Michigan State Football: Lombardi’s Homecoming Falls Short

Rocky Lombardi, Michigan State's starting quarterback, went home this weekend; it didn't go as planned.

Iowa City, IA – Saturday was an exciting day for the Michigan State starting quarterback; he would finally go home to face the Iowa Hawkeyes – a game Rocky Lombardi had circled since committing to MSU in high school.

Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be a low-point in his career and never the way he envisioned it.

On the backing of a three-interception performance and his position potentially in jeopardy, Lombardi showed up to talk about it because that's what leaders do.

"It definitely was tough," said Lombardi. "This is not what I wanted to do, coming home, but at the end of the day, we just gotta learn from it."

Even worse, the redshirt junior's opponents have taken notice of what makes him uncomfortable.

"Earlier this week in film, the D-linemen were talking about when he sees pressure, you can see it. He flinches and stuff like that. So, we knew that if we got pressure early and consistent, that we would get high passes and stuff like that," Iowa defensive end Chauncey Golston told reporters after the game. "That happened a few times on key third downs."

Naturally, no quarterback is as efficient when the pocket is collapsing; however, if that's what opposing teams are seeing on film, it's a problem for an offensive line who's provided quality protection in 1-out-of-3 contests.

But as Mel Tucker says, football is the 'ultimate team sport;' Lombardi didn't single-handedly lose the game for Michigan State.

The Spartans first three drives stalled out when Connor Heyward failed to reach the line to gain, and Jalen Nailor dropped an accurate pass on third down – his initial interception was a deep throw downfield, essentially serving MSU much like a punt does.

Yet, with Michigan State down by three scores, he admittedly operated outside of his element and made some mistakes.

"I think I just tried to do a little bit too much. I saw that we kind of needed to make some plays, and I probably overstepped my boundaries a little bit," Lombardi said. "It comes back to just processing the play, playing each play as an individual game. And that's what we're going to do next week."

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