Well it’s that time of the year again. Michigan State football, fresh off a bye week, will march into Ann Arbor this Saturday evening and attempt to play spoiler to a Michigan football team that has started the season red hot.
As always, there is a ton of intrigue around this game, despite it being projected to be a win for the Wolverines, you never know what can happen when these two teams square off.
Below, you can check out the Michigan perspective on the Spartans, courtesy of Trent Knoop of WolverinesWire.
You can read my inverse version of this post on WolverinesWire here.
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How is Michigan feeling going into this game after the bye week?
Michigan hasn’t been trying to give much bulletin board material this week, other than running back Donovan Edwards who said that the Wolverines would win and leave no mercy. But let’s be honest, these players haven’t beaten Michigan State since 2019 and the want is truly there. Michigan is out to a 7-0 start this year and it has taken care of business in every game so far. It’s a rivalry game, but the Wolverines are feeling extremely confident and hungry for this Saturday.
If MSU is somehow able to beat the odds and make this a competitive game, what do you think that looks like? What would have to go wrong for Michigan to lead to that, and what would have to go right for MSU?
With this rivalry, I can see it being competitive. On paper, Michigan should win this handily, but like most people say the records don’t matter when Michigan and Michigan State battle. If this game is going to be competitive and Michigan State has a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter, I believe it’s because the Spartans did an excellent job stopping the Michigan run game and because the Wolverines struggled to score touchdowns in the red zone. Look at the Penn State game two weeks ago, statistically, the maize and blue dominated the first half, but were only up two points at the half — they settled for field goals in the red zone.
Can you tell Michigan State fans who they should be looking out for on Michigan's offense and defense?
I hear a lot about Michigan's stellar offense this year, but not as much about the defense, as opposed to last year which was flipped. How is the defense looking and how do you see it stacking up against the Spartans, particularly their strong receiving corps?
As crazy as it sounds, this defense may be better than last year. Michigan lost seven starters on the defense, but Michigan is statistically better through seven games this season than it was last year. The Wolverines allowed 14.2 points per game last year through the first seven games and this year’s defense is allowing 12.1 points. This is definitely a ‘no star’ defense but this group of players play extremely well together and they usually don’t miss an assignment.
The Wolverines have the No. 6 passing defense in the country. It’s not like Michigan has played a vaunted passing attack this year, save for Maryland and Taulia Tagovailoa, but the secondary has been tremendous. It will be intriguing to see how Michigan handles the likes of Jayden Reed and Keon Coleman on Saturday night. The maize and blue will have three safeties out there at times, so I would think Reed may see some double teams at times.
Mel Tucker says that great rivalries always have a foundation of respect. I think MSU fans can respect that the Michigan offense has been firing on all cylinders this year. What do you respect about this particular MSU group?
In your opinion, how do you see this game going?
Again, it’s a rivalry game, so anything can happen. But I think Michigan has the upper hand this season. The Wolverines’ offense is as good as its ever been under Jim Harbaugh and the defense is playing extremely tough as well. Michigan State hasn’t had much of a run game and that has been a huge key in this rivalry. I think Harbaugh will get his first win against Mel Tucker.
