Finally, after the long wait, Michigan State football is back.
During the offseason, I was incredibly ready for MSU football to be back, but I wasn’t considering how this season might go when thinking about it. Now that the season has started and I’ve watched the first game versus Central Michigan, I remembered how last season went—and how I hope we don’t have a repeat of last season.
As I was sitting in Spartan Stadium Friday night, all throughout the first half I was thinking how badly this season is about to go and that we somehow are going to be even worse than our 5-7 team last season. At the end of the first quarter, the game was tied 0-0. I was pretty disappointed that we had not scored a single point by then, but since it was the first game of the season, we were bound to have a slow start.
Once it got to 6:55 left in the second quarter, MSU finally opened up the scoring in the game with a 47-yard field goal by Jonathan Kim. That three-point lead didn’t last very long because with 1:51 left in the quarter, Central Michigan’s Chris Parker caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Bert Emanuel Jr. The PAT was good as well, and that made the score CMU 7, MSU 3. At this point, I was considering the possibility of MSU losing the home opener game and was very unhappy with the Spartans’ performance at this point. After that Central Michigan touchdown, MSU wasn’t content and made sure to take the lead back before the end of the half with a nice seven-play drive for eighty-two yards that was capitalized by a Nathan Carter two-yard touchdown run with forty-eight seconds left in the half.
During halftime, I sat on the metal bench in Spartan Stadium, eating my cookie ice cream sandwich, wondering if MSU was really only just a little bit better than CMU. That first half for the Spartans was pretty embarrassing, and I was almost dreading having to watch another half of that game. But before I knew it, the twenty-minute halftime timer was over, and it was time to start the second half.
The second half of the game, unlike the first half, was not a disappointment. In the second half of the game, MSU shut out CMU, not allowing a single point. The Spartan offense also did a better job in the second half, scoring three more touchdowns. The first Spartan touchdown of the second half was a twelve-yard run by running back Jalen Berger. The second touchdown was a spectacular one-handed grab by Tyrell Henry for his first-ever catch and touchdown of his college career. That touchdown pass was thrown by MSU quarterback Noah Kim. The last touchdown came off of another pass by Noah Kim to Maliq Carr, who got an amazing toe tap in the endzone for the touchdown. The final score was MSU 31, CMU 7.
After game one of the season, I think that there is one major thing that needs to be improved: how fast the team starts. The first half of the game was horrendous. If MSU were playing a BIG 10 opponent, this game could have been completely different, and MSU could have started off the season 0-1 instead of 1-0. To get more wins this season, MSU needs to start fast and make sure they stay fast throughout the whole game. After halftime, I think that just about every part of the team improved.
The next MSU game is going to be against the University of Richmond, once again in Spartan Stadium. I think that this next game will go a little bit better for the Spartans, now that they have the experience of a game and their opponent isn’t as good as CMU. I think it is going to be hard to predict how the Spartans will do this season, but if they play the whole game how they played in the second half of this game they will have a fairly decent season.
