Every winnable game is a must for the Michigan State Spartans

The Michigan State football team is entering its first season under coach Jonathan Smith. The hope is that Coach Smith and his coaching staff can help the Spartans get back on track. The last few seasons have been difficult for the Spartans. Under Coach Smith, Michigan State is looking to return to national prominence. However, in their first season under Coach Smith, the Spartans have one of the most demanding schedules in the Big Ten and one of the most difficult in the country.

While Coach Smith may or may not be patient with the Spartans’ turnaround, most agree that turning a football program around takes time. In today’s age of transfer portals, however, a turnaround doesn’t necessarily have to take as long as in years past, when college football programs didn’t see the progress of a new coaching regime for at least three or four years.

After securing one of the best transfer portal classes in the country this offseason, Coach Smith and his coaching staff have given themselves a chance to at least see some progress in their first season in East Lansing. However, even with a talented transfer portal class and a competent coaching staff, the Spartans still have to control what they can control, namely their game day performance.

With Coach Smith and the Spartans facing one of the most challenging schedules in the country, the games they can win become even more important. Back-to-back games against Ohio State, Oregon, Iowa and Michigan give the Spartans one of the most difficult four-game series in the country. This series could realistically result in the Spartans losing four games in a row this season.

Most people realize that the Spartans are unlikely to do well in this series of games, as Michigan State is in the early stages of a rebuild. Most of these four schools are where Michigan State wants to be as a football program one day.

Coach Smith and the Spartans will be given the benefit of the doubt in these four games. However, the Spartans have a chance in every other game scheduled. This four-game midseason series makes almost every other game on the Spartans’ schedule games they must win if they want to have a successful season.

The Spartans should win games against Florida Atlantic and Prarie View A&M. A loss in either game would be a setback. Michigan State plays away against Maryland and Boston College. While it will be difficult for the Spartans to play both teams away early in the season, it is not unreasonable to expect them to win at least one of those games, which is not irrational. The Spartans should go into their game against Ohio State at 2-2 at worst or 3-1 at best.

The worst-case scenario would be if the Spartans lost all four games of the aforementioned four-game series. But even if that happened, they would enter the final quarter of the season with four winnable games, three of which will be played in East Lansing.

Although the Spartans would have to do a lot of things right for them to win their final four games of the season and finish with at least six wins, which would make Coach Smith’s first season a successful one. But to do that, the Spartans will have to win the games they have a real chance of winning. By doing so, Coach Smith and his coaching staff could shorten the time it takes to rebuild the Michigan State football program.

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