PASADENA, CA – Chris Solari grades Michigan State football after the Spartans’ 28-10 loss to No. 10 UCLA on Saturday, Oct. 24 at the Rose Bowl.
Offense: D
The grades for an offense won’t be great when you are down to your third- and fourth-string quarterbacks, as well as your fourth-string running back after the third-stringer elevated to starter is lost three snaps into a game. That’s the point where MSU was against UCLA, with its 156 total yards the fewest since the final game of 2023 against Penn State. Kayd Coffman became the first Spartan true freshman to start since 2000 and just the third in program history and showed why coaches typically wait a season to give QBs their baptism by fire. Coffman displayed a strong arm but got rattled as the Bruins’
pressure started to get home to sack him three times.
He started 4-for-5 with a 14-yard touchdown pass but missed his final five throws, one of them being picked off after a misread by Coffman on where to throw the ball, and got sacked three times. Leo Hannan, a redshirt freshman from nearby Long Beach, took over at the end of the third quarter and played the entire fourth, throwing for 67 yards and going 9-for-15 but also threw a pick and was sacked once. Kenneth Williams caught the TD pass from Coffman after he took over at running back for Marvis Parrish, who ran twice on the first three plays for 9 yards and then got hurt, but Williams also had a critical and costly fumble.
Defense: C+
MSU’s defense continues to play hard and show flashes of how it might have been without an injury to linebacker Jordan Hall, who missed his fifth game of the season. The Spartans got back Brady Pretzlaff and Caleb Wheatland, but then they lost two of their best remaining players to in-game injuries when defensive tackle Ben Roberts hurt his left leg on the first defensive snap for MSU and was on crutches wearing street clothes after halftime. Then in the third quarter, safety Devin Vaught made a strong open-field tackle and also had to leave the game with another right leg injury. He also didn’t return.
UCLA continually softened the middle of the Spartans’ defense after Roberts went out with run-game body blows, and QB Ty Dieffenbach hit a deep ball over the top of freshman cornerback Jeremiah Favorite for a 63-yard TD pass to open the second half as MSU was without its top three CBs (Tre Bell, Tyran Chappell and Charles Brantley).
Vaught helped cause two turnovers, recovering one and creating another for fellow safety Nikai Martinez that resulted in two 56-yard returns. But the Spartans also failed to get a sack after getting five against Northwestern last week. UCLA finished with 245 of its 443 total yards on the ground, with 140 rushing yards among their 254 yards after halftime.
Special teams: C
MSU’s punt coverage team got saved on a Rhys Dakin blocked punt with a good roll and 10 extra yards after a UCLA hold. Liam Boyd booted a 46-field goal late in the game but did not have a touchback on his two kickoffs. Aveon Grose got flagged for a hold on one Bruins punt that backed up the Spartans 10 yards from the 34 to the 24 on Coffman’s third drive, while Williams’ game-opening kickoff from the end zone rather than taking a touchback gave the freshman QB a starting position of his own 15.
Coaching: C
There is only so much clay to mold for coaches, particularly with seven starters out entering Saturday and then losing four more in the UCLA game. Give Pat Fitzgerald credit for keeping them motivated and playing hard through attrition levels he admitted afterward that he has never experienced in any season before. Give Nick Sheridan credit for trying to keep the offense complex enough to keep defenses on their heels but simple enough that his own young players know what to do. Give Joe Rossi credit for trying to scheme around major injuries to his unit week in, week out with a diminishing depth chart. But the reality is, football being a binary business, MSU still has lost six straight games.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MSU gets bad grades vs UCLA, but can you even blame them?
