EAST LANSING– With an extra week to digest the heartbreaking loss to Minnesota and prepare for the upcoming matchup, Michigan State football hopes to make its first conference win of the season a reality. Standing in its way is a squad with a disappointing campaign of its own in Penn State.
What once looked like their toughest game in the preseason, this may be the Spartans best shot at a victory the rest of the way. However, the Nittany Lions have fought all season long with a talented roster despite some tumultuous movement in the program and look to make this one a battle.
Not only is MSU fighting for the Land Grant Trophy and bowl eligibility, but also a chance to send the seniors out right in their last appearance at Spartan Stadium. This includes senior defensive lineman Grady Kelly, transferring in from Florida State and Colorado State, finishing his only year as a Spartan. Kelly has not been around the locker room long but has attested to the group’s work ethic, desire to see results, and offered his perspective as a former Seminole on a long losing streak.
“I think when you can get guys together that actually care about each other on a deeper level than football, then the highs or the lows, whatever you experience you’re not gonna go just point the finger at the other guy because like that’s my brother,” Kelly said. “One locker room [FSU] they’re disbanding, you know falling apart, no one cares anymore, turns kinda selfish a little bit and on the other hand there’s no selfish in there…. We’re fighting tooth and nail everyday still because we still know we got something to play for. We got three games left and we got something to play for, yeah I’d say the locker room is actually pretty polar opposite.”
While MSU’s offense is going through a late season quarterback battle and has not landed on the starter against PSU, redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic made a strong case for himself in Minneapolis. Getting the nod over junior Aidan Chiles with the attack in need of a spark, Milivojevic stepped into the high pressure position with confidence and poise.
In his debut against the Gophers, Milivojevic came away with 311 yards on 20/28 passing featuring a 71-yard catch and run touchdown from senior wide receiver Rodney Bullard Jr. The young gun rejuvenated the offense with effective and quick decision making through the air, something that had been lacking in previous weeks. Milivojevic under center gave MSU its best chance at a victory in some time and he may be the answer again on Saturday.
The emergence of senior running back Elijah Tau-Toliver can also help either QB get established, as a reliable ground game has not necessarily been present but showed some improvement a few weeks ago. In the absence of injured sophomore Makhi Frazier, Tau-Toliver looked like the feature back with 11 carries for 127 yards. 85 of those came off a single rush that broke through the secondary and set up a score for sophomore running back Brandon Tullis.
Milivojevic and the Spartan playcalling leaned harder on the rushers in the second half and they did enough to take the weight off the QB for a few plays. This was one of their most successful outings and a repeat performance gives MSU a solid chance, but the Nittany Lions pack some up front on defense. Junior linebacker Amare Campbell leads PSU in tackles for loss on the season with 7.5 for 31 yards lost and senior defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton is right behind him, forcing 28 yards lost on 6.5 tfl’s.
The Nittany Lions also rip at the ball and get it on the ground often, with eight forced fumbles, good for the third most in the Big Ten. The offensive line appeared to get more push than usual and created some solid running lanes against UM but PSU could bring them back down to earth.
The Nittany Lion pass rush could also have a big day after dropping Indiana junior quarterback Fernando Mendoza three times last week. While 17 total sacks for the year is more towards the middle of the conference, this is a unit operating on heightened confidence after the IU matchup and should get excited looking at the Spartans’ pass protection. Milivojevic’s performance against the Gophers is made more impressive by his resilience.
He hit the turf seven times in the backfield as the MSU offensive line has allowed 30 sacks for the season. This ranks in the bottom six of FBS and may be the undoing of the offense. If the run game regresses again, whichever QB gets the start must get the ball out with speed and utilize their legs, especially with a pair of elite running backs on the other end hunting the endzone.
Scouting Penn State
PSU started the season with college football playoff hopes and ranked second in the country by the AP Poll. Yet these hopes came crashing down within the first six weeks of the campaign with the loss to Northwestern being the most consequential.
The Nittany Lions parted ways with then head coach James Franklin and starting QB senior Drew Allar was ruled out for the rest of the season. PSU has since turned to a redshirt freshman of its own with Ethan Grunkemeyer taking the reins on offense. While both teams in this matchup are suffering six game losing streaks, PSU has been mostly competitive in every game and look more apt to finding a win.
The two-headed beast of senior running backs Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton may be the biggest reason why. The duo has combined for 1099 yards and 19 touchdowns for the year, averaging 5.3 and 3.9 yards per carry, respectively. These two are the undeniable engines that make PSU go, yet two underperformed somewhat against the Hoosiers. However, they went up against the sixth-best run defense in the nation and should get back on track by facing one that gives up 144.3 yards per game.
“I’d say they’re probably the best one-two punch in the country [Allen and Singleton], I think they’ve got speed, vision, they’ve got size, they break tackles, they get in the open field, they’re gonna run,” MSU defensive coordinator Joe Rossi said. “They’re a major concern, they have some really good playmakers on the offensive side of the ball and I think they’ve lost a lot of one-score games. They’ve lost four ranked opponents, three in the top five when they played them so they’re a talented team.”
The enhanced play of Grunkemeyer is arguably what got the Nittany Lions to nearly pull off the upset this time around. In what could be his best start since filling in for Allar, Grunkemeyer went 22/31 on completions for 219 yards and one touchdown. While the numbers don’t necessarily jump off the page, Grunkemeyer has learned to manage the game effectively and is only getting better every time he takes the field.
“We look at the whole season, I think you have to, but then I think you also draw a line where the change happened then you look at hey is there any differences between before and after,” Rossi said. “I think the quarterback [Grunkemeyer] has improved every week, I think last week was by far his best showing. I think in the second half they opened it up and pushed the ball down the field with success and against a really good defense so our anticipation is this things gonna be open, the playbooks open, they’re gonna push it downfield.”
If the passing game does open up, Senior wide receiver Trebor Pena is the name to look out for. Pena is far and away the lead receiver with 32 for the season and averages 10.3 yards per catch, totalling 331 yards and one touchdown. It may be vital for the Spartan defense to limit this emerging group and the last two games have shown they are capable of handling it.
While the last couple of opponents for MSU have not been stellar in the passing game, the secondary has been doing an improved job in coverage and causing incompletions. Redshirt freshman QB Drake Lindsay for the Gophers was forced into 39 passing attempts for an inefficient 197 yards. Spartan senior defensive backs showed out with Nikai Martinez rallying to the ball often with a team-high 10 tackles, while Malcolm Bell had two vital pass breakups.
The question for them and so many other areas on the field is can this improvement prove to be sustainable, MSU has looked sharp in many aspects one week and can completely fall apart the next, leaving many wondering if they can pull it all together for the first time this year on senior day.
“Probably recognized after four [games] the execution isn’t where it needed to be and since that time we made a concerted effort to keep things as concise as possible,” Rossi said. “Then you’re not just gonna snap your fingers and magically from one week to the next to make improvement, it’s gotta be a gradual improvement over the course of time if you stay on that track and we have. So I think we’ve obviously gotten ourselves to the point where we’ve improved so we need to keep that going here through the last three.”
The Spartans and Nittany Lions, looking to break their respective losing streaks and keep their seasons alive, will go head-to-head on Saturday with kickoff set for 3:30. Jacob Maurer and Kyle Keegan will have the live broadcast streaming at https://impact89fm.org/ and over the air on 88.9 FM.
