Bye weeks tend to come at the perfect time for struggling teams. Bye weeks can break up a lengthy losing streak or give an ailing team some rest before a tough stretch.
For Michigan State, its bye week is doing neither.
OK, yes, the Spartans are getting some much-needed rest after being down about a dozen players last weekend, including QB1 and RB1, against UCLA, but no amount of rest is going to heal this team completely — not this year at least. As for cutting up a losing streak, Michigan State could have used its bye week about 2-3 weeks ago.
In the middle of a six-game losing streak with no end in sight, the Spartans’ Week 9 bye is here just a tad too late for a team that was hoping to make a bowl this year but is very obviously going to come up short for a fifth straight season.
This is John L. Smith era bad.
A bye would have been perfect before the Illinois game. The Spartans had lost three straight games but that was a chance to get back to .500. Losing to Wisconsin by a million points the week before put a sour taste in everyone’s mouths, but the Spartans still took the Illini to overtime and a botched 2-point conversion led to a one-point loss.
OK, a bye after the Illinois game would have been really nice too as the team was beat up and just suffered its most emotional loss of the year. Getting a bye before another emotional game against Aidan Chiles and Northwestern would have been ideal.
Nope.
Heck, a bye after that Northwestern loss would have worked. The Spartans lost a game that they should’ve won and Pat Fitzgerald’s former school won on his new turf. It hurt.
Instead, Michigan State is getting a bye after a sixth straight loss and with just four games left. It does help that Michigan is the first team the Spartans will see out of the bye so prepping for this game for two weeks should help the upset chances, but this off week should have come 2-3 weeks ago and maybe we’d still be talking about bowl hopes.
Michigan State’s remaining schedule is winnable
As a 2-6 team, it’s hard to call anything “winnable” these days, but Michigan State is going to have a fighting chance in each of its final four games this season.
It starts with an underwhelming Michigan team that’s turned an entire fanbase against it — the Kyle Whittingham fit just isn’t right. Then the Spartans will host a suddenly-struggling Oregon team without Dante Moore and Jay Johnson calling the plays for the Ducks.
The last two games will be against a Washington team with a major question mark at quarterback and then arguably the worst team in the Big Ten, Rutgers.
Go 2-2 in these final four games and I don’t think a single Spartan fan will complain.
But did the bye week come a little too late to fix any flaws and heal up? Probably.
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