The Michigan State football team struggled in 2022, finishing with a 5-7 record and a 3-6 mark in Big Ten play. The Spartans dealt with a high amount of injuries and suspensions throughout the year, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

For the third year in a row, MSU had trouble defending the pass. The Spartans allowed 237.9 yards per game through the air, which ranked 87th nationally and 13th out of 14 teams in the Big Ten. This was actually a major improvement from the 2021 team that allowed nearly 325 passing yards allowed per game and ranked dead last in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Of course, that team went 11-2, so the 2021 squad was able to make up for it in other areas. That was not quite the case in 2022. Surprisingly, however, the 2022 team actually allowed more yards per attempt (7.93) than the 2021 squad (7.29). The 2021 Spartans faced far more passing attempts (579) than the 2022 MSU team (360).

It should also be pointed out that the 2022 passing defense was also a slight improvement from the 2020 team (239.4 passing yards allowed per game), so the 2022 team was actually statistically the best in the Mel Tucker era at Michigan State in terms of passing yards allowed per game. Once again, however, yards per attempt in 2020 (6.79) were quite a bit better than 2022 (7.93). So, interestingly, the 2022 team was also the worst in Tucker’s three seasons in terms of yards allowed per passing attempt. Obviously, it is worth noting that the 2020 season was shortened to just seven games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and MSU only faced 247 passing attempts against that season.

With all of that said, the objective of this article is not necessarily to compare the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Michigan State teams. The opponents, game plan and flow of a game dictate how many passing plays a team will call in any given contest. The purpose of this exercise is to dissect how often Michigan State defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton used certain coverage types in 2022.

There was a lot of criticism toward the coaching staff in 2022 – and at least some of that is justified – but one common narrative that isn’t exactly true is that the coaches did nothing to adjust in games or throughout the season. Despite the struggles, one thing that should be noted is that Hazelton and Tucker did try to switch things up defensively, at least in terms of coverages. With a depleted defense, though, some of the struggles may have had more to do with personnel on the field than coaching.

As mentioned, Michigan State faced 360 passing attempts during the 2022 season. According to Sports Info Solutions, the Spartans played a majority zone coverage, which is unsurprising. Note that the SIS data excludes red zone and goal line passes in these metrics, so there are 83 pass attempts unaccounted for. Due to this discrepancy in data, the only thing we were able to glean from the red zone metrics is that MSU played zone coverage on 43% of the plays and man coverage 22% of the plays (it is unclear, but the missing 35% in the red zone may be running plays or plays were coverages were not detected).

It appears that Sports Info Solutions counts cover-0, cover-1 and cover-2 man plays as “man” coverages. Meanwhile, cover-2, cover-3, cover-4 and cover-6 are “zone” coverages. Of course, there are different variations of each coverage type, but overall, SIS charts 98 plays in man coverage and 179 plays in zone for Michigan State in 2022.