Jonathan Smith gives the Michigan State football defense a lot of credit

The biggest surprise so far this season for Michigan State football is the fact that their defense has been excellent. After many years of (to put it nicely) subpar play on the defensive side of the ball, it’s a relief to finally see the group have a pulse this season.

And in all honesty, they’ve had much more than just a pulse, they’ve been very good.

Are they the best defense in the country? Not quite. But they get the job done and have been one of the biggest reasons for the 3-1 start to the season.

This was seen all game on Saturday against Boston College when the offense was struggling to put points on the board, and Jonathan Smith gave them a shoutout in his postgame interview.

"We (Michigan State) turned the ball over four times and they only scored 23 points. That is a good effort, defensively."

- Jonathan Smith

Smith is 100 percent right by giving the defense a lot of credit after the game. Did they play a perfect game? No. But they single-handedly kept Michigan State in this game, especially throughout the second half.

Only giving up 23 points against pretty much any Power Four team is very good, definitely good enough to win. But it gets impressive when you consider that MSU had two killer turnovers to start the second half which resulted in 10 points. In my opinion, you can't blame the defense at all for giving up those points.

So take those away and that's only 13 points given up. Then there were also two other turnovers which forced the defense back on the field instead of the offense putting up more points. All that makes the Spartans' defensive performance that much more impressive.

Sure the defense only forced one of their own turnovers and they did give up a few big plays, but as I mentioned, Michigan State's offense is too talented to only score 19 points, surrendering 23 points should be good enough to win.

Hopefully this is a performance that Michigan State's defense can build off of because the schedule only gets more difficult from here. But if the defense can keep playing this well and if the offense starts taking some strides then I would not be surprised at all to see Michigan State come away with some upset wins over the next few weeks.