Michigan State’s 31-13 loss to Nebraska was painful enough on the scoreboard. The bigger problem may be what the Spartans lost along the way.
Saturday night at Spartan Stadium turned into a wrecking ball of injuries for MSU, which fell to 2-2 and now has a roster that looks even thinner heading into the rest of the season. The hits started before kickoff, when starting cornerback Tre Bell suffered some kind of setback in pre-game warmups and was ruled unavailable. He joined fellow starter Tyran Chappell, who went from questionable to out on the pre-game availability report.
Then the game began, and the list kept growing.
Standout running back Cam Edwards, MSU’s leading rusher this season, went down on the second drive and was taken up the tunnel on the back of a cart. Veteran linebacker and two-time captain Jordan Hall also exited after the first play of the second half and did not return.
Edwards had carried four times for 16 yards before the injury, including a 23-yard gain on a screen pass. Hall finished with four tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss before leaving.
"We'll be obviously getting further testing and things of that nature here throughout the next couple days," MSU head coach Pat Fitzgerald said. "I don't have anything to update on that. Obviously, the guys that didn't finish the game didn't finish the game."
Michigan State wasn’t done losing bodies. Reserve cornerback Keshawn Williams and starting offensive guard Conner Moore both left and did not return.
Cornerback NiJhay Burt, who had been elevated into the starting lineup, also was unable to finish after getting banged up. Trainers checked on linebackers Dion Crawford, Caleb Wheatland and Cam Stodghill, along with offensive linemen Ben Murawski and Luka Vincic, at different points during the game.
"We never want to see anyone go down or get injured, but sadly, it's part of the sport," quarterback Alessio Milivojevic said. "We know it's next man up. Everyone works their butt off in practice, and it's next man up when someone goes down."
The Spartans now head to Wisconsin next week, and they’ll do it with whatever is left of the roster. The Badgers are coming off an upset of ranked Penn State, and Fitzgerald said the message in the locker room was about readiness for whoever gets called.
"Early in my time here, it may have been day one or week one, I said 'We're gonna need everybody,'" Fitzgerald said. "When I made that statement, I meant that means everybody's gotta get ready to play.
My challenge to the guys in the locker room afterward was 'Some of you may have gotten your first taste of playing football at this level and in the Big Ten.' My hope is that's a motivator to help them continue to get better.
But it's just a next-man-up mentality. That's what I expect the guys will do."
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The concern now is whether the defense can absorb what happened in Lincoln and move on cleanly. Halls performance was a bright spot, but his exit with an injury leaves Michigan State waiting on another piece of information it did not need this early in conference play. After a game like this, the Spartans are left not only sorting through the loss itself, but also the health questions that can change the outlook for the weeks ahead. [Read more 🡒]