Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Spartans' 1-3 record misleading

Chris Vannini

Madison, Wis. — Well, who saw this coming?

I don’t think too many.

The MSU football team has limped to a 1-3 start and hasn’t beaten a Football Bowl Subdivision team in 10 months (a 21-7 victory against Purdue last November).

The Spartan bandwagon is losing members every day and Wolverines fans have come out of hibernation loud and clear.

But as bad as this season has begun, it’s not time to jump ship. There still are huge opportunities for this team and the season is not lost.

Since that last FBS victory, the Spartans have lost to Penn State, Georgia, Central Michigan, Notre Dame and, most recently, Wisconsin.

A win against Football Championship Subdivision opponent Montana State is sprinkled in there.

However, those five losses — specifically the three this season — have been against high-quality opponents.

Yes, Central Michigan is in the Mid-American Conference, but the Chips likely are going to win the conference and head to a bowl game for the fourth straight season. If you make four consecutive bowls, you are a good program.

Yes, Notre Dame isn’t the same Notre Dame of old, but this is a team that still has an outside chance to go to a BCS bowl game. The Spartans were, perhaps, one play away from coming out of both those games with a win, and if the Spartans made one play at the end of both of those games, they easily could have come out of the gate with a 3-0 record.

Yes, the loss to Wisconsin wasn’t as close as the 38-30 score read, but Wisconsin is a very talented team that will compete for the Big Ten title this season. Also, just about nobody (other than the Badgers) wins at Camp Randall Stadium.

The Spartans are better than their record, for whatever that’s worth. Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema even called the Spartans “the best 1-3 football team out there.”

The Spartans, predicted by many to finish in the upper echelon of the Big Ten, look far from doing that.

“Nobody thought we’d be 1-3 at this point, but we are,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “It’s a learning experience; it’s an experience that we have to draw things from and have to get better from.”

So the Spartans aren’t as good as we thought they would be. That doesn’t mean they’re as bad as some people might think.

This team averages more than 438 yards and 32 points per game and if you put points on the board in the Big Ten, you have a chance to win every single game.

The Big Ten season is just starting, which is a positive for this team. The conference looks just dreadful and anybody can win on any day. The team that wins this conference may have two or three losses in the conference and the Spartans get to skip playing against one of the league’s favorites, Ohio State.

The Spartans also have games against Northwestern, Western Michigan and Purdue that should be considered must-wins.

The defense has been the biggest and most surprising problem this season, and its deteriorating confidence is snowballing, but if the defense can play consistently well for an entire game, it might snowball in the opposite direction.

So while the Spartans bandwagon is getting smaller, I still believe the team can make this season a success.

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There’s no better week to turn everything around than this week. A win against Michigan could springboard the team to a Big Ten title run. Let’s not forget, under Mark Dantonio, the Spartans are 0-3 the week before Michigan but have gone 4-1 in the regular season after the last two U-M games.

“I just want this win more than anything,” sophomore quarterback Keith Nichol said.

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