Graham Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State's OT loss to Illinois

EAST LANSING – Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch offers up three quick takes on Michigan State football after the Spartans‘ 38-37 OT loss to Illinois at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 10.

Those who stayed at Spartan Stadium at least got their money’s worth. That’s something, I guess. This was a new way for MSU fans to feel empty. An improvement over last week, and the week before that.

Unlike the last two games, MSU should be proud of its resolve and angry at itself for Saturday’s 38-37 overtime loss to Illinois. Because the Spartans could have won this one, if not for a number of poorly timed penalties and a lifeless start.

MSU’s football team needed that win as badly as any team has ever needed anything. Maybe that’s a bit much. But it feels like it, given how that game was going and where the season was (and still might be) headed. It’ll be interesting whether this fuels their grit or demoralizes them.

The Spartans lost this game because they couldn’t execute a final 2-point conversion — a play Pat Fitzgerald said he felt good about, but that Illinois covered well — and for many other reasons. Despite their resolve, they had too many self-inflicted errors, not enough difference-makers, nor healthy bodies. The injuries at linebacker and cornerback, especially, are getting ridiculous.

Still, it’s amazing what a few positive plays by MSU did for the Spartan Stadium crowd. This place, this fanbase was desperate for something to cheer for. And you could hear that energy when the Spartans finally delivered. It’s a team as snakebitten as any I’ve covered and nowhere near good enough to be snakebitten.

Ultimately, this is still a football team more likely to win two games than four. And yet, as of mid-October, this looks like a team that’ll go down swinging. And less likely to be history-making, in a bad way, than it appeared they might be after the first quarter Saturday.

Until this team wins again, they’ll be in danger of going down in history as the worst at MSU since the winless Aggies of 1917. Even Muddy Watters’ two-win team in 1982 only lost nine games. Every other team in the last 115 years of MSU football has won at least three games.

MSU’s last 2½ quarters were that of a team that has something still to give and maybe a win or two to snare. But the opportunities aren’t going to get much better than finishing against a freshman backup quarterback, with momentum, in front of a lively crowd, on a day that felt like it might be theirs.

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MSU committed enough penalties in this game – nine of them, several at critical times – that it can’t blame the refs for the defeat. And the Spartans’ defense came up with a fourth-down stop after the offsides call on the onside kick, so that can’t be viewed as the determining play.

But how can you not be allowed to review an offsides call on a kickoff that determines possession? We shouldn’t accept foolishness in our sports’ rules, just as we shouldn’t accept ineptitude from our football teams. These games are already four hours long with 75 four-minute breaks. What’s one more to get it right.

MSU should have had the ball with near midfield in the middle of the fourth quarter, trialing by a touchdown. But Samson Gash was ruled offsides on the onside kick, which ended with him corralling the ball, while keeping his feet inbounds.

The replay showed he wasn’t offsides. In soccer, this is corrected all the time through video assistant referee (VAR). How, in 2026, in American football, do we not have the ability to correct such an error? The official made a mistake he should not have. You shouldn’t see things that aren’t real. But that’s a human error. That it can’t be corrected is the error of a lot of humans.

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Among the things that stink about the transfer portal era of college football: In a year when nothing is going right and your roster doesn’t have much going for it, you used to be able to enjoy the emergence of a young player like MSU redshirt freshman tight end Jayden Savoury, who had another notable performance Saturday with a team-high six catches for 49 yards and a recovery of Rodney Bullard’s fumble to keep alive the game-tying drive.

A decade ago, you’d think: That guy is going to be really, really good.

Today, you think: I wonder if