EAST LANSING – For the first time in nearly 10 months, Pat Fitzgerald saw cracks in his Michigan State football foundation.
Forget all the injuries, though it is hard to ignore when one starter after another leaves the field. The Spartans’ body language on the sideline by the fourth quarter of their 31-13 loss to Nebraska spoke volumes.
Battered and bruised. Dejected from self-inflicted mistakes. Seeing all of the red in the Spartan Stadium stands as time melted away slowly in a Big Ten-opening defeat that was just as costly to momentary morale and momentum as it was to the team’s already fragile physical health at the quarter pole of the season.
Fitzgerald has preached soaking in the good or bad in the moment and leaving behind the final result.
It’s a mindset he is trying to instill in his new program. But the toll of the damage already had the first-year coach pushing positivity toward the week ahead, openly demanding players to do the same.
“If they don't show up that way, then I'll probably tell them to leave and go home. Go back to your dorm, go back to your apartment. We’ll play with the ones we got,” Fitzgerald said Saturday, Sept. 27. “I don't anticipate that happening. We're going to attack this thing.”
But in the next moment, he revealed his own frustration – and a reality check after a promising start over the first three games.
“I knew what I was getting into when I came here. We're rebuilding a program, and it's one step at a time,” the 52-year-old former Northwestern coach said. “And patience as a competitor is awful. And I don't have any patience.”
Amid the plethora of errors were a number of uncharacteristic gaffes that the Spartans (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten) did not make in their first three games.
The biggest of those came after MSU’s defense, which got off to a strong start, appeared to have a second straight three-and-out to open the game. Jack Yanachik broke through Nebraska’s punt unit and stuck out his hand for a block that the Spartans recovered. But a defensive holding penalty on Evan Young gave the Huskers (4-0, 1-0) a fresh set of downs.
Three plays later, two of them explosive pass plays, MSU’s 3-0 lead turned into a 7-3 deficit. A 20-yard pass immediately after from quarterback Anthony Colandrea to receiver Kwazi Gilmer, then another two plays later for 44 yards and a touchdown.
“We know adversity comes. We have to be able to handle that in any situation,” safety Nikai Martinez said. “It's just the little stuff that we have to fix, like little penalties. We have to be able to get off the field and stay off the field. We can't give them stuff.
“It's hard to win games in the Big Ten when you give them stuff.”
The Huskers put up a second touchdown on their next drive after an iffy late-hit penalty on cornerback Charles Brantley, shoving Colandrea into the Huskers’ bench as he stepped out of bounds. Nebraska’s Mekhi Nelson scored five plays after the third-down flag and the extra 15 yards.
Late in the half, captain Kenny Soares Jr. got flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that gave the Huskers another 15 free yards. Replays showed the defensive end twice hit Nebraska offensive lineman Elijah Pritchett in the groin, and Fitzgerald – initially livid at the refs – was equally as miffed at his veteran’s lack of composure.
“Like I said, a lack of focus and a lack of discipline will get you beat,” he said. “And that's a play that we can't have.”
Said Soares: “I've just got to be better. I talked to my guys and told them that I didn't give my best today and told them that tomorrow's a new day. Eight more games are guaranteed, so we have to continue on after that.”
Meantime, MSU’s offense struggled. Quarterback Alessio Milivojevic was sacked twice after he and backup Cam Fancher led the Spartans into the red zone, with Liam Boyd’s 48-yard field goal getting them on the board in the first quarter. Milivojevic went three-and-out on the next possession, then it was Fancher’s turn after the Nelson touchdown. He got sacked on the first play and threw an interception on the next deep in his own territory, which Nebraska turned into a field goal and a 17-3 lead.
Milivojevic directed a touchdown drive after that, with third-string running back Jaziun Patterson scoring on a 4-yard direct snap. But that would be the last sustained drive for MSU, as Milivojevic got sacked three more times in the game as the Huskers had six on the day.
“That falls on me,” said Milivojevic, who fumbled on two of the sacks in the second half and threw an interception in the fourth quarter. “I have to take leadership, I have to take control, have to put the ball in the playmakers' hands and get the ball out faster.”
Of course, when the playmakers and blockers in front of him are out, that makes it difficult.
MSU lost starting running back Cam Edwards and left guard Conner Moore on the same first-quarter play and did not return. And the injury list – already lengthy, with starting cornerbacks Tyran Chappell and Tre Bell ruled out before kickoff and linebacker Brady Pretzlaff earlier in the week – grew longer from there.
Backup cornerback NiJhay Burt, who started with the other two out, left the game in the second quarter. Linebacker Jordan Hall got hurt on the first play of the third quarter and had to be carted to the locker room with an apparent left foot injury. Neither returned. And a number of other keys players got nicked up and returned, including offensive linemen Ben Murawski and Luka Vincic, linebackers Dion Crawford and Caleb Wheatland and defensive end Isaac Smith.
“Everybody has to be ready. You never know when your time is coming and expect it and be ready to prepare through the moment,” Martinez said. “And that's all I can really say about it.”
Fitzgerald – who did not provide any injury updates after the game – dug into the coaching cliché bag of “next man up.” But many of the players who were replacing the starters had yet to see significant snaps and earn rotational roles. That makes turning the page to start preparing for next Saturday’s trip to a surging Wisconsin (12:30 p.m./Big Ten Network) a tough task for the coaches and the guys who don’t know who they’ll be playing next to.
Yet that’s part and parcel for the sport. They all know that. Flush the past, flip the page. Even if moving on might not be as easy.
“We go into a new week. We've got a lot of football left,” Fitzgerald said. “We've played four games, right? We've got eight left. And we'll get to work. That's what you do – you fix the things you can correct.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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Next up: Badgers
Matchup: Michigan State (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten) at Wisconsin (3-1, 1-0).
Kickoff: 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3; Camp Randall Stadium, Madison, WI.
TV/radio: Big Ten Network; WCSX (94.7).
Line: Badgers by 10½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State's rebuilt foundation has already been cracked. How will Spartans rebound?
