EAST LANSING – If Michigan State coaches went back to the drawing board after last week’s 42-point loss at Iowa, they’ll be staying there after a home shutout loss to Indiana on Saturday.
“Everything is in evaluation and it’s ongoing for us,” Spartans coach Mel Tucker said after Michigan State lost 24-0 to mark its first home shutout loss in 35 years.
Like it has in its other two losses this year, Michigan State lost the turnover battle, fell behind quickly and turned in an inconsistent performance on both sides of the ball.
Against an Indiana team that came in 3-0 and ranked in the top 10, Tucker said those types of mistakes don’t give the Spartans a chance to win.
“You turn the ball over and you have critical penalties against a good football team, you are going to get beat,” Tucker said. “That’s what happened, we need to figure out what we can do with the guys that we have.”
Michigan State fell behind by two touchdowns in the first quarter, both as a result of turnovers. For the game, the Spartans managed less than 200 yards of total offense and consistently gave Indiana the ball with short fields to go.
Tucker made one critical personnel evaluation during the game, pulling quarterback Rocky Lombardi after his second interception in the second quarter and replacing him with Payton Thorne, who finished out the game.
How that situation plays out going forward will be determined in the upcoming week of practice. But Tucker indicated after the game that quarterback won’t be the only position up for grabs as Michigan State searches for the right personnel.
“Based upon who we have in our evaluation, we’ll put the guys out there that we feel like give us the best chance, and then we need to work for better execution,” Tucker said. “We need to work harder, we need to be tougher, mentally and physically, and we need to keep hammering our culture of accountability, attention to detail, sense of urgency and grinding.”
Despite Michigan State flailing in a coronavirus-shortened season, both players and coaches said they don’t expect motivation to be an issue in the second half of the year.
Linebacker Antjuan Simmons said that players have the opportunity to opt out of the season at any time, meaning that anybody who remains on the team is there because they want to be.
“With everybody being here, that means they’re fully invested in this program and that they’re going to do what they’ve got to do to make sure we’re moving forward,” Simmons said. “I don’t see anybody in our locker room that’s going to hang their heads and not coming in ready to work tomorrow or Monday.”
Some moments from the game stood out as positive, like a second-half defensive shutout and some strong throws by Thorne in the second half. But Tucker said those good plays were interspersed with too many poor ones, and his evaluation will start with that.
“We’re inconsistent, which means you see us able to make plays on both sides of the ball, we’re able to make plays in the run game, we’re able to make plays in the passing game, and then at times we’re not able to. That’s being inconsistent.”
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Mel Tucker: ‘Everything is in evaluation’ after Michigan State’s second straight blowout loss - MLive.com
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