State College, Pa. - This most likely is the place where Michigan State’s 2022 season came to die. But in the ashes, I don’t see a bad team wrapped within this disappointing 5-7 record.

The Spartans were just good enough to lose, again, Saturday against a soon-to-be-Top-10 Penn State team. But the Spartans didn’t look like a sub-.500 team against a Top 10 team when there were five minutes to play, and Michigan State trailed 21-16, and Penn State was desperately trying to regain momentum, trying to regain a trek to, perhaps, the Rose Bowl, but definitely a New Years Six Bowl.

Michigan State looked like a team capable of competing with this Top 10 team, if it could stay out of its way long enough for some of the Spartans’ face cards to be played.

But Michigan State tripped on itself just often enough, including a fumbled punt return by the usually heroic Jayden Reed, which turned a 14-3 game into a 21-3 deficit early in the third quarter.

And then, after rallying back to 21-16, Michigan State botched its coverage of a fourth-and-one situation from the 11-yard line, resulting in a Penn State touchdown, followed by a desperate Payton Thorne interception, and another short field for another seven points. And suddenly this five-point game became a 19-point bulge, which is exactly what the experts in Vegas expected.

But I’m sure the Vegas experts didn’t expect Michigan State to control the third quarter of this game, stop Penn State’s interior rushing attack in the process, and drive the length of the field twice on offense, with Thorne knifing the seams with good intermediate reads.

I’ve seen good Michigan State teams in the past, bowl teams of the past, take on Top 10 teams and get physically mauled at the line of scrimmage, and have no time or space to operate on offense, and just get dominated.

Michigan State didn’t get physically whipped in this game against Penn State. Michigan State stacked up pretty well at the line of scrimmage against Penn State, and had more tackles for losses than the Nittany Lions. Penn State had to go off script to score touchdowns with trick plays for three of its five touchdowns.

The first TD came when Michigan State redshirt-freshman walk-on, Khalil Majeed, missed an assignment as a dime back, resulting in an 11-yard TD pass and a 7-0 Penn State lead with :40 seconds left in the first quarter.

Mel Tucker says the job of a defensive coaching staff is to force an opponent to beat you “left handed,” with something other than its strength. Michigan State did that. The Spartans staggered Penn State. To Penn State’s credit, they had some crafty cartoons in their tool box and won this game with X’s and O’s more so than Jimmies and Joes.

Well, that' not entirely fair. Penn State had a decided advantage in available Jimmies and Joes. Michigan State's tenacity in the run defense through the middle stages of the game and Payton Thorne's toughness in finding intermediate routes in the face of the Big Ten's best pass rush also had a ton to do with Michigan State's competitiveness in this game - and scheming unquestionably had something to do with Michigan State's success in those areas.

However, there remain difficult questions about this Michigan State team and this Michigan State coaching staff. Quite often this year, the Spartan coaches motivated and melded this team to respectable performances as decided underdogs. That’s not a bad thing, when understanding why Michigan State was often an underdog in the first place.

But Michigan State lost this game to Penn State mentally and situationally more so than physically. There is good and bad in that. If you are hanging in the game physically, then you have proved you can compete with a Top 10 team on the road, and maybe prove capable of beating such teams. Mental and situational errors are more easily corrected in the short term than physical shortcomings. Of course, this Michigan State team probably has no more short term opportunities, unless they get a visit from the 5-7 bowl fairy.

The Majeed error was understandable. He was a fourth-stringer in September. He hasn’t played more than six downs in a football game since his sophomore year in high school in 2018. I can’t blame defensive coaching for that touchdown. I give coaching credit for whipping this team into competitive shape this week while basically not having a scout team on defense for the past month due to limited numbers.

I guess I don’t blame the coaches for Elijah Collins’ failure to run the ball where it was blocked on the last offensive play of regulation last week against Indiana, and leaving the ball on the left hash, giving the kicker a poor angle. That was Collins’ fault, and he smilingly took the blame for it, which was kind of horror-movie weird. But at the end of the day, is that player frightfully respectful enough of the coaches to make damn sure not to make that mistake? Obviously not.

