West Lafayette, Ind. - This loss might hurt more if Michigan State had been the better team.
But Purdue’s passing attack, pitted against the Spartans’ porous pass defense, made the Boilermakers - a good team - a bad matchup for Michigan State - which is also a good team.
But a team like Michigan State, with screws loose in the secondary, can’t expect to run the table in the Big Ten, much less arrive in Columbus two weeks from now as an unbeaten, No. 3-ranked faux powerhouse.
Michigan State had been great up to this point in the season, even while being mediocre in some areas on the field. Great in that the Spartans were consistently good enough to remain unbeaten through eight games. Great in that they lifted the program back into national relevancy.
Everything about Spartan football last week was elite: The comeback, the victory over Michigan, the uniforms, the packed, loud stadium, the social media storm, the head coach’s bravado and rise to fame, the Heisman hype, the visiting recruits, and the student section - which is the best I’ve seen at Michigan State, going back more than 30 years.
P.J. Fleck talks every day at Minnesota about being elite. He tries to wish it into existence. At Michigan State, last week, you didn’t have to wish. Some parts of the program were even more sparkling than Dantonio’s best years.
Looking for evidence of an elite brand? Did you see Purdue's fans storm the field after they beat Michigan State? There's your answer.
However, as I wrote in Friday’s Pre-Snap Read, Michigan State is not “there yet” in terms of personnel on pass defense. Getting revved up in the secondary is going to be more than the one-year fix Michigan State implemented at running back.
This year has been a season of celebrating MSU’s success in the transfer portal. But not all of Michigan State’s portal players were proven, experienced standouts at their previous stops.
Michigan State signed four cornerbacks out of the transfer portal last winter. Those four had zero combined starts at the Division I level prior to this season. Development was needed when they arrived, and that will be the case until they leave.
Coming into the year, one of my biggest questions for the team was how a secondary - a back seven, really - of so many new faces would be able to achieve a level of winning “same pageness” in pass defense. Nine games into the season, we might think that many of those issues should have been ironed out by now. But you can’t iron without material.
Michigan State’s pass defenders and pass rush have been good enough against Northwestern, Rutgers, Indiana, Nebraska and even Miami. Good enough to win despite becoming one of the statistically-worst pass defenses in the country.
But Purdue threw for 377 yards against a strong, sound, veteran Iowa defense. Any team that can do that is capable of posing more tests and problems for the Michigan State pass defense than any outfit the Spartans had seen to this point in the season.
But I didn’t expect 536 yards from Purdue. That’s obscene.
The transfer cornerbacks helped create competition when they arrived. They brought an influx of talent to the position. But remember what Mel Tucker tells us about the process? He is demanding of accelerated progress, but there are no magic wands, especially at a position that requires so much communication and playing off of one another.