One Painful Stat Revealed from MSU's Loss to Minnesota
It feels like Michigan State should have won against Minnesota on Saturday, but the Spartans made several mistakes that allowed the Golden Gophers to come back and win 23-20 in overtime.
One specific stat confirms just how painful and improbable the defeat is for MSU.
ESPN's Bill Connelly is the man in charge of the company's SP+ metric. One thing it tracks is called "postgame win expectancy," which takes all the stats from a game and comes up with a number that determines how often a team should win or lose a game.
On Sunday morning, Connelly released his numbers, and they say that Michigan State would be expected to win that game 92.6% of the time, with an average expected margin of victory of 11.0.
Some additional pain comes from that Connelly says Minnesota's 7.4% expected shot at victory is the second-lowest number in a victory this year, only behind Duke (6.1%) against Clemson, which also was on Saturday.
If it is some consolation, MSU does have one improbable victory this year. SP+ gave the Spartans a 22.6% postgame win expectancy during their 42-40 double-overtime win against Boston College. Every other game this season, the winner of every game on Michigan State's schedule had at least a 96.8% postgame win expectancy.
Why the Numbers Check Out
The big thing that sticks out from the box score is the total yardage. Michigan State out-gained Minnesota 467-301. With no turnovers for either side, a difference of 166 yards should be enough for a team to find a victory.
MSU's Alessio Milivojevic certainly outplayed Minnesota's Drake Lindsey in what was a battle between two redshirt freshman quarterbacks. Milivojevic threw for 311 on 11.1 yards per attempt; Lindsey had 197 yards and a mere 5.1 yards per throw.
The Spartans also out-rushed the Gophers 156-104. With MSU's seven sacks filtered out, that stat becomes 212-110. Michigan State's Elijah Tau-Tolliver out-ran Minnesota by himself, going for 127 yards.
Time of possession was also in favor of MSU. The Spartans had the ball for 34:34 in regulation, and Minnesota had it for 25:26.
But what cost Michigan State was several key mistakes. Martin Connington missed two field goals and had a kickoff out of bounds before the Gophers' game-tying drive that forced overtime. There was an instance of MSU failing to convert third-and-1 and fourth-and-2 just outside of the red zone.
The Spartans also got penalized 10 times for 96 yards, while Minnesota only got flagged twice for eight yards.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.