Broncos hope to play Big Ten spoiler role again

For a nonconference game in early November, a lot is riding on Saturday’s game between MSU and Western Michigan.

Both teams come into Spartan Stadium with a 4-5 record with three games to play. Six wins make a team bowl eligible, but it’s win No. 7 that seals it, meaning the loser of this game could be on the outside looking in come December.

The Broncos have a recent history of knocking off Big Ten teams fighting for their bowl lives late in the season. In 2007, Iowa was 6-5 when it played Western Michigan at home in the final game of the season and was shocked 28-19 by the Broncos. At 6-6, the Hawkeyes didn’t make a bowl game. In 2008, Illinois was 5-4 when it met Western Michigan at Ford Field in Detroit. The Fighting Illini lost that game 23-17 and its next two to finish 5-7.

“They are very, very capable and will be very confident coming into Spartan Stadium,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said. “We need to get ourselves ready emotionally.”

Western Michigan is coming off a 26-14 loss at Kent State, a game in which Broncos head coach Bill Cubit said his team “didn’t play very well.” Like MSU, Western Michigan also is struggling with injuries coming off last week.

“We have to get some kids back and be ready to go in there and be competitive,” Cubit said.

The Broncos allowed 477 yards of total offense to Kent State, while the Spartans allowed more than 500 yards of offense to Minnesota. But Cubit said his defense is going to have to stop MSU on the ground, an area MSU has struggled in recent weeks.

“(They want to) run first,” Cubit said. “I do think they throw the ball pretty well. I’m impressed with Cousins and they have some wideouts that can run and are dangerous, and they have a nice tight end, a couple tight ends that really get open, but they’re going to try to run the football and establish that first. So that’s one thing we’re going to have to stop and hopefully the matchups outside we can just neutralize them there. We’re going to have to take something away and the run’s going to have to be the one.”

This will be the first time MSU has played a regular season nonconference game after starting Big Ten play since 2004, when the team went to Hawaii and came back with a 41-38 loss in the final game of the season.

But MSU is aware of the perils of playing a Mid-American Conference team, as evident by the Spartans’ 29-27 loss to Central Michigan in September.

“We definitely don’t want that to happen again,” junior linebacker Greg Jones said. “We’re definitely striving to win and show what Big Ten football is all about and obviously we didn’t get that done last time and we’ll try to do better to get that done.”