V-Cast: talking Michigan State football loss at Illinois, close hoops win against BGSU
Michigan State fell to 4-6 on the year with a 38-16 loss to Illinois in a game where the Spartan defense couldn’t get off the field on third down and the offensive line could not give quarterback Aidan Chiles the pass protection necessary to make plays.
Afterward, SpartanMag.com staffers Jim Comparoni and Paul Konyndyk sorted through what went wrong on the football field before switching gears to talk basketball in the latest V-Cast.
V-Cast Topics
Talking Third Downs: Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith believes that the Spartans lost this game on third down, and that is difficult to dispute considering how effectively Illinois moved the chains when it mattered on third downs and how much Michigan State struggled. Some of the success that Illinois had on third down was the result of the lack of pass-rush pressure along with playing inexperienced personnel in the secondary against one of the better receiver groups in the Big Ten. Whereas Illinois had success on third down, Michigan State did not. The Fighting Illini converted better than 50 percent of their third-down attempts against the Spartans. Michigan State converted just 2-of-15 on third down against an Illinois defense that recorded eight sacks in this game.
Top 10
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Heupel shades refs
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Dave Aranda
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Travis Hunter
Colorado star heavy Heisman favorite
Hand Wringing: Its easy to look at the success that Indiana is having this year and then to see the struggles that Michigan State has had in the past five games and wonder why the Spartans aren’t getting the job done. But it is also important to remember that every program rebuilds at a different pace and that the Spartans want to rebuild their program with sustainability in mind. Smith had a massive rebuild when he took over at Michigan State and the state of the program left a lot to be desired given an over reliance on the NCAA transfer portal players and the mercenary nature the Spartan program during Mel Tucker’s tenure. The Spartans didn’t have a lot of depth going into the season, but injuries at key positions including losing every starter in the secondary to injury has not helped Michigan State stay competitive. Even so, the Spartans still have a chance to attain bowl eligibility with wins in each of the next two weeks against Purdue and then Rutgers. The Spartans need those two wins badly to regain the momentum that the program had coming out of the first bye week with a win over Iowa.
Talking Basketball: Michigan State dodged a bullet with an 86-72 win over Bowling Green as Tom Izzo’s ballclub returned to the basketball court for the first time since their Champions Classic loss to Kansas earlier this week. Bowling Green, who is coached by Michigan native Todd Simon and has former Spartan point guard on Tum Tum Nairn as an assistant coach, led by as many as 12 points in the first half of this game, and eight points in the second half. The Spartans fought back from a dangerous second-half deficit by getting to the free-throw line and getting stops late in this game during an 18-0 run to close out the second half. Carson Cooper and Coen Carr were two of the top performers in this game. Jaden Akins also had a bounce-back game of sorts. While Akins didn’t shoot the ball as well as he would have liked, he found other ways to make an impact, finishing with 10 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists in the win. Akins did hit a big three late in this game to help put this game out of reach. Carr played a season-high 27 minutes, scoring 12 points and adding five rebounds in the win.
