As hits keep coming, how does Michigan State football keep up the fight?

EAST LANSING — They have been rocked by scandal, the midseason firing of their head coach, a losing streak that has stretched to five games and a 49-0 thrashing by their greatest rival.

Just when it seemed as if it couldn’t get worse for Michigan State football, the Spartans learned Tuesday that starting defensive tackle Simeon Barrow and backup offensive tackle Keyshawn Blackstock had entered the NCAA transfer portal. When safety Malik Spencer heard the news of their departures, he didn’t have much of a reaction.

“It is what it is,” he said rather dispassionately.

If Spencer seems numb to the tide of adversity that has hit the program, it’s because he is.

“So, like, now what?” Spencer said.

It’s a reasonable question to ask in this cursed corner of East Lansing, where MSU has fallen fast. But it’s hard to imagine anything could push the Spartans deeper into the abyss when they have already reached such low depths.

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Their season, by all measures, has been an unmitigated disaster, which has left existential dread about the program’s future in an expanded Big Ten that will welcome four new members in 2024. The staff assembled by fired coach Mel Tucker has been tasked with preventing MSU from sinking further during this perilous time. But the setbacks and defections are starting to accumulate, which have threatened to sap the rest of the team’s diminished morale.

“You’ve got to try to be positive,” cornerbacks coach Jim Salgado said. “You can’t be negative.”

Of course, it would be easy for the Spartans to wallow in their own pity. With MSU already saddled with five defeats, the prospect of missing out on bowl eligibility for the second straight year is very much real because games against No. 3 Ohio State and No. 10 Penn State are still left on the schedule. It blunts the hope of an unexpected resurgence considering how overmatched the Spartans looked against Michigan last Saturday.

The Wolverines beat MSU at every turn, turning Spartan Stadium into an open coffin in the second half of the lopsided affair. On the way to handing Michigan State its worst home loss in program history, they netted 18 more first downs, held a 12-minute time of possession advantage and averaged twice as many yards per play than the Spartans.

“You can imagine a lot of guys are definitely upset, disappointed,” running back Nathan Carter said afterwards. “No one wants to have their rival in their own house the way that we lost. It’s definitely tough.”

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But the Spartans are somehow coping.

While their spirit has eroded, it hasn’t completely dissolved.

They still have some fight left in them, Salgado observed.

“Turn the tape on and watch,” he said. “Are the guys playing hard? ... Are they doing the little things? Yes.”

Some are incentivized from a personal standpoint to keep going.

Take for instance, Katin Houser. The redshirt freshman supplanted Noah Kim as the starting quarterback earlier this month and is eager to hold onto that role. The season may seem like a lost cause for the Spartans, given all that has transpired. But for Houser, it isn’t. Beginning with a road test at Minnesota, the next five weeks may determine his future in East Lansing.

“I feel like every play, every game is an opportunity to show what you can do,” he said. “I feel like every chance I get I play like it’s my last game … I’m just trying to get myself as better as I can each and every day.”

Spencer can relate.

“Regardless of what’s going on,” he said, “I’m going on the field (ready) to play. I’m putting out film. I can’t really too much harp on the outside stuff. You just make sure you do your job as good as possible and execute.”

There really is no other alternative, he added. As he sees it, the players must accept what has happened and make the best of this bad situation. After all, they have absorbed the stink from this rotten season, which has left them with few other options other than extricating themselves from this mess by attaining some good results in the remaining games.

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“We can’t do nothing if we’re not winning,” he said. “You can’t go where you want to go. You can’t go to the league. You can’t do nothing.”

It’s a powerless feeling. But it has become MSU’s sad reality during a miserable season when the Spartans have come to expect the worst. And yet in spite of it all, they remain determined to make it to the finish line.

“Gotta keep on going,” Spencer said.

Somehow, some way.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Amid rough season, Michigan State football now numb to the adversity