3 keys to victory for Michigan State football vs. FAU

Nobody wants to see their favorite sports team lose the first game of their season. For those of you that watched the Week 0 games last weekend you probably saw Florida State fans going through it after losing to Georgia Tech in Ireland.

I want no part of that this season.

So to avoid that from happening to Michigan State football at the start of the Jonathan Smith era, here are my three keys for the Spartans to bring home the victory Friday night against Florida Atlantic.

1. Keep the offense as basic as possible

The last thing Michigan State needs to do is run a lot of complex plays during this game. For starters, with all the new faces on the offense this year it’s likely that they are all still figuring how out to play well together in a new playbook. So an easy way to have a lot of drives stall is to call too many complicated plays they might not be ready for.

We also need to save a large portion of our playbook for week twos matchup at Maryland. The Terps will be a more formidable opponent, so while MSU can’t overlook FAU they do need to keep in mind that Maryland is watching. So the less tape they can show Maryland the better.

But the most important thing for Michigan State this game is to gain some confidence. At the end of the day all they need to do is win, but if they can sustain long drives and convert them into easy touchdowns then that will set them up for success the rest of the season mentally. And the best way I think Michigan State can accomplish that is my simplifying the playbook Friday night.