The most important game of the Michigan State football season
Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith and the Spartans are ushering in a new era, not only for Spartans football, but for Big Ten football as well. Four new teams (Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA) have come over from the Pac-12 and are now members of the Big Ten.
On3’s Jesse Simonton recently went through all of the Big Ten teams’ key games for next season. For Michigan State, Simonton’s biggest game is Week 9 against Indiana.
“The Spartans are facing a reset as they move on from the Mel Tucker administration and enter the Jonathan Smith era,” Simonton said. “Games against Michigan and Ohio State hold more weight for MSU fans, but if the team is to hope to turn things around this season, the Spartans will have to deal with another Big Ten rival.”
“Michigan State has one of the worst four-week schedules of any team in the country this fall – Ohio State, at Oregon, Iowa and at Michigan – but then Indiana comes to East Lansing. They finish the year with Purdue, Illinois and Rutgers. Regardless of how bad the midseason challenge turns out for Smith’s team, the first-year head coach has an opportunity to carry some momentum into year two with a November run.”
Michigan State’s football season begins with four games against Florida Atlantic, Maryland, Prairie View A&M and Boston College. With the first four games being relatively easy, it will be crucial for the Spartans to get off to a good start and not fall behind if they don’t want to end up at the bottom of the standings.
It will be a challenge to play top-25 teams four times in a row. If the Spartans are 0-4 during that stretch, it would be a nightmare if they don’t play well in the first four weeks. That’s why the game against Indiana is so crucial to their success next season.
If Michigan State hypothetically goes into the Indiana game 3-5 and wins that game, the team would be tied with last year’s team with three games left in the season. If Michigan State finishes the season 5-7, that should be positive for the Spartans as they have grown from last year and provide a good base for Jonathan Smith and his team to learn and improve for the future of Michigan State football.
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