Michigan State’s homecoming game had no shortage of wild action as Illinois came to town to take on the Spartans. Not only was it homecoming for the Spartans, but Katin Houser was coming home to the team he started his collegiate career with. Both teams were coming into this game off of embarrassing losses. Illinois lost to Purdue, a team who had not won a Big Ten game in three years and Michigan State lost 31-3 to Wisconsin on the road in Camp Randall where they could not stop the run. A lot went on in tonight’s game as the Spartans dug themselves into a 17-0 hole early on, climbed all the way out of it, and ended up falling short in overtime 38-37.

The thing MSU was hoping for coming into this game was that they would be getting Jordan Hall back after he missed last week’s game due to an injury. That hope was short lived as he left the game early and so did his running mate Brady Pretzlaff. The Spartans were working with backup linebackers and freshman corners due to injuries tonight. That did not help the defense early on as Katin Houser was getting whatever he wanted, moving the ball up and down the field with ease on this defense. It almost looked way too easy when they took a 17-0 lead. The defense did not shy away in the second half as they made some crucial bend but didn't break stops and held Illinois to field goals while the offense did its best to play catch-up. Joe Rossi’s unit came together in the second half and when they were down 23-10, the defense turned the tide by picking off Katin Houser and returning it all the way to the 11-yard line. Jaziun Patterson capped off the interception with a touchdown run, Katin Houser never returned to the game due to an injury, and Michigan State carried the momentum for the rest of regulation.

The offense again got out to a sputtering start where Alessio Milivojevic struggled to get going out of the gates. MSU tried running a flea flicker on the first play of the game where it looked like the deep man had a step on the nearest defender and the crosser was heading away from coverage but instead of launching it Alessio ate it up and took the sack. Michigan State had eight total yards of offense when they found themselves down 17-0 before scoring their first touchdown of the game. Once MSU started scoring, Alessio settled in and gained more confidence as the game went along. He played his best game of the season throwing 22-of-26 for 196 yards and two touchdowns. As the game went along, they started pushing the ball downfield more, Jaziun Patterson settled in and played a great game and the defense played much better in the second half. Albeit, a true freshman quarterback came in for Illinois after Houser got hurt but they still played better for most of the half when Houser was healthy. When MSU was down 38-31 in overtime and scored the touchdown, the decision to go for two was pretty agreeable in my opinion. MSU had all the momentum, the offense was on fire and Illinois’ defense was worn out. Everything was in the Spartans favor to go for two except for the playcall. It is a shame the playcall was very questionable because Nick Sheridan called his best game of the season and people will remember that final two point conversion playcall to go for the win. It was a well fought effort by the Spartans to comeback as they fell short.

However, there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed about officiating in this game and in general. There was a solid twenty or so minutes where the game was paused due to an onside kick situation. Michigan State had just scored to cut the lead to 31-24 with 7:47 left in the fourth quarter. Both teams lined up for a regular kickoff and Pat Fitzgerald surprised Illinois with a perfectly executed surprise onside kick in which Michigan State recovered. All the momentum was with the Spartans. Only one problem, they were called for offsides on the kick and so the play was overturned. On ensuing replay review, it showed that Gash was in fact not offsides, it was a perfectly legal kick that was corralled inbounds except the call could not be overturned even though the review showed he was clearly not offsides. Now MSU dug themselves into a deep hole early in the game so this one call should not determine the game. But that does not stop it from being a poorly called play by the referees. It completely took the air out of Spartan Stadium as the game was stopped for 15-20 minutes for them to look at the play only to decide it was still offsides and to re-kick the ball. The officiating blunder late in this game should be looked at as a reason to enforce rules to overturn offsides calls like this one that was crucial in the game.

Michigan State’s second half performance was resilient even though they came up short in heartbreaking fashion. Carry that performance over to next week against Northwestern and get off to a solid start and a win could be in the books. MSU needed this win to avoid looking down the barrel of a 2-10 season and now here they are after a devastating loss. It was an encouraging fight from the SPartans who had not shown any in the past three weeks, but they failed to get the win.