By Carter Melrose
After last week’s loss to Penn State, many are glad Michigan State doesn’t have a Saquon Barkley. Instead, Michigan State’s offense is spread rather evenly throughout the team.
For instance, six offensive players for the Spartans have gained more than 100 yards of either rushing or receiving, and none of these players have racked up more than 300.
Leading rusher’s number of yards
The Spartans’ leading rusher isn’t even a running back, it’s starting quarterback Brian Lewerke. At first glance, one might view this number as lackluster until delving further.
The first thing to keep in mind when viewing this number is that Michigan State has only played three games on the year. The second item to view is the entire running-back depth chart. Michigan State gives the ball to pretty much everyone on the roster — three running backs on the roster have received 20-plus carries on the season, all rushing for 4.2 yards per carry.
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The sheer number of touches for these backs should produce a high number of yards for the team. But if it weren’t for Lewerke and his ability to evade pass-rushers and extend plays with his legs, the team would be a bottom-half of the Big Ten rushing squad. That, however, isn’t the story. Michigan State is 31st in the country in rushing yards per game.
There will likely be a variety of names carrying the ball on Saturday, but keeping Lewerke in the pocket might be the key to shutting down this offense. If Iowa can do this, it will cut off nearly one-third of Michigan State’s rushing attack. Where the running backs average just over 4 yards per attempt, Lewerke rushes for 7.9.
Points Michigan State allowed last week against Notre Dame
This is significant for one main reason: It was the defense’s first real test of the year. The first two teams Michigan State played were Bowling Green and Western Michigan, which are now a combined 2-6. In Notre Dame, Michigan State finally faced off against a top-25-worthy team, and the teams the Spartans will see the rest of the season will look much more like the Fighting Irish than Bowling Green or Western Michigan.
The loss for Michigan State was partly on the defense, but the offense also did the overall team no favors. Having turned over the ball three times that game, the Spartans allowed Notre Dame to be very efficient on offense, only having to accumulate 355 total yards to score 38 points
Average time of possession
This helps infer one thing: The team likes to run the ball. However, the Spartans seem to have a problem scoring on these long possessions. Michigan State needs to do a better job of being on offense as well as finishing the drives with points if it wants to win some more games.
In their loss to Notre Dame, the Spartans allowed the Fighting Irish 1.46 points per minute on offense in a game in which the Spartans controlled the clock but could only muster 18 points.
So if Michigan State controls the clock on Saturday, it may not be a big deal, because it has trouble converting those time-dripping efforts into points.
