Couch: Michigan State players aren't quitting; they're just that bad
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – This season can’t end fast enough for Michigan State’s football team.
There isn’t enough game-ready talent and aren’t enough healthy bodies to make anything of it. Not a bowl game. Not even a positive vibe heading into the offseason.
All that’s left to do is maybe squeak out a win over Rutgers next week and then pray for mercy on the way to an unthinkable 3-9 season.
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I joked on Lansing radio in August about wanting to cover such a season, to have the program narrative change, to write about something new. I had no clue what that would actually look like.
Saturday’s 31-27 loss at Illinois is exactly what 3-9 looks like. It’s a fall from grace beyond imagination. Nothing about MSU football resembles the program that won 35 games over the last three seasons, other than a few familiar faces that have run out of answers.
The Spartans (2-7, 0-6 Big Ten) didn’t quit Saturday. They’re just that bad. Limited offense. Awful defense. Little confidence. An increasingly battered roster. There is nothing left to be gained from the rest of November. Any player development is better done behind closed doors. Just get out alive with as much dignity as possible.
As it is, MSU is looking at its worst Big Ten start in school history and, if 3-9 is indeed the final record, its worst non-probation-year winning percentage since 1917, when the Spartans opened with Alma and closed with Camp MacArthur. Dantonio produced the golden age of modern MSU football. He’ll also have the program’s worst season in nearly a century on his resume.
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Dantonio looked defeated after Saturday’s loss. He explanations are becoming philosophical.
“We’re on a long road, everybody’s walking on that road,” he began. “We may not all be right at the same time on that road. But there’s a long line of us on that road. And we’ve got to keep pushing and we’ve got to come out the other end. And that’s the only way I know to do it. If you take the foot of the accelerator and you stop grinding, bad things happen. Thus far we’ve not done that.”
Heaven help this team if it ever stops grinding — or signs up for Dantonio’s philosophy class. It’s been clear since the beginning of October that MSU’s problems weren’t an in-season fix. It just wasn’t clear so much needed to be fixed.
Some of this is simply health related. The Spartans were down to the their last available scholarship quarterback in the fourth quarter Saturday — they’ll start grabbing random students off their mopeds before they pull the redshirt on freshman Messiah deWeaver.
Their offensive line was absent senior Kodi Kieler, their starting left tackle, after he suffered an injury Thursday. Sophomore David Beedle struggled mightily in Kieler’s place — albeit against two future NFL defensive ends, the strength of Illinois’ roster. Beedle, too, left with an injury, replaced by redshirt freshman Cole Chewins, who looks like he’s about 140 pounds.
“We’ve got other guys and they’ve got to grow up,” Dantonio said. “We’ve got a redshirt freshman playing (on the offensive line). And another true freshman playing. And another redshirt freshman playing.”
No program this established should ever find itself in this spot. It goes back to a underwhelming 2013 recruiting class, with one offensive lineman in it, tackle Dennis Finley, who didn’t make the travel roster after finally appearing in the two-deep two weeks ago.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it,” Dantonio said of Finley, who’s struggled to come back from a broken leg suffered 13 months ago.
Finley’s 2013 classmate, redshirt junior tight end Jamal Lyles, didn’t make the trip, either, after violating team rules.
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The touted star quarterback of that class, redshirt junior Damion Terry, led two late drives Saturday, capping one with a poised touchdown pass in the back of the end zone to the most productive member of that class, true senior R.J. Shelton. But Terry mostly stood and watched again, as Tyler O’Connor, with limited arm talent and hobbled by a foot injury, did his best to lead MSU to 3-6. A shot to O’Connor’s head forced the coaches to play Terry. Redshirt freshman Brian Lewerke is out with a broken leg.
But for all of MSU’s offensive inadequacies — pass protection woes; two drops in the end zone by senior tight end Josiah Price; six penalties on the offensive line — MSU lost this game because its defense is a mess.
The Spartans piled up 490 yards of offense and 28 first downs and, while penalties killed several promising early drives, they took the lead with 2:15 to play in the fourth quarter on that aforementioned Terry-to-Shelton toss. And then, six plays, 75 yards and two pass interference calls later, Illinois took it back, 31-27.
“Our biggest thing is after a team gets a first down or a big play, we’ve got to keep playing after that,” senior linebacker Riley Bullough said. “We can’t just quit playing or quit doing our assignments because we’re down or we’ve lost confidence. You’ve got to play through the entire drive. I think that’s something we needed to get better at.”
Isn’t going to happen this season.
“We’ve got to finish the fourth quarter. I don’t know how many times I’ve got to come in here and say that,” Dantonio said. “But that’s what it seems like. You’ve got to finish in the fourth quarter. And we almost did. But you’ve got to get off the field. There’s two minutes to go in the game.”
The issue isn’t just that MSU can’t find the inches to beat Illinois or Indiana or Northwestern or Maryland. It’s that the Spartans need inches to beat Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern or Maryland. These are programs they once pounded. Little mistakes didn’t used to matter against the Illini.
It is possible that by next season, natural growth and maturity and a fresh start will cure many of MSU’s ills, that this season is still only a blip, even if a scary stare into the mortality of a once-elite program. But it’s an increasingly longer climb back up. Each game only makes it worse.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.