At this point, who’s still locked into Michigan State football?
I’m actually impressed by how many Michigan State fans were tuning into a game against Iowa on Saturday afternoon considering the Spartans were already eliminated from bowl contention, but it turns out that this fanbase is passionate. While the Spartans have literally nothing to play for at this point outside of some pride, fans are still hopeful.
Jonathan Smith saw his team take a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, but he decided to play it safe and not go for the kill-shot in the final minute, punting the ball back to the Hawkeyes and watching them go all the way down the field, getting into field goal range.
The rest is history.
Iowa won the game 20-17, and it was about as heartbreaking and as disappointing as you could imagine.
What’d we learn from the latest disastrous MSU loss?
1. MSU has something in Alessio Milivojevic
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think Alessio Milivojevic was going to be much of an upgrade over the final few games of Aidan Chiles, but I am happy to be wrong.
The redshirt freshman quarterback has been impressive for two of the past three games, throwing for over 250 yards against one of the best passing defenses in the country on Saturday afternoon. While he did make some mistakes, he was overall solid, and was arguably the reason that Michigan State was still in the game late — besides the defense.
If Smith is retained, he needs to rely heavily on Milivojevic next year. If Smith is gone, hopefully the young quarterback stays in East Lansing.
2. Special teams disasterclass
While Ryan Eckley is one of the best punters in college football and may very well be a finalist for the Ray Guy Award, there’s just no excuse for not punting the ball out of bounds when Kaden Wetjen was already killing Michigan State’s punt coverage.
Unfortunately, not kicking it out of bounds cost the Spartans the game late.
Wetjen returned the final punt far enough to give Iowa a fighter’s chance to kick a game-winning field goal. All the Hawkeyes had to do was not turn the ball over and gain about 25 extra yards with a minute left. They did just that. That’s on both Chad Wilt and Eckley. The special teams were a disaster as Wetjen had 147 return yards and a touchdown on three tries.
Horrific showing.
3. It’s time for a change
Although I was on board with the Smith hire after some convincing, I’m very much in the camp of “it’s run its course” in East Lansing. The second-year head coach just isn’t the guy for the job.
There’s a non-zero chance that J Batt decides to retain Smith, but if he does, he’s going to lose a lot of good grace he’s built up with the fanbase. I’d like to think that Smith can turn this thing around, but after watching Saturday’s disaster at Iowa, it feels like he just doesn’t have what it takes.
When a coach continues to find new ways to lose, you have to start believing that he is what he is. He may just not be a Big Ten-caliber head coach — at least not in East Lansing.
It’s time to make a change.