Spartans fail to make a bowl game after 7th loss
Well, the 2024 Michigan State football season came to a crashing finish on Saturday night on a freezing and snowing afternoon at Spartan Stadium. For the second time this season and first time at home, I was on the field to witness a lifeless performance by my team (the other being the game at um). Like that other game, this game began with a strong drive by the MSU offense to take a 7-0 lead.
Unfortunately, from then on, it was the same old story for this team. Turnovers, penalties, and poor execution doomed this team and this season as the visiting Rutgers Scarlet Knights proceeded to score the next 34 points on their way to a 41-14 win. Speaking of Scarlet Knights, maybe I have become spoiled by our amazing mascot, but theirs is quite puny.
This game was a perfect ending to an imperfect season, as this team once again imploded, committed self-inflicted damage, and failed to adjust their game-plan in response to what the opponent was throwing at them. By the mid third quarter, it began to feel like the team had given up; there was no fight left in these players as they felt their season coming to its merciful end.
There was one other highlight from the game. Hopefully Zeke doesn’t chase NIL money to warmer pastures.
This was Senior Day, and as such, it meant a number of Spartan players saw their collegiate careers also reach their end. For most of those guys, it means their days playing football are over; there are not many pro prospects on this roster. It was why I had to be at this game. If MSU was going to lose and not qualify for a bowl game, I wanted to be there to show my support one last time for the senior class. To those students and fans that stayed until the end, thank you.
Indeed, the end of this game came with some serious emotions as the team walked off the field for the last time. There were teammates embracing in prolonged hugs. There were tears. There were guys hanging back and not wanting to walk into that tunnel.
Even members of the Rutgers team stood by and offered their emotional support to the anguished Spartans. It was what the end of a season should look like, not that crap that went down in Columbus and Chapel Hill and Tallahassee.
Defensive end Khris Bogle was among the last players to leave the field, and he indeed was having some feelings about it. I timed my departure with him and thanked him for being a great Spartan. He is one guy I really hope can carve out a role at the next level. He was a leader on this team and someone who gave his all until the very end. I hope his mentality will help adhere him to an NFL coach so he can catch on with a pro team.
One last note from being on the field, we know injuries in football occur, and they can look scary when you see them on TV. I had no idea how much scarier they are in person. I was crossing behind the MSU bench when Jaylen Thompson got hurt. It was an incredibly somber moment watching this young man lying motionless on the field as a team of people lifted him up to slide a board underneath him and then lifted the board up to place him on the cart. It was great to hear in the post-game press conference from Coach Smith that he had already been released from receiving medical care.
Onto that press conference, we had, in order, Jack Velling, Jonathan Kim, and Aidan Chiles come in to answer questions, and then Coach Smith came in to give his prepared statement and also answer questions. For me, the most interesting comments came from Chiles. If you have not already seen it, please take ten minutes and watch it . There were some brow-raising comments that really validated my thoughts that players were giving up on games and on the season in general. But it also made me question this coaching staff and their ability to motivate, inspire, and lead a team. Aidan talked a lot about guys needing to change their attitudes and mentality, and he said (without naming names) that there are players in that locker room that did not want to be there.
If there is one positive takeaway from the Chiles Q&A, I would say that he sounded like he knew he was not great this season, and he is eager to do better and eager to make this team better. But his comments about the attitudes of unnamed players was highly alarming. I would hope that the coaching staff sees Chiles’ comments and that they have observed what he has observed. If what Aidan said is an accurate analysis of this team, then the significance of this offseason just grew exponentially. The coaching staff needs to do some serious editing to change the makeup of this roster, not just finding more talent, but also finding players with grit, players who will “play all four quarters” as Aidan put it, and players who can help reshape this program.
In the next few days, we will wrap up our coverage of the football season. Mike, Steve, and Brian will each put out articles looking back at the season that was and what lays ahead. Certainly, there are questions that we cannot answer now, but hopefully this coming offseason will give us reasons to believe that those questions can be answered in a way that gives us hope for the future of MSU football.