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    • Michigan State’s promising season was again marked by fatal mistakes
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    Michigan State’s promising season was again marked by fatal mistakes

    Caradoc Wyn Posted on

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    EAST LANSING — As pouring rain fell near the end of another lopsided Michigan State football loss to Ohio State, the scene felt depressingly familiar. Much of the crowd was gone and the gray skeleton of Spartan Stadium was now exposed.

    The fans had given up and resigned themselves to the home team’s fate on a night in which they lost 38-7 to the mighty Buckeyes. Long before the game began, they had gotten used to seeing a result like this against this program. They had gotten used to watching coach Ryan Day bury their beloved Spartans, as he had in each of the previous five seasons, when the Buckeyes won by an average margin of 35 points. So they had prepared for what unfolded, knowing that Day had arrived in East Lansing that weekend with a new arsenal of weapons, ready to sow destruction.

    By the end of the first half, after Ohio State had built a 24-7 lead, Day and the Buckeyes had accomplished their mission. Freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith, OSU’s youngest star, scored on a nifty 19-yard end-around and made a sensational but effortless one-handed touchdown grab late in the second quarter that put the stunned Spartans in trouble 17- Points hole.

    The rising wideout contributed to an offensive attack led by transfer quarterback Will Howard, who connected on 12 of his first 13 passes and moved the chains on seven of those completions.

    When it was finally over, after Ohio State reached the end zone twice more and moved the ball 483 yards, Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith gave Day’s undefeated Buckeyes some perfunctory praise.

    “But I told our team that I don’t feel like there’s a ton of snaps out there, that we’re just overwhelmed where, oh, they have too much talent and are too physical,” he said in his messages after the game conference.

    In fact, Smith left the field convinced that his Spartans could have kept up “on par” with Ohio State had they not repeatedly shot themselves in the foot in that crucial first half. There was a reason why he felt that way.

    MSU missed three promising drives in the early stages, blowing its chance to keep pace with the No. 3 team in the country. Aidan Chiles, trailing 3-0, was fumbled for a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-1 at the Buckeyes’ 20-yard line, nullifying MSU’s first possession.

    Later, after the Spartans’ deficit grew to 10 points, tight end Jack Velling grabbed a slant shot from Chiles before sprinting into wide space for a big gain. But just as he approached the OSU 10-yard line, Buckeyes cornerback Jordan Hancock caught up with him and pushed the ball out. Hancock’s teammate Sonny Styles was quick to kill the ball and a scoring opportunity early in the second quarter was immediately squandered.

    The consequences of this rally were felt again eight minutes later when another break into the red zone suddenly ended in a mistake. This time it was Chiles who lost the ball when he forced his way up the middle after an Ohio State defender appeared to grab his face mask. The Buckeyes’ Jack Sawyer pounced on the loose ball at the 16-yard line, once again forcing Chiles and MSU to hastily retreat to the sideline.

    “If we don’t get those turnovers,” Day said, “maybe it’s a different game.”

    Everywhere on the field, the same thought was running through the minds of MSU players.

    “We left a lot of points on the field,” running back Nate Carter said. “It was hard. It was hard.”

    It was also unfortunate.

    More: The missed call ruined Michigan State’s chance to tell a compelling story at Spartan Stadium

    The costly errors sparked MSU’s second loss in eight days and turned a competitive game into a one-sided affair that led to the Buckeyes going into cruise control at the end of the third quarter. It didn’t have to be this way and Smith knew it.

    Self-inflicted mistakes have plagued the Spartans all season, even in the two games they won against Football Bowl Subdivision opponents (Florida Atlantic and Maryland). However, they have been particularly destructive in MSU’s recent losses. In a 23-19 loss to Boston College in Week 4, the Spartans missed a chance to get to 4-0 by giving the ball away four times. Chiles was the main culprit on the wet evening, throwing three interceptions.

    He was more cautious Saturday as he faced Ohio State’s defense, which had given up just 20 points in its first three games. When there was no open receiver, Chiles carefully threw the ball out of bounds and moved on to the next snap.

    But he couldn’t completely avoid the danger. He lost that fumble and later threw the ball to the other team when he blindly sent a pass into a free zone in the third quarter. Buckeyes cornerback Denzel Burke drifted into space to score before racing deep into MSU territory to set up Ohio State’s final touchdown of the night.

    “We’ll compete with just about anyone if we clean this up, and we’ll have a chance to win every ballgame,” Smith said.

    But can Smith eliminate this troubling pattern of errors before the Spartans begin a challenging October that includes matchups with No. 7 Oregon, Iowa and No. 12 Michigan? Much to his chagrin, the sloppy play and poor execution burned deep into the fabric of his team. Just look at the hard evidence. The Spartans have now given the ball away 13 times, the third-highest total in the FBS.

    “We have to hold ourselves accountable for the mistakes we make on offense and get ourselves in trouble,” Carter said. “We have the same problems. “So what can we do this week to stop that from happening?”

    More: Aidan Chile’s commitment to Michigan State football is still a work in progress

    That’s the question MSU fans had to grapple with as they exited early in the steady drizzle.

    Once again they saw Ohio State come to East Lansing and pounce on their team. But they also fled the stadium knowing that MSU had helped light the fuse attached to the big, bad Buckeye powder keg that exploded in front of them.

    It was depressingly familiar and downright frustrating because, like Smith, they understood that if the Spartans hadn’t helped bury themselves, it might not have been so ugly this time.

    Contact Rainer Sabin at [email protected]. Follow him @RainerSabin.

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    Caradoc Wyn
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