4 ways to tell you’re gonna lose an upset to Michigan State today

Midway through 2018, Penn State fell victim to a common phenomenon in the Big Ten: the head-scratching and gut-wrenching close loss to the Michigan State Spartans, Mark Dantonio’s 12th time beating a higher-ranked team.

The 2015 season had a few such games, with the Spartans shocking Michigan ...

... and then beating Ohio State with one of their typical, soul-crushing drives that burned the last four minutes off the clock.

In 2017, Michigan took it on the chin again, with a backup QB throwing three interceptions in the rain, trying for a full half to erase a four-point deficit. Penn State joined the bad-weather party, losing to the Spartans on yet another four-minute, game-ending FG drive.

The 2018 Nittany Lions also lost to the Spartans late, as MSU WR Felton Davis III slipped through for the game-winning score. Here’s a glimpse into the agony their fans endured watching as the recycled plot unfolded yet again.

Very common in your typical narrow win by Michigan State, as Michigan can attest.

Against Penn State, the special teams snafus came early and often, starting with a fake punt that set up the first Spartan score:

This really should have been a touchdown, and when it wasn’t, Dantonio had to pull another trick out of his toboggan to finish that drive:

Later, the field goal units would get involved. First Penn State missed a 37-yard attempt that bounced off an upright, and then Michigan State attempted a fake FG from 40 yards out (Notre Dame fans can tell you all about Dantonio’s fake field goals).

It was a curious design, having a sophomore RB and place holder attempt a pass down the field to starting nose tackle Raequan Williams, but it almost worked. Instead it set up the need to make more defensive stops in order to get another crack at getting the needed points. Luckily:

You don’t see the Spartans scaring too many top-10 teams when the game is played in the 30s or even the 20s. It’s usually the result of a muddled defensive struggle. The Spartans held the Buckeyes in the teens or worse in four of six games between 2011 and 2016.

The 2018 Nittany Lions had 397 yards of offense on the day, and 126 of those came on two plays, RB draws for Miles Sanders. The first produced a 78-yard run that set up Penn State on the goal line for their first score. The second was a 48-yard scamper that ended in the end zone.

Other than those two plays, Penn State called 62 plays at 4.3 yards per play. Excluding the two breakouts, their 2.6 yards per carry in the run game made it difficult to sustain drives, as did the lack of any passing play for more than 25 yards.

Penn State’s ran its normal assortment of option run plays, only to see the Spartans play contain on the edge and force the ball inside to Williams and Mike Panusiuk (seven combined tackles), hard-charging ILBs Joe Bachie and Andrew Dowell (11 combined tackles), and strong safety Khari Willis (nine tackles). They only inflicted two TFLs on the day but consistently stopped up the inside lanes in Penn State’s belly zone, iso, and power run schemes.

Their effectiveness here allowed the meager contributions of their own offense to suffice. Michigan State had their first running play of the year for 20+ yards in this game, which set up the FG fake, and averaged just five ypa and 3.4 ypc.

The two teams combined for 18 punts, 11 of those coming after “three and outs.” Somehow the Spartans still managed to hold the ball for over 34 minutes of clock and protect their defense from staying on the field late or playing too many snaps. It was an ugly, ugly football game of the sort that typically characterizes a narrow and dramatic Spartan victory.

Each narrow Spartan victory has crazy swings and frequent turnovers that somehow don’t have the impact you’d expect.

2018 PSU was probably the most bizarre game in that respect, as the struggling Spartan offense repeatedly attempted to give the game to the Lions only to see Penn State refuse.

Officially, each team had a single turnover. The Spartans threw a single INT when QB Brian Lewerke tried to the force a hitch past tight coverage to a WR who was wearing a full cast on his right hand. The ball bounced off the cast and into the clutches of a Penn State safety.

This is the kind of thing that happens in these games.

Beyond that, there was a fumble by Penn State RB Miles Sanders that was ruled down and not reviewed, four fumbles by Michigan State that were all recovered by the Spartans (one of which was a terrible Brian Lewerke pitch that went out of bounds), and a pair of Lewerke passes that shoulda/coulda been interceptions, had the Penn State defenders held on. Bill Connelly’s numbers would’ve expected the Spartans to have a minus-4.1 turnover differential, rather than an even one apiece, based on how many times the ball bounced around.

Amongst them was this doozy on what became the game-winning drive for Sparty:

Six plays later, Penn State would lose the game.

The situation was third and 2 and the Spartans were already in field goal range with a chance to send the game into overtime. Penn State dropped its boundary safety down to try and deny a cheap pick-up like Sparty had just utilized on the previous play, leaving Amani Oruwariye (who’d just dropped the game-winning INT) matched up alone with Felton Davis III down the sideline.

A late, back-shoulder throw from Lewerke beat Oruwariye, who lost his footing, and then that was all she wrote.

Sometimes all you can do is shake your head ...

... because it happened again.

A constant feature of Michigan State takedowns.

Michigan State has a chance to inflict more agony this coming week as they host the No. 6 Wolverines in Lansing at high noon on Saturday. The current forecast: