In an atmosphere that felt as muted as the team looked waterlogged following Michigan State's 27-24 loss at Rutgers on Saturday afternoon, interim head coach Harlon Barnett was anything but in defense of his team following the loss.
"I start off by saying, you know, it's a tough game for our guys, for me and the coaches," Barnett said in his opening statement. "It felt like we can come in here and get some things accomplished and just fell short."
The Spartans did indeed accomplish a lot through three quarters of football. MSU led Rutgers 24-6 and scored on both opening drives of each half, something the offense had not done all season before Saturday. However, an epic collapse in the final quarter started right away with a fumbled punt that Rutgers recovered in the end zone, and it only went downhill from there.
"Well, like you just said, that started the momentum for them," Barnett acknowledged when asked about the fumbled punt. "We know throughout the course of any game there are momentum swings a lot of times, and that gave them some energy and momentum and we just couldn't stop it. Once they got it rolling, it seemed like it just felt like an avalanche a little bit. We've got to learn how to stop those type of things and to get better at that type of stuff."
MSU was itself the beneficiary of several momentum swings in the first three quarters. The Spartans had several key interceptions and even saw long snapper Drew Wilson recover a fumbled punt by Rutgers in RU's red zone.
The avalanche of momentum begun by MSU's own fumbled punt to open the fourth quarter proved to be the one that the Spartans couldn't find an answer to, though. It was followed by a three-and-out by MSU's offense and Rutgers retook the field and easily marched the ball back to the end zone, capping off the score by also converting the two-point attempt. Just like that, RU trailed only 24-21.
"It was still good," Barnett said of the sideline following the first touchdown by Rutgers. "When it first started, everybody knew that we were still winning. We were still up and keep going, keep giving everything that we have. We talked about before the game, we talked about special teams giving maximum effort. We said just the mindset, every time we play special teams — maximum effort; offense, score; defense, three-and-out and getting takeaways; and that's all we just kept saying. We just kept saying that, even when that happened."
Instead, special teams proceeded to allow Rutgers to recover a pooched kickoff following that second touchdown. Starting its drive at MSU's own 21-yard line, the Scarlet Knights immediately scored yet another touchdown. Barnett was unsure why the Spartans' special teams unit was unable to manage to field the ball, but oddly, Michigan State was lined up in an on-side kick formation, despite Rutgers not actually attempting one.
Barnett mentioned that the Spartans were anticipating an on-side kick from Rutgers, and went through what happened on the play.
"That was the time of the game where you go for on-side and so we got in our on-side formation," Barnett explained. "Our big guy was Tyrell Henry. He knows in those cases when you scoop the ball up that you can go fair catch. I don't know if he felt like he could get to it to give it a fair catch and get underneath it, and so that caused a little indecision for him, is my understanding."
Asked if he knew what went wrong in the final quarter, Barnett couldn't point to anything specific in the immediate aftermath of the collapse.
"I don't know for sure," Barnett admitted. "Sometimes you just got to go back and rewatch what happened. Other than momentum, you see those things happen throughout sports. You watch sports and momentum is a major thing. That's a real thing in sports. And so I don't want to make up anything and just say any old things that maybe guys start doing different things they should have been doing and all that kind of stuff. So I'll watch and I can probably give you a better answer at a later date."
The interim head coach was adamant that the players haven't quit on the team, though. With bowl game chances quickly dwindling after yet another loss for Michigan State, Barnett insists that the players are still out there giving it their all when asked about if he feared any were "silent quitting" in the level of effort they give to games.
"You can't fake it out there," Barnett said. "Your body language is going to tell everything. We talked about body language earlier this week, so you can't fake it. In this game, you've got to go hard and play hard and give everything that you have, otherwise you'll get hurt. So you can't fake it. Guys that have been playing football for a long time know if you don't give everything that you have, that's when you get hurt playing football."
The loss hurt, though. Barnett acknowledged that the gut punch of that fourth quarter swing was a hard one to stomach for the Spartan alumnus himself.
"Me? Yes," Barnett admitted in relation to whether the loss was akin to having his heart ripped out. "I wasn't like, 'We already had a win.' It wasn't like that in my mind, because I've been around sports too long. But because we talked about, 'finish, finish, finish,' no matter what you've got, we have to finish the game. Came into halftime, that's all we talked about: 'finish, finish, finish.' And so, feel likes we had the momentum. But like I said, when the momentum switch happened, we couldn't stay on the top."
The Scarlet Knights went on to score 21 unanswered points in the final quarter. Meanwhile, the Spartans' offense managed just seven plays the entire quarter, gaining just six total yards. RU, by comparison, gained 120 total yards, the most in any of the game for either team.
"We couldn't stop them from rolling down the hill," Barnett said of Rutgers' performance in the fourth quarter. "So we gotta learn how to do that. This team just keeps battling. For whatever reason, we've been chosen for this assignment, so we got to stand up in the midst of this assignment and find out what it all means."
One of the lone bright spots on the day was the performance of redshirt freshman quarterback Katin Houser. Given his first opportunity to start under center, Houser finished the day of rainy conditions going 18-for-29 and 133 yards passing, adding two touchdowns through the air and adding one more on the ground.
"The reason to go to Katin, I thought we just thought it was an opportunity for him to go," Barnett explained of the decision to start Houser. "We thought [it] was a chance to change it up a little bit. Not that it was all Noah [Kim]'s fault or anything like that, but we thought it was an opportunity to change it up and give him an opportunity to show what he could do. And we thought that he did a really good job today. I'm happy that he got his first start and wish we could have got his first win for him as well. "
It was also suggested that Noah Kim was dropped further down on the depth chart due to non-performance related issues. Freshman Sam Leavitt was the backup for Houser should he be needed.
"If it would have been today, it would have been Sam (Leavitt) just to help continue to let Noah heal or what have you a little bit," Barnett said. "He could go in in an emergency situation type deal today. Now, as you go through the coming weeks, we'll see how Noah [Kim]'s building and all that, and then make a determination from that."
As for what is next, Michigan is on the clock. The coaches and players will get 24 hours to get over the loss and then move on.
"No matter what, win or lose, you always have the 24-hour rule and and we're going to stick by that," Barnett said. "We still have six games to play and a lot of football ahead of us and so we know got to regroup and reset. I told them adversity happens in life."
Barnett made clear that the second half of the season means this team's final chapter has yet to be written.
"I said in 20, 30 years from now you may be telling somebody about this 2023 Michigan State football team and how that story ends is still to be determined," Barnett said. "So hopefully they're going to show them how we overcame."
The next opportunity to do so will be on Saturday, Oct. 21 against intrastate rival and No. 2 Michigan. A primetime matchup awaits the battle for Paul Bunyan.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Join the discussion on this article in our premium forums by clicking here.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, and Instagram.
For video content, including our Red Cedar Radar podcast, find us on YouTube and consider subscribing.
