#8 Spartan Football takes on Motto of Basketball Coach Tom Izzo as They, “Survive and advance” To remain undefeated in the Big Ten.

Spartan Football takes on Motto of Basketball Coach Tom Izzo as They, “Survive and advance” To remain undefeated in the Big Ten. Ross-Aide Stadium West

Spartan Football takes on Motto of Basketball Coach Tom Izzo as They, “Survive and advance” To remain undefeated in the Big Ten.

Ross-Aide Stadium

West Lafayette, IN

The #8 ranked Michigan State Spartans came in to this game with a mandate. Win and win big. Well they took care of the first one and depending on your definition of BIG they pulled out a 45-31 victory over the improving Purdue Boilermakers. Was 14 points big enough?

The Spartans highly touted defense had their worst half of the season in the first, and although they were stingy in the third quarter they struggled in the fourth. Darien “HIGHLIGHT” Harris sealed the Spartan win with a pick six late in the fourth with the Boilermakers down 38-31, but the game never had a blowout feeling.

Purdue head coach Darrell Hazell has had Spartan Nation’s respect since he got hired by the Boilermakers, and after an encouraging win over Illinois last week he showed his team had even more fight today. “Anytime you play a good football team, you need to keep it close. I thought we fought hard and had a chance to tie it up at the end. We have to get better. That’s the whole key for our program. We play a good football team we have to make big plays and reduce the margin from what it was.”

Dantonio had a little bit more positive approach, but not much. His top ranked Spartans need wins, and impressive wins with college football’s race for the first ever playoff scenario underway. He said, “We were the stronger football team in the end. They seized momentum after the first half, but we rallied back to continue to play through it and get a couple of first downs on the offense-then obviously close through defense with a big stop and then obviously the touchdown.”

Spartan wide receiver Tony Lippett makes me look smarter with every game for my preseason All American vote of him and today he shined. He had 138 of QB Connor Cook’s 238 yards on seven catches and tallying one touchdown. He said, “They have a good team. We knew that they could rally back. We tried to preach to the offense to put points on the board every time we had the ball.”

The MSU defense gave up 340 yards. Purdue ran for 129 of those yards allowing Boilermaker QB Austin Appleby to go 24 of 37 with one touchdown and one interception. The aforementioned pick six by Harris. Appleby said of the contest that “We have enough guys and playmakers to do well. Our offensive line can go up against anything. We have to come out of the third quarter fast and ready and convert on third downs. This offense is a close bunch and we can be great. If we are more consistent we will be there.”

The Spartan offense went for 532 yards and the Spartans rushing attack led the way. They tallied up 294 yards on the ground with Jeremy Langford piling up his 10th straight Big Ten game going over 100 yards. Langford ran for 110 yards on 13 carries. Nick Hill added 72 on nine carries and Delton Williams had 44 yards on four carries after being left on the bench by OC Dave Warner in the Oregon and Nebraska games.

The Spartans return to action next week against a medically depleted Indiana Hoosiers in Bloomington.