Michigan State left South Bend with a loss to No. 3 Notre Dame, and as Pat Fitzgerald pointed out afterward, there are no moral victories in East Lansing. A 17-point defeat may have been inside the number for a 30-point underdog in a rebuilding season, but that kind of result still doesn’t qualify as good enough for the Spartans.
Even so, Saturday night did reveal a few bright spots for Michigan State, along with some glaring problems that kept the offense from ever really settling in.
Cam Fancher was one of the few offensive sparks. Michigan State has now used the Fancher package for two straight weeks, and it produced points again.
After going 6-for-6 through the air and adding eight rushing yards on two carries in last week’s debut, Fancher followed it up with his first Spartan touchdown, a 15-yard run. His only pass attempt should have gone for a score as well, but it never got there.
The bigger issue was everything around him. Michigan State’s offensive line had a rough night against Notre Dame’s front, and the numbers tell the story.
The Spartans managed only 44 rushing yards on 27 carries, gave up four sacks, and left Alessio Milivojevic exposed far too often. Milivojevic’s interceptions also looked preventable with cleaner protection.
Cam Edwards had little room to work, finishing with 38 yards on 12 carries.
On the other side of the ball, Jordan Hall kept showing why he’s becoming the engine of this defense. He was banged up again, but he still turned in another huge performance, finishing with 13 tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss while helping hold Notre Dame to 3.7 yards per carry. Along with Kenny Soares Jr., Hall continues to look like one of the Spartans’ best players, and the defense clearly takes its cue from him.
That unit as a whole deserves credit. Joe Rossi and Max Bullough put together a plan that limited Notre Dame’s explosives and kept the Spartans from getting blown off the field.
Michigan State allowed a 61-yard pass, but outside of that, the Irish didn’t do major damage through the air. The Spartans gave up just two plays of 20 or more yards and, while the overall yards-per-play number was still too high, it was better than the kind of night many expected.
For an unranked team on the road against the nation’s No. 3 team, losing the big-play battle 2-1 was at least a step in the right direction. The rainy conditions may have helped a bit, but the defense still held up.
Rodney Bullard Jr. was the lone receiver who consistently made Notre Dame pay. He hauled in a diving 53-yard catch from Milivojevic, one of the best plays of the game for Michigan State, and finished with two receptions for 66 yards.
Outside of him, the passing game went quiet. Jayden Savoury looked solid again at tight end and Kai Rios added a catch, but every Spartan wideout not named Bullard combined for just three catches and 17 yards.
Chrishon McCray’s declining targets are becoming a concern, and one catch for five yards from the WR1/2 simply won’t be enough once Big Ten play begins.
Kenneth Williams also found himself on the wrong side of one of the game’s biggest moments. His dropped touchdown in the first half took points off the board when Michigan State was already down by two scores, forcing the Spartans to settle for a field goal instead. Williams is a running back and kick returner, so this isn’t about piling on, but that drop was costly and likely won’t lead to more targets in the passing game.
In Other News...
Michigan State's Offensive Issues Felt Even Bigger In This Loss
Michigan State walked into a tough early-season measuring stick against No. 3 Notre Dame and came away with a 27-10 loss that underscored how much work still remains on offense. Notre Dame got the kind of balanced performance that has become hard to withstand, with CJ Carr throwing for 234 yards and adding a rushing touchdown while Nolan James Jr. powered the ground game with 121 yards and a score.
For the Spartans, the larger concern was not just the final margin but how difficult it was to sustain anything offensively. Alessio Milivojevic threw two interceptions, Cam Fancher accounted for the teams only touchdown, and Michigan State spent too much of the afternoon chasing the game instead of forcing Notre Dame to react. The result left the Spartans with more questions than answers about how quickly they can turn flashes into a functioning attack. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan State Showed Fight But One Problem Still Looms
Michigan State had enough sparks to make the trip against Notre Dame feel competitive for stretches, with both sides of the ball showing moments that suggest there is something to build on. The Spartans hit a long touchdown pass and found the end zone on the ground, and their defense had enough stand-up sequences to keep the game from getting away completely.
Still, the larger picture for Michigan State was less about the highlights than the lapses around them. Notre Dame kept control with steady scoring and good clock management, and the Spartans were left sorting through the kind of mistakes that can change a game before it ever really turns. Pat Fitzgerald and Alessio Milivojevic both pointed back to the finer points of execution afterward, and the frustrating part for Michigan State is that the next step may be as much about cleaning up what it did to itself as it is about creating more big plays. [Read more 🡒]
Jordan Hall Gave Michigan State One Bright Spot In A Brutal Loss
Jordan Hall was back on the field for Michigan State against Notre Dame after sitting out the previous game with an injury, and his return offered a rare lift in an otherwise rough afternoon. Playing with a bulky black brace on his right arm, the veteran linebacker was around the ball from the start and gave the Spartans the kind of physical, steady presence they needed.
Hall finished with 13 tackles and was piling them up early, including six before Notre Dames seventh offensive snap. Pat Fitzgerald praised both the production and the leadership, and in a game where little went right, Halls effort stood out as one of the few reasons Michigan State could point to and say it had something to build on. [Read more 🡒]