Tucker espouses many Nick Saban philosophies and axioms as part of his football business plan. Saban wasn’t perfect. He saw some Michigan State teams quit on him in the mid-to-late 1990s. Some players didn’t respect him at Michigan State. That’s why some of his losses became fourth-quarter blowouts. He fine-tuned his bedside manner somewhere along the way and it worked perfectly for him down South.

Tucker says this is going to be a program with coaches and leaders who will confront and demand. I give Tucker credit for getting strong effort out of his players, every week, this year. But he will need to critique himself and figure out whether he is doing enough to confront and demand. Did someone like Collins have the fear of Saban in him to make damn sure he ran that ball to the middle of the field, like he was told during the time out prior to that play?

It was a small thing, but it probably cost Michigan State a bowl bid this year. So that’s kind of big thing.

It’s a shame that Michigan State put forth so much quality effort and planning to lead Indiana by 17 points on two occasions, only to see it wasted by a missed field goal at the end, which might have had a better chance to be converted if Collins had carried out the orders on the last offensive play from scrimmage.

We’ve seen mental and situational errors in late-game decisions against Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Lack of faith in the kicking game had something to do with the calculus in the Illinois and Indiana games. So I’ll give that a bit of a mulligan. But we’re running low on mulligans.

In this game against Penn State, Tucker says he didn’t consider calling a time out when, on fourth-and-short, the Nittany Lions made a quick, late shift and gained a four vs. three pre-snap advantage to the play side. When he watches film, I’ll wonder if he would reconsider if he had the chance.

Of course, saving time outs in the last five minutes of a game is extremely important. Making the split second decision to burn a time out in order to get out of a pre-snap disadvantage seems like it would have been the right move, here from a Sunday morning armchair. But in the heat of the moment, he wanted to save the time outs and felt the defense could get home with a six-man blitz and/or a defender on the perimeter beating a block to make a tackle.

Michigan State is good enough to beat Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and the like, but not good enough to survive too many late-game operational mistakes, and certainly not good enough to get away with anything less that perfect decisions when playing a Top 10 team on the road.

I hate to single out that play, and the coaches’ decision on that play, as the biggest reason Michigan State lost this game. Penn State was the better team. That play was merely the turning point which re-established Penn State as the team that was going to win this game.

The coaches did a remarkable job to get the Spartans to that point in this contest. They did a good job to get this team to rally past a fumbled punt and a 21-3 deficit to get back into the game with good offensive execution in the third and fourth quarter, and some key defensive stops. That was quality stuff. I can’t throw all of that away just because I would have liked to have seen those same coaches deliberate over that fourth-and-one situation a bit longer.

There are many things I would have liked to have seen in order to get a better read on these assistant coaches, who are coming under fire from needy fans. I would like to have seen these defensive coaches with a full complement of players, or something close to it, for most of the season. Last year, Michigan State was terrible on pass defense. MSU made a coaching change in the secondary. I expected the communication errors and assignment bust of last season to be fixed.

After Xavier Henderson and Darius Snow were lost to injury on opening night, this team would sorely miss its defensive leaders and coaches on the field. Snow was lost for the year, maybe longer.

When Henderson returned, midway through the season, the defense immediately improved. But he had to play with a rotating list of players around him. He finally lost his composure and threw a fit when Majeed made that error on a key third-and-eight situation at the 11-yard line.

Michigan State had played stiff defense throughout the first quarter, and was off to a good start in this game against Penn State, when the type of assignment error which haunted the Spartans last season crept up again, costing Michigan State a touchdown.

“It’s been like that since week three,” Tucker said of playing with second- and third-string replacements on defense.

There are no moral victories for Michigan State. But I’m always interested in conducting a meter reading on this team and the program. The gauge is difficult to read this year, but there has been merit in the process.

After the victory at Illinois, I felt the team was playing more like a 7-3 team than a 5-5 team, despite the revolving door of starters on the defensive side of the ball.

I really, really felt that way when Michigan State led Indiana 24-7 at halftime. That Spartan team looked like it was capable of going to Happy Valley and giving Penn State a very tough game.

