Michigan State football can make good, lasting impression on most tumultuous season ever
EAST LANSING — By this time next week, as the conference championships draw close, things will be just as busy for Michigan State football.
Only much different. Most likely with a lot more introductions and decision-making happening instead of game-planning for a bowl game. The byproduct of a coaching transition that’s to come.
Friday will be the end of the Spartans’ season, they understand that. Their limbo of waiting for a new regime to take control could end as early as Monday. But not before one final opportunity for Harlon Barnett and his team to find a feel-good way to end an unpredictable season and two months gone awry.
“To be honest, I feel like we've really seen it all,” senior running back Jaren Mangham said Tuesday. “So, mentally, I feel like we're strong. It's just a matter of finding that that want-to, that you gotta dig deep and just play for that pride, play for the guy beside you and play for your brothers.”
That barely scratches the reality of what MSU (4-7, 2-6 Big Ten) has endured since the season began Sept. 1, as it prepares to finish a tumultuous two months against No. 11 Penn State on Friday. The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at Ford Field in Detroit (NBC), a strange location that’s a befitting end to a surreal and increasingly absurd fall for the Spartans.
FAMILY AFFAIR MSU's Mangham brothers get rare chance to play together, at home
Because there is no chance anyone inside or outside the program had masturbation or espionage on their bingo cards as they went through preseason camp in August. Let alone both.
Two games into the season, players received an unexpected shock: their fourth-year coach, Mel Tucker, got suspended Sept. 10 and a fired 17 days later. His admission to sexual improprieties on an April 2022 phone call with a prominent rape survivor and activist proved his undoing, and a battle over his 10-year, $95-million contract remains unsettled and appears headed to court.
That thrust Barnett, a former star MSU defensive back and longtime assistant, into the spotlight as interim coach. He inherited a flawed team that Tucker, between late July and mid-August, went from touting as his best to questioning its depth of talent midway into camp.
Then came the injuries. A lot of them. To critical players atop the depth chart. For a team already trying to overcome the transfer losses of quarterback Payton Thorne and wide receiver Keon Coleman in the spring.
It made an already-difficult task seemingly impossible for Barnett and the remaining staff, even with the surprising return of a retired Mark Dantonio as an advisor, and the Spartans went on a six-game losing streak after Tucker’s departure from the team.
“Uncertainty is all over the place,” Barnett said Monday. “At the same time, you know that life goes on. … But you can just keep pushing, and that's all I know to do anyway. And so nobody will quit. This team knows it better than anybody, in my opinion. They understand adverse situations. They understand there's uncertainty. But just keep going.
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“If you keep going, if you finish, then everything will be OK.”
As injuries continued to mount and back-to-back fourth-quarter collapses cost MSU in losses at Rutgers and Iowa, perhaps the strangest situation brewed during rivalry week. Barnett and the Spartans got alerted by the Big Ten before their Oct. 21 game with No. 3 Michigan to an ongoing investigation into allegations of the Wolverines using technology and an elaborate scheme of ticket buying and video surveillance to record opponents’ signs. MSU further got pulled into it with allegations that a U-M staff member was incognito on the Central Michigan sideline during MSU’s season-opener.
The Spartans lost to the Wolverines, 49-0, the worst home loss in the 100-year history of Spartan Stadium. They would lose again at Minnesota the following week.
Then came the win over Nebraska. Then last week, another at Indiana, with an expected blowout loss to No. 2 Ohio State sandwiched between. Those victories look even more impressive considering how the season transpired and with how depleted the roster has been with injuries, as MSU had only 45 scholarship players among the 74-man travel roster last week against the Hoosiers.
“It's been a long season. It's been a hard season. A lot of people couldn't go through what we went through — and are still currently going through,” sophomore Jaden Mangham said after Saturday’s win at Indiana. “So we're gonna cherish each win to its fullest and just keep coming out and doing the work.
“We got one more, and we're just gonna go out there and fight our hardest to get the job done.”
That final chance for a group that stuck together throughout the chaotic fall comes not at Spartan Stadium, but instead in Detroit. With short prep and rest time. Against another elite opponent.
And then it will all be over, a roller-coaster ride with so many gut-shaking ups and downs and neck-jolting twists and turns. As they get through it and start turning their attention toward 2024, a new coach likely will greet them in a few days. How many of the players and coaches come back remains to be seen.
Yet for Barnett, the staff he inherited and the players who stuck around, this will be a journey with lessons they certainly won’t forget.
“Our guys have busted their butts all year long,” Barnett said. “They didn't ask for this, this adversity that came upon them this season. And so I would just love for Spartan nation to come out and show love for our guys, show love for them and respect for them for what they have done this season. They never gave up, they always kept fighting, and they will continue to fight through this game on Friday night. So hopefully everybody will show up and appreciate our guys for that.”
Because since nothing has gone according to script all season, who’s to say one final surprise might not be in store at Ford Field?
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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Next up: Nittany Lions
Matchup: Michigan State (4-7, 2-6 Big Ten) vs. No. 12 Penn State (9-2, 6-2).
Kickoff: 7:30 p.m. Friday; Ford Field, Detroit.
TV/radio: NBC, WJR-AM (760).
Line: Nittany Lions by 22½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football can make lasting impression on wild season
