EAST LANSING — Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal offers three quick takes from Michigan State’s 38-37 overtime loss to Illinois.
Those who stayed at Spartan Stadium at least got their money’s worth. That’s something, I guess. This was a new way for Michigan State football fans to feel empty. An improvement over last week, and the week before that.
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Unlike the last two games, MSU should be proud of its resolve and angry at itself for Saturday’s overtime loss to Illinois. Because the Spartans could have won this one, if not for a number of poorly timed penalties and a lifeless start.
MSU’s football team needed that win as badly as any team has ever needed anything. Maybe that’s a bit much. But it feels like it, given how that game was going and where the season was (and still might be) headed. It’ll be interesting whether this fuels their grit or demoralizes them.
The Spartans lost this game because they couldn’t execute a final 2-point conversion — a play Pat Fitzgerald said felt good about, but that Illinois covered well — and for many other reasons. Despite their resolve, their had too many self-inflicted errors, not enough difference-makers, nor healthy bodies. The injuries at linebacker and cornerback, especially, are getting ridiculous.
Still, it’s amazing what a few positive plays by MSU did the Spartan Stadium crowd. This place, this fan base was desperate for something to cheer for. And you could hear that energy when the Spartans‘ finally delivered. It’s a team as snakebitten as any I’ve covered and nowhere near good enough to be snakebitten.
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Ultimately, this is still a football team more likely to win two games than four. And yet, as of mid-October, this looks like a team that’ll go down swinging. And less likely to be history-making, in a bad way, than it appeared they might be after the first quarter Saturday.
Until this team wins again, they’ll be in danger of going down in history as the worst at MSU since the winless Aggies of 1917. Because even Muddy Watters’ two-win team in 1982 only lost nine games. Every other team in the last 115 years of MSU football has won at least three games.
MSU’s last two-and-a-half-quarters were that of a team that has something still to give and maybe a win or two to snare. But the opportunities aren’t going to get much better than finishing against a backup quarterback, with momentum, in front of a lively crowd, on a day that felt like it might be theirs.
MSU committed enough penalties in this game — nine of them, several at critical times — that it can’t blame the refs for the defeat. And the Spartans‘ defense came up with a fourth-down stop after the offsides call on the onside kick, so that can’t be viewed as the determining play.
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But how can you not be allowed to review an offsides call on a kickoff that determines possession? We shouldn’t accept foolishness in our sports’ rules, just as we shouldn’t accept ineptitude from our football teams. These games are already four hours long with 75 four-minute breaks. What’s one more to get it right.
