For a second straight game, Michigan State had a chance to win in walk-off fashion but, just like last week’s loss to Illinois, the Spartans couldn’t come up with the big plays late against Northwestern.
Who’s to blame after this most recent excruciating defeat? Pat Fitzgerald said it best in his post-game presser: this one’s on the coaches. The players did everything they could for 59 minutes with a pretty good gameplan in place, but the coaches fumbled it away late with a series of poor decisions.
It’d be easy to blame the defense for folding on the final drive, but that’s ultimately a coaching issue. The staff needs to put the defense in the best positions to win and Joe Rossi didn’t do that in the final minutes. The Spartans had all their timeouts and probably could have used a couple of them to regroup but that’s just another mistake.
Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but the coaching mistakes in the final minutes were really the difference between a Top 25 upset win and a devastating loss:
It started with predictable play-calling in the final three minutes when a first down would have essentially sealed the win. Michigan State ran three straight times up the middle and had a critical penalty on an illegal snap on a 3rd-and-7. Then running the ball on the final play to the exact same spot and placing the ball on the right hash was an interesting strategy.
In that situation when you know you’re running with the plan to just waste more clock on a third down, getting the ball to the middle of the field for a chip-shot would have been ideal, I’d assume. Instead, the ball was on the hash and Liam Boyd trotted out for his first non-PAT of the day and he had it promptly swatted by a trio of leaping Northwestern defenders.
That special teams gaffe led into some poor defensive play-calling down the stretch as Aidan Chiles just nickel-and-domed his way into Michigan State territory for the game-winning field goal. He was able to flip the field in one minute. That’s on Joe Rossi and Fitzgerald.
At some point, Fitzgerald is going to have a tough decision to make on Rossi. While his defense played well all game long, it looked lost in the final minute when it mattered most.
Call it a personnel issue or call it a lack of talent, but Michigan State played well enough on that end for 59 minutes to win. Rossi wasn’t able to get them across the finish line.
Execution was also a main culprit for Michigan State
While coaching does deserve the bulk of the blame for another heartbreaking loss in the final minutes, there were other non-talent and non-injury related mistakes that led to the last-second defeat despite leading all second half.
Poor execution on the game-tying score was obvious but it was on coaching to not have a spy on Chiles and that burned them a couple of times. The defense just struggled with the dump-offs and short throws. Tackling was really good and that was a nice surprise, but it’s like they forgot how to play in the final minutes.
Also worth noting: Alessio Milivojevic missed a ton of throws today that would have put the game away. The sophomore quarterback had a decent game, completing 19-of-30 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns, but that could have been more like 21-of-30 with four touchdowns if not for a couple of massive misses.
Alessio missed Rod Bullard Jr. in the first half on an easy walk-in touchdown on fourth down and then missed him again late in the second half after he torched his defender down the field. Both of those scores would have sealed the game. He got a little too excited and aired it out a little too much. That can’t happen.
Ultimately the blame falls on the coaches, and deservedly so, for the meltdown in the final minutes, but the late-game defense and Alessio need to tighten the screws.
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