Michigan State falling short of expectations raises questions about program’s future

Halfway through the 2022 season, Michigan State has already doubled its loss total from a season ago. With a 2-4 record, and losing four straight, some fans have already seen enough of the Spartans.

Even after playing Minnesota and Ohio State, Michigan State’s schedule doesn’t look like it will get any easier. Fans of the program have gone to social media expressing their thoughts about the Spartans. Many have expressed their concerns, but some have responded with optimism.

There’s no sugarcoating what’s happened the past month of MSU Football. This is now a 6 game season where we need to see some improvements in all facets. No one wants to hear that patience is needed but the future remains bright as this season has gone south #GoGreen
— MSU Chief of Propaganda (@OdellBretthamJr) October 8, 2022

The future is bright for Michigan State, as I’ve stated before. This past weekend against Ohio State, more young players got an opportunity, and played well, against a team that has a high chance of making the College Football Playoff.

After posting an 11-2 record in head coach Mel Tucker’s second year, fans were bought in and excited for this season. Many considered four losses by season’s end to be something of a disappointment, yet here the Spartans are, with four losses through six weeks.

This season has revealed that Michigan State is still rebuilding from where things were left when former head coach Mark Dantonio retired suddenly in 2019. In a lot of ways, that’s understandable, but it hasn’t made this season any easier to watch.

I love MSU football. I spend hundreds a year on season tickets and tailgating. However, if you give me a bad product to the point where you’re getting blown out at halftime, I’m not going to stay at the game. There’s nothing wrong with that. Stop shaming fans for leaving early.
— Ryan (@SpartanRyan) October 9, 2022

The Michigan State fanbase is large, so the stadium will always have a good crowd. That is, until the games start to get out of hand.

After Charles Brantley’s pick-six in the first quarter against Ohio State, the crowd was alive, and the whole lower bowl was filled with Green and White. By the end of the third quarter, when the score was 49-13, you could hear the “O-H-I-O” chants around the stadium. By the time the game was over, Ohio State fans had to be over three-quarters of the crowd still in the stadium.

MSU isn’t losing games by a last second FG. They are getting blown out every week. Don’t want to hear the injury excuses. Some of the teams they’ve played have been without their best players anyways. https://t.co/rEnsofgjbJ
— Andrew Cumbow (@ACumbow) October 9, 2022

When you’re losing bad — Michigan State has lost four consecutive games by double digits for the first time since 2002 — of course questions emerge as to what has gone wrong. For Michigan State fans, there are two issues that have stuck out.

There is absolutely no reason Scottie Hazelton should be the DC on this team next year
— Kake 🍰 (@BemusedSpartan) October 8, 2022

Scottie Hazelton’s track record as the Spartans’ defensive coordinator has been the biggest talking point this season, and rightfully so. Michigan State gives up an average of 292 passing yards per game, and 445.5 yards total. Those numbers are among the worst for Power 5 schools, let alone every team in the FBS.

While fans may be patiently waiting on the record to improve, they have not budged on their stance of wanting defensive changes.

Michigan State’s defense has been consistently underperforming, but a new talking point has emerged this season as well. Should there be a quarterback battle between Payton Thorne and Noah Kim?

Noah Kim deserves some playing time
— 𝕊𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕟 𝔽𝕒𝕟 (@SpartyOn70) October 8, 2022

Some believe Kim isn’t getting as many chances as he should be, which may be telling. There are many different possibilities as to why Kim isn’t getting as much playing time. It could be a trust issue, practice performance, even possibly coaching bias towards Thorne. It’s hard to get a real answer, but many make assumptions.

In his limited playing time, Kim’s done well, putting together scoring drives in three different games already. The bottom line is that if the QB change hasn’t already happened, it likely won’t happen at all.

The Spartan fanbase is going through the seven stages of grief right now. There aren’t a lot of positives after a game where OSU had over 600 yards of offense and MSU barely had over 200 (87 of which came in the 4th quarter).

With the season already falling short of expectations, fans should hope for a better second half of the year. Making a bowl game, competitive losses, and possibly an upset would provide some contentment in the final six games.

After that, it’s back to the drawing board for Tucker and what remains of this staff. The Spartans have to hit the recruiting trail and transfer portal hard once again to try to plug the obvious holes this roster has.