EAST LANSING - Michigan State walked away with a win Friday night, but Pat Fitzgerald didn’t need long to spot the part that bothered him most.
The Spartans moved the ball. They controlled the clock.
They had Toledo on its heels for long stretches. And still, too many drives ended with field goals instead of touchdowns in a 30-20 opener that had more frustration baked into it than the final score suggested.
“We gotta finish drives,” Fitzgerald said Monday. “The football gods will not allow you to kick field goals and win a lot of games the way we just did.”
That message sits at the center of MSU’s work this week before Eastern Michigan visits Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on Big Ten Network. The Spartans are 1-0 under Fitzgerald after a game that featured plenty of encouraging signs, especially early, but also enough stalled possessions to leave points scattered all over the field.
Michigan State opened the game the way Fitzgerald wanted. The offensive line took control on a 13-play march that lasted 7:14 and ended with Cam Edwards punching in a 2-yard touchdown on a direct snap. From there, though, the offense kept getting in position and then slipping.
Alessio Milivojevic and Rodney Bullard Jr. still provided the biggest moments. Milivojevic finished 26-for-34 for 247 yards, and Bullard caught seven passes for 90 yards. But the Spartans’ first-half production was defined just as much by what they didn’t finish as by what they did.
Milivojevic had a third-down throw from the Toledo 14 that went through Bullard’s hands, leading to Liam Boyd’s first field goal. A holding call on left guard Conner Moore cut short another promising drive after Kenny Soares Jr.’s interception set MSU up in Rockets territory. Boyd answered again with a 42-yarder after a Jaziun Patterson run lost 2 yards and another pass fell incomplete.
The pattern kept repeating. Kenneth Williams’ 47-yard kickoff return gave Michigan State a short field, but the drive ended with a sack, a smothered screen to Edwards and another incompletion before Boyd drilled a 48-yard kick.
Then, late in the half, Rakeem Johnson was flagged for holding on third-and-goal from the Toledo 3 after Edwards runs had the Spartans knocking on the door. Milivojevic was sacked again trying to escape pressure, and Boyd capped the half with his fourth field goal.
Five possessions, five scores, a 19-7 lead - and a feeling that MSU had left more on the board than it had banked.
“One thing I want to challenge us (to do) is just to finish those drives,” Milivojevic said. “We made it down in the red zone - I want to say we settled for field goals three times in the red zone in the first half alone.
I think just overall, finishing those drives for us is gonna be huge. But I thought we moved the ball well, and I'm just really proud of the guys up front.”
The second half made the issue even sharper. Boyd’s sixth field goal try was blocked from 54 yards out to open the third quarter, and Toledo answered with a touchdown on the next drive. The Rockets then grabbed momentum again after Edwards came up short on fourth-and-inches at the Toledo 29 early in the fourth quarter, turning the game into a 20-19 deficit for Michigan State.
Bullard said the group had spent camp preparing for exactly that kind of stretch.
“We know football is not a game of perfect, so things are gonna happen in the game,” Bullard said. “We kind of practiced that all throughout camp, all throughout practice, just knowing that not everything is gonna go our way. And it’s about how we respond.”
Michigan State’s response came with Milivojevic and Bullard taking over. On the possession that followed the deficit, Milivojevic hit Bullard on a 26-yard deep corner after play action, then found him again on a deep out for another big gain while taking a roughing-the-passer hit that tacked on 15 more yards and moved MSU to the Toledo 14.
Fitzgerald liked what he saw from his quarterback.
“I just thought just the whole game, he was really calm,” Fitzgerald said of Milivojevic. “The way he acted, the way he operated, the way he played is exactly how he’s been since I got here.”
After two runs and a 4-yard catch by Chrishon McCray that still left the Spartans short of the sticks, Milivojevic pushed for the chance to decide it on fourth-and-inches.
“I told coach, ‘Just trust me and trust that I’ll make the right read and go get the first down,” Milivojevic said.
Instead of forcing a run, he rolled right, froze the defense and found Bullard alone in the back of the end zone. Michigan State then connected again on the 2-point try, with Bullard going up for the ball in the back right corner.
That finish gave Fitzgerald his first win at Michigan State and Milivojevic his second victory in his last two starts, including last season’s finale against Maryland.
“He just executed the plays at a high level, which is what we expect and need him to do for us to be successful,” Fitzgerald said of Milivojevic. “I think he’s just gonna keep getting better and better and better.
I’ve just been so impressed with his maturity as a young player. And we’re gonna need him.”
Eastern Michigan comes in at 1-1 after beating another set of Spartans, San Jose State, on Friday and losing its opener. Michigan State, meanwhile, has the win it wanted - and a clear reminder of the distance between moving the ball and truly putting teams away.
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