Michigan State football took care of Tulsa on Friday evening but it wasn’t pretty. Here are some quick reactions and a look ahead for the Spartans.
Michigan State defeated Tulsa by a final score of 28-7. The game saw a lot of action with turnovers, scoring, and impact plays in the first half.
The second half was a different story with more penalties and punts than actually scoring and offensive ball movement. Let’s take a look at the good, bad, and others observations from this game.
The Good
Both of Michigan State and Tulsa’s secondary units had good but not great performances in this Friday night opening weekend battle. Home openers where both teams have the entire summer to watch film and focus on the tendencies and play formations of their first opponent tend to favor the defense over the offense — just like what was witnessed in Week 0 match up between Florida and Miami.
Michigan State’s defensive backs limited Baylor quarterback transfer Zach Smith to 153 yards passing and one touchdown. His interception he threw was to Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons.
Tulsa’s defensive secondary did not cause or force any interceptions as well but limited Michigan State passing attack to under 200 yards passing and only one passing touchdown.
The Average
The quarterback play of both Tulsa and Michigan State. A strong argument can be made that with out a productive run game and ineffective offensive line play that a quarterback can only do so much. However, both quarterbacks had a QBR under 44, which is subpar and can be a major concern long-term for both quarterbacks.
Even though both quarterbacks threw for a touchdown and if you were to compare the two by a head-to-head comparison on their game performance, Michigan State’s Brian Lewerke would get the edge due to him taking care of the ball and not turning it over and even for rushing for 34 yards on seven carries.
Time will tell as the season progresses if both quarterbacks will be above average in their quarterback play.
The Bad
The offensive line and running back play by Michigan State was bad. The run game was not horrible, but not good by any standards. The Spartans ran for a total of 108 yards on 40 carries for a very low average of 2.7 yards per rushing attempt.
Anyone can play the time-honored tradition of the blame game of was it the running backs or offensive line’s fault for the lack of a productive running game, however, both can share responsibility and give some credit must be given to Tulsa’s defense as the Golden Hurricane returned a total of eight starters as well as seven more defenders who started at least one game last season.
The Spartan run game must improve by the time it travels to face Northwestern who are the reigning Big Ten West champions in Week 4.
The Great
Michigan State’s special team play minus the penalties committed, played great in the victory over Tulsa.
Field goal kicker Matt Coghlin was 4-for-4 with no attempt being under 38 yards and three of those were from 40, 44 and 47 yards out. He also was 2-2 on extra points for a total of 14 points on the game.
Jake Hartbarger’s five punts for a total of 237 averaging just under 48 yards with two of those punts being placed with in the 20-yard line was impressive coming off of a season-ending injury early last season. He also boomed an impressive 61-yarder after the Spartan offense was unable to move the ball on their offensive position prior to his long punt.
Michigan State’s Dominique Long came up big with a blocked a punt which gave the Spartans great field position within the 25-yard line of Tulsa. Michigan State capitalized on it with a Coghlin made field goal.