Full Preview & Prediction for MSU's Long Awaited Game vs. Northwestern

But you know, we kind of break down, uh, when Michigan State has the ball, and then when Northwestern has the ball.

What do both teams do well, and what do both teams not do quite as well? So normally we start with when Michigan State has the ball here.

Uh, for Michigan State's offense, uh, which generally is not ranked very well at all in nearly any- in all, in pretty much every single category, it did take a step forward, uh, in that game against Illinois, but there is a question of did the offense legitimately improve or were they facing a weaker defense in Illinois? Illinois' defense had really struggled up to that point in the year.

They're, they had fired their defensive coordinator, uh, a couple weeks before that game against Michigan State.

So you score 31 points in regulation, that's decent.

Uh, you know, you get 37, you, you score on your...

You have the touchdown on your only drive of overtime.

You go for two, you don't get it.

Uh, we don't have to talk over the play call too much.

I, I still highly disagree with calling a trick play in that situation, but you know what, what's done is done.

But still, through three games, uh, against Power Four competition, uh, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, Michigan State had scored just 26 total points, and then you go and score 31 points in regulation against the Illini.

Again, Illinois' defense had struggled, really struggled.

But I mean, when you're scoring more points than you had in the previous three games put together, even though those defenses of Notre Dame, of Wisconsin, and of Nebraska are pretty good, I think that is a sign that you are moving in the right direction.

You know, you are starting to do some things better.

Uh, and one of the big things was that performance from, from Jazien Patterson.

He was excellent.

Four total touchdowns, I think it was 119, uh, yards from scrimmage.

It was about 93 rushing yards.

Like, that was huge for Michigan State because obviously the Spartans are going the rest of the way without having Cam Edwards on the roster, having that, uh, season-ending knee injury that he suffered, uh, against Nebraska.

I mean, I remember Patterson went in that game, he ran pretty well.

He, he runs really hard.

That's the most admirable part of his game is that Patterson just, every single play, he, you know, he's gonna put his head down and he's gonna go muscle things out as much as he can.

And he's being held up as an example by the coaching staff of like, "Here's how you do it.

Here's what we wanna look...

This is what we want out of each and every single player here." So I had a story go up, uh, what was it, on Wednesday on Jazien Patterson.