to make its way into the backfield to wreak havoc on Jayden Maiava (the play that started the fourth quarter -- his scramble -- essentially decided the game).
Michigan State got a little pressure here and there, but it was unable to capitalize and let Maiava slip away. And any time Waymond Jordan got swallowed up by defenders, he was able to escape.
You can't win games in the Big Ten by not forcing a single negative play. What's going on, Joe Rossi?
3. Third down defense (8-of-12)
I kept thinking to myself throughout the game how poor the defense looked on third and fourth downs. USC was able to get basically whatever it wanted on third downs, no matter the distance. The Trojans converted 66 percent of their third downs, which led to a lot of long drives and a tired defense.
The Spartans also allowed 1-of-2 conversions on fourth down.
Not being able to get off the field on third and fourth downs was what eventually killed this team. The Maiava scramble to start the fourth quarter when he was surrounded by six Spartan rushers was the back-breaking play, and of course, it was on third down.