The latter turned out to be true, for 56 minutes. But somewhere along the line, Michigan State forgot to finish the former. Michigan State hasn’t quit all season, despite injuries and obstacles and disappointments. They have continued to show up and compete to win collisions, which isn’t easy for a team to do when losses are adding up. I’ve seen past Michigan State teams quit, and get sick of being around one another. This team is not like that. And that’s a credit to the internal messaging of the head coach.

They haven’t quit. But at halftime of that Indiana game, you can’t tell me that they didn’t take their foot off the gas a little bit, and the focus flickered just a little bit. Indiana, with seven straight losses, should have been the team that quit that day amid the single digit wind chill. But Indiana kept swinging, and Michigan State lost its bowl eligibility that day, even with this game at Penn State still remaining. Even with Michigan State showing up and competing favorably against Penn State, just like I thought they could at halftime of last week’s game, but wasn’t so sure they would after last week’s pratfall.

Michigan State got up off the deck one more time and put forth a credible performance against Penn State. Just good enough to lose.

Michigan State’s record shows seven losses. With No. 13 Washington having blown out Washington State this weekend, while piling up more than 700 yards of offense, the Huskies could end up in the Top 10. If so, it’s possible that by Monday morning, four of MSU’s seven losses will have come to Top 10 teams.

The other three losses - to Minnesota, Maryland and Indiana - are where this season swung from promising to disappointing.

I could use a more derogatory word than “disappointing,” but that would be disingenuous because I didn’t expect much more from this team this year. You may have expected a better season. Therefore, you can use an uglier word. But I can’t, because I never drank or sold that brand of kool-aid.

I thought maybe Michigan State could win seven or eight games, which also means 6-6 was a distinct possibility. A five-win season is below standard, but if you had told me prior to the season that Washington and Penn State would become Top 10 teams, Michigan would become a Top 2 team, and that Michigan State would start 27 different players on defense due to injuries and so forth, then it all would have made sense that another win or two could get away from them.

Mark Dantonio used to say the difference between winning and losing is inches. He’s not the first to say that, but he was the right person to remind us of that lesson when he was winning.

He would trot out a 10-win season, accept pats on the back, but always remind us that the difference between a 10-win season and a seven- or eight-win season was a play here, or a play there. Yet seasons and careers, and firings, hinge on such plays.

Last week against Indiana, three massive plays went against Michigan State - the kickoff return for a touchdown, the 78-yard touchdown run, and the Payton Thorne interception. All three could have been called back by penalty. If a flag flies for any one of the three, Michigan State is probably 6-6 today and headed for a low tier bowl game. Not ideal, but it would be a more palatable platform from which to try to climb for 2023.

Michigan State went toe-to-toe with Michigan for the better part of three quarters a few weeks ago. Michigan State stiffened in the red zone, stayed in that game for a long time, traded blows. That loss might feel like a bruise to you, this many weeks later, but that loss might have come to the eventual national runner-up. You might need to hold your nose to consider that notion, but also realize that the Spartans have competed well, at times, against some very good teams, despite the crazy amounts of attrition on defense.

The loss to Minnesota? The Gophers might in fact be better than Michigan State right now. But back then, the Michigan State team that the Gophers played was a distant relative of the Spartan team that would take the field against Illinois a month later.

The Michigan State team that played Minnesota was without Henderson, and had no mental make-up on defense. The coaches couldn’t ask players to disguise coverages. Minnesota easily checked into offensive plays that would work based on MSU’s pre-snap look. Also, Michigan State coaches won’t admit this publicly, but the West Coast trip sapped Michigan State’s practice week much worse than anyone anticipated.

Illinois manhandled Minnesota one week later. Then Michigan State stuffed Illinois. The Minnesota players, and fans, must have wondered, how in god’s name did THAT Michigan State team defeat Illinois?

That’s how wildly different this Michigan State team could be, depending on who was available on defense.

Maryland was a little better than Michigan State when that game was played. If they played today, it’s probably a pick ‘em game, even with Michigan State having makeshift replacements all over the defense.

Maryland is 7-5 today, headed to a bowl game. That’s where I think Michigan State is, from top to bottom, as a team, right now, even if the record says 5-7.

