Michigan State Football: 2016 Spartans can still save legacy

The 2016 Michigan State football team is at a crossroad as it prepares to battle the BYU Cougars.

Unless the Spartans experience an enlightenment and realize their early losses to Wisconsin and Indiana were fluke failures beneath their ability, they are most certainly going to fall short of their major goals.

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Michigan State has looked like a team without an identity thus far. The defense, while not short on star power at every level, does not resemble the Mark Dantonio-led units MSU fans have grown accustomed to watching. The offense, while dominant at times against Notre Dame, has struggled to find balance the majority of the young season.

Saturday’s final non-conference game against Brigham Young will prove to be a decisive point for Michigan State in 2016. The Cougars’ explosive offense, averaging 27.6 points per game, serves as a major challenge for a banged-up Spartans squad. BYU’s defense, allowing 444.2 yards per game, has been a pitiful mess that could give Michigan State the boost it needs to regain some rhythm.

Should MSU find its footing on both sides of the ball and get its key defenders back soon, it can still salvage this season. Following the BYU game, MSU hosts Northwestern and travels to Maryland in two games that it should win. Next up will be the big one with Michigan.

Certainly, almost no one would pick the Spartans to win if the next edition of the rivalry was played this weekend, but if this team can hone in on its strengths and get healthy in the next three weeks, they will have a shot on October 29. After the Michigan game, MSU has two more winnable games against Illinois and Rutgers before it hosts Ohio State on Nov. 19.

Given what we’ve seen so far from MSU, wins over the Wolverines and Buckeyes seem more like dreams than reality. That said, during the final moments of 2015’s game at the Big House and the opening kickoff of the rain-soaked game at the Horseshoe, MSU looked down-and-out then, too. The heroes of those games? Reserves Jalen Watts-Jackson and Tyler O’Connor.

Without a true identity, Michigan State will look within itself against BYU for its next group of heroes to step up and save the 2016 campaign. While some analysts wrote off the 2016 Spartans before the season started and are calling MSU a program in decline with the rise of Michigan and the continued success at OSU, as Dantonio once famously said, “It’s not over; it will never be over here.”

It’s time to see if the 2016 Michigan State football team will live up to those words or take a knee and pass the torch-bearing responsibilities to the 2017 Spartans.