Michigan State made the trip to Camp Randall on Saturday to take on the Wisconsin Badgers and were thoroughly dominated by Luke Fickell’s squad.
As expected after the Cam Edwards injury and their performance against Nebraska, Wisconsin was 8.5 point favorites entering the game against Michigan State on October 3rd. While it was bad for the Spartans in Madison, it was not expected to be this bad as Wisconsin gashed the defense all day long. The Badgers had whatever they wanted on the ground with read options, open lanes, breaking tackles, etc. MSU’s defense was a no-show and the offense although they were able to get into Wisconsin territory quite a bit, they were 1-for-6 on fourth down conversio nd turned the ball over on downs five times in Badgers territory. Just an all around dud from the Spartans.
Due to this week’s performance against the Badgers the confidence meter moves even further down from a four last week to a two this week. The only reason it is not a number one is because Illinois is coming off of a loss at home to Purdue, a team who had not won a Big Ten game in almost three years. There is some hope after that performance that MSU can come away with a win this weekend for homecoming. However that is about all the Spartans have going for them at the moment. As just mentioned, Illinois is coming off of a loss to Purdue who has been the worst team in the Big Ten the past three years, and they are still favored by three points on the road against MSU in East Lansing. Wisconsin received 89 votes to be ranked in the AP poll last week and after a dominating win over MSU somehow the amount of votes they received this week went down. Maybe that is the indicator of how bad this Spartans team has been from week three onwards.
Not only did Alessio Milivojevic look lost out there on Saturday, but the backup quarterback Cam Fancher got injured and was helped off the field in one of his RPO packages early in the second half. Milivojevic struggled to hit 100 yards on the game, only averaging 3.2 yards per attempt and he did not even complete 50 percent of his passes. Even if Fitzgerald wanted to make the switch to Fancher coming out of the second half the injury derailed any plans of that happening. Kayd Coffman even got some snaps late in the game when it was all but over yet he did not get to attempt a pass. Questions arise on if the Spartans have to consider a quarterback change for homecoming because Milivojevic has not looked anywhere close to the passer he was at the end of last year. Is it the offensive gameplan? Is it the loss of Nick Marsh? Chrishon McCray, Rodney Bullard Jr., and Fredrick Moore are still talented pass catchers who have shown flashes. The offense should be able to do more than what they did on Saturday, especially when they do not even have a turnover and only let up two sacks.
The Spartans are sputtering out of control right now looking down the barrel of a disastrous season. After an encouraging first three weeks, doomsday has hit for Michigan State after two atrocious conference performances and a schedule that continues to get tougher. It might even be hard to pick MSU over Rutgers at this moment at the end of the year with how Greg Schiano coaches against the Spartans. Things are looking bleak in East Lansing and if they cannot win on homecoming against Illinois then buckle up for a long ride.