So Michigan State is good enough to trade blows for awhile with some Top 10 teams, but not good enough to beat them. That puts Michigan State squarely in the middle mosh pit of the Big Ten. There is no shame in that, if you are secure enough with yourself to be committed to a steady rebuild of the program’s foundation. If you are delusional enough to think Michigan State should be 10-2 every season, then you haven’t been watching college football for very long, or you haven’t been understanding it.

Last year, Michigan State went 11-2, but Michigan State hadn’t arrived as a program. That was a false floor. The rebuilding job continues today and this week, whether there is a bowl game coming in December or not, with full recruiting high school classes the goal for a sturdier, process-driven foundation.

Tucker wants a roster full of players he has known for years. So that when he tells them, among other things, to run the ball where it’s supposed to be run on the last offensive play of regulation, he can look into a young man’s eyes and know the plan will be executed. And when a tight end is assigned to run an out route, he doesn’t make an improper read and run an option route to the inside, and crowd his teammate at the goal line for an incompletion on fourth-and-two, like Daniel Barker did last week against Indiana.

The record books will show that Michigan State isn’t good enough to earn a bowl bid this year. But when I look toward 2023, I don’t see a team or program building from a 5-7 base level. I think it’s a 7-5 type of team and roster. Last year, I didn’t think Michigan State was an 11-2 team or roster. I thought it was an 8-4 roster, even with the best player in America, and it was a team explosive and opportunistic enough to wring out 11 wins. But it was an 8-4 team and roster.

The difference between a 5-7 record and a 7-5 record with chance to win an eighth game against a Power Five opponent seems and feels a lot different than a few inches here and there.

You might not think a 7-5 record and a date in the Music City Bowl is that big of a deal until you go 5-7 and miss out on that extra game, the extra practices for the young players and, yes, the extra fun that a 13th game can deliver.

Henderson, a senior, could feel his college career coming to an end, Saturday evening at Beaver Stadium.

With Michigan State trailing 14-0, Henderson saw a lack of energy in his teammates.

“If this is my last game,” he yelled to them on the sideline, “then I’m going out swinging!”

They listened. They were affected. They rallied and got a stop on Penn State’s last possession of the first half. The Nittany Lions missed a field goal.

Thorne completed a 12-yard sit-down route to Tre Mosley, and a deep, 16-yard comeback to Montorie Foster, putting Michigan State in range for a 51-yard field goal for long distance kicker du jour, Jack Stone.

There was hope at halftime. And increasing hope in the third quarter, aided by Maliq Carr's magnificent, one-handed TD catch which cut the lead to 21-10, and then Thorne's crafty 2-yard TD keeper which made it 21-16. But Mount Nittany was too steep of a climb on this day.

“I was kind of thinking about it throughout the game,” Henderson said. “After the game, it did hit me pretty hard. I got my tears out of the way.

“I had already said thanks for everything to some of the coaches. And Coach Tucker said, ‘We don’t want to hear that right now. We could still play another game.’”

Henderson wasn’t aware of the loophole in the rules which could allow a 5-7 team to earn a bowl bid, if there are not enough 6-6 teams to fill the national allotment. Michigan State is in a holding pattern, waiting to see how many bowl slots are available and how many 5-7 teams are ahead of the Spartans on the last chance tarmac. The teams with the highest academic progress rate (APR) will be selected first from the 5-7 bin.

That was enough to give Henderson a little bit of hope that he could still play one more game with these guys. And you could tell after the game that he desperately wants to. And so does Thorne.

Henderson and Thorne sat at the interview table and answered questions after this game, diplomatically and with maturity, as they have all season, through all kinds of challenges and crises.

At some point, it probably occurred to them that this might be their last joint press conference. Ever. They have represented their team, program and athletic department so well this year in speaking with the press, speaking for the university at times. And now, this chapter is likely over for them. This was part of Henderson’s college experience. And it was ending.

When the interview session ended, Henderson and Thorne stood up from the table and shook hands with individual members of the media, thanked them for their coverage, thanked them for following the Spartans. Media members thanked them for taking time to share their thoughts with the public throughout the season. A season that they’re hoping hasn’t ended. But deep down, they fear that it probably has. It has ended before they were fully able to prove what they believe is the truth - that this team could have been good. Was good. And is good.