It’s hard to call any loss “encouraging” especially since moral victories don’t exist at Michigan State, but the Spartans hung with Notre Dame for the better part of three quarters before running out of gas late, losing 27-10 to the No. 3 team in the country.
Pat Fitzgerald was fired up after the loss, saying that he was not happy with the loss and the Spartans came to South Bend for one job and they failed.
While it was a disappointing result given that the Spartans proved that they could hang with the No. 3 team in the country on the road, there were plenty of encouraging signs stemming from the loss.
These are my biggest takeaways.
1. Michigan State is ahead of schedule
Simply put, the Spartans are way ahead of where people expected them to be three games into the Fitzgerald era. The offense couldn’t get a ton going against the Irish, but the defense was pretty solid, holding the Irish to just under 400 total yards and there weren’t many big plays outside of a 61-yard pass from CJ Carr to Micah Gilbert.
Notre Dame was able to wear the Spartans down in the second half and put the game away, but holding the No. 3 team in the country to just 27 points on the road isn’t too shabby.
No one expected Michigan State to win and Vegas had the line set at -29.5 in favor of the Irish, but the fight that the Spartans showed was commendable. This team showed more fight in a 17-point loss to Notre Dame than they did in two years under Jonathan Smith.
2. Chrishon McCray needs more targets
Since the opener, Chrishon McCray has seen his targets disappear, going from eight catches against Toledo to just two against Eastern Michigan and then he had only one on Saturday night at Notre Dame. For a guy with as much YAC ability and explosiveness in the receiving game as McCray, he needs to be much more of a focal point in the offense.
Rod Bullard Jr. was solid with a long catch that gave the Spartans some momentum when they were down 17-3 and Fredrick Moore even had two catches, but McCray was non-existent.
Obviously the offense, as a whole, struggled with Alessio Milivojevic going 9-for-17 with 123 yards and two interceptions, but McCray needs to be that safety valve for the Spartans.
3. This is a bowl team
Whether it looks that way yet or not, Michigan State is absolutely a bowl team.
Hanging with Notre Dame for three-plus quarters was a good sign that the Spartans are going to be able to compete with darn near anyone on their schedule. They don’t have to face Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, or USC, and they get Oregon and Washington at home along with Illinois, Northwestern, and Nebraska. The schedule is setting up nicely for a return to the postseason.
Michigan State will be a slight underdog to open up against the Cornhuskers this week, but that’s a game that Fitzgerald should win and they have Illinois and Northwestern at home (should be two wins) as well as Washington (should be a win) and then Rutgers on the road (also should be a win). That’s four games right there that should be wins.
There were doubts that this team would even win four games, but after that Notre Dame game, it’s starting to look like the Spartans are a 6-7 win team.
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