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All excitement of Spartan football returning on Saturday faded quickly in a rough first half against Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights lead Michigan State, 28-13, at half — taking advantage of four Spartan turnovers and extremely sloppy play from MSU in the opening half of the Mel Tucker era.
Michigan State looked like a team that is working in a bunch of new players into a brand new coaching scheme, with an extremely sloppy first half on Saturday. It appeared throughout most of the half that Michigan State was not on the same page and couldn’t get out of their own way at times.
Things couldn’t have gone much worse for the Spartans on both sides of the ball to start the game — falling behind 14-0 early in the 1st quarter.
The game started off with Rutgers going right down the field on the opening drive of the Mel Tucker era. The Scarlet Knights struck first when Isaih Pacheco found the end zone from 12 yards out, giving Rutgers an early 7-0 lead. Pacheco’s touchdown run completed a 10-play, 75-yard drive.
MSU would then fumble on each of its next two drives, with the second fumble coming on a strip-sack of Rocky Lombardi. That fumble gave the Scarlet Knights the ball on the one-yard line, making it easy for Rutgers to add to its lead with quarterback Johnny Langan scoring.
Michigan State would respond right before the end of the first quarter on a 50-yard touchdown pass from Lombardi to newcomer Jayden Reed. The play came on 4th down and 1 to go, with Reed running a quick out route, breaking a tackle and sprinting to the endzone.
There we go!@JaydenReed5 takes the @MSU_Football screen for 6⃣. pic.twitter.com/dqbZwhW8Ws
— Michigan St. on BTN (@MichiganStOnBTN) October 24, 2020
Rutgers would respond in the 2nd quarter after another Lombardi turnover — this time an interception — gave the Scarlet Knights a short field. Noah Vedral scored on a 24-yard quarterback draw to make it 21-7.
Michigan State would cut into the Scarlet Knight’s lead with a 45-yard field goal from Matt Coghlin. That field goal came following a Shakur Brown interception — which was originally returned for a touchdown but was brought back because of a Spartan penalty.
However, Rutgers would again respond — completing an impressive two-minute drill that was capped off with another Pacheco touchdown. His three-yard scored came with 36 seconds left in the half.
The Spartans were able to put together a two-minute drill themselves, with Coghlin getting it back to a two-score game with a 48-yard field goal to end the half.
Michigan State outgained Rutgers in the first half with 197 to 166 total yards. However, MSU finished the half with 52 penalty yards.
Lombardi — who got the start over Theo Day and Payton Thorne — finished the half with 153 passing yards and one touchdown and one interception on 14-of-20 pass attempts.
Potentially the only bright spot of the first half came in true freshman running Jordon Simmons — who led the Spartans rushing attack with 43 yards on nine carries.
Reed also showed some glimpses of how good he could be — racking up 82 yards and one touchdown on seven receptions — but he also had two fumbles and a drop on what would have been a big gain.
Michigan State will receive the kickoff to start the second half and will need to get it going quickly if Tucker is going to start his career with a victory.
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