Michigan State football needs a short-term memory against Minnesota's run-first offense

EAST LANSING — Mel Tucker said watching the tape of Michigan State football’s performance Saturday provided “exactly what we thought we’d see.”

Very little of it good. Especially on defense.

“It was embarrassing,” senior safety Kendell Brooks said Tuesday. “We got a lot of things we need to clean up.”

There isn’t any time for the Spartans to dwell or overanalyze what went wrong in their 39-28 defeat at Washington. MSU went right back to work to prepare for a visit from Minnesota on Saturday to open Big Ten play.

The mistakes from last week become more costly if the Spartans (2-1) repeat them this week against the Gophers, who arrive with a 3-0 record and the current front-runner to win the West Division. MSU, meantime, continues to harbor hope of shaking off the nonconference road loss and running the table in the East.

“Everything that we set out to do at the beginning of the season is still on the table,” senior linebacker Ben VanSumeren said. “We’re playing Big Ten ball now, so obviously it makes us lock back in because everything is right there. And it starts this week, so we gotta have a short-term memory and we need to move on right now.”

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That has been a key for Tucker throughout his tenure, quickly putting the previous game in the past. The sense of urgency to do so increases after a loss, just the third for the Spartans in the past two seasons — especially when the problems, coaches felt in watching the game film, were all-encompassing.

On defense, the same issues MSU’s linebackers and secondary faced against the pass last season persisted in its first test against Power Five competition. Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. threw for 397 yards and four touchdowns, moving the ball at will and picking apart the Spartans at every level of their defense.

“Just simple mental errors and mental mistakes, like lining up on the wrong leverage in man coverage,” Brooks said. “Stuff like that, stuff we know. So it was just kind of tough to figure out why we were doing those kinds of things.”

Offensive coordinator Jay Johnson pointed to the two goal-line stands MSU’s defense put up in holding the Huskies out of the end zone and giving his offense the ball at the 1-yard line. The Spartans managed just one play after those turnovers on downs, giving up a safety in the first quarter that was part of Washington’s 22-0 jumpstart and throwing an interception in the fourth quarter as MSU tried to rally back.

“That was very, very disappointing from that perspective,” Johnson said Tuesday.

But Johnson also pointed to positives with quarterback Payton Thorne’s overall play with receiver Keon Coleman and tight end Daniel Barker and the offense’s ability to pull within two scores late while not giving up when down 25 points.

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“Everybody had to look at themself and be like, 'OK, I'm gonna keep chopping.' So I think that was the mindset for everybody,” said Barker, who had seven catches for 69 yards. “We're not looking at a scoreboard — we never look at a scoreboard, whether we're up or we're down. We don't look at the scoreboard, we just continue to chop and take it one play at a time, six seconds a play and just go”

Minnesota's run-dominant offense presents a much different challenge than Washington’s pass-heavy scheme. Running back Mohamed Ibrahim ranks second in the Football Bowl Subdivision at 154.7 yards per game on the ground, and fellow sixth-year senior quarterback Tanner Morgan is starting his fifth season and averages 206 yards. The Gophers have the second-best offense in the country at 554.7 yards per game and seventh-highest scoring offense at 49.7 points a game.

“They're a very run-heavy team. We've seen that,” VanSumeren said. “We got to play physical, and we got to stop the run. ... We're just going to play our defense no matter who we play, week in and week out. We're going to play our strengths, whatever the offense brings us.”

It is MSU’s first game against the Gophers since 2017, when the Spartans held on for a 30-27 win in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s last visit to East Lansing was a 14-3 MSU escape late in the 2013 season en route to a Big Ten title and Rose Bowl victory.

Things this year’s team knows remain attainable despite the early-season roadbump.

“We got to go out there and make plays. As a team,” Thorne said. “We're all to be held accountable for win, lose or draw. We got to all move in the right direction.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football's new challenge: Minnesota's run-first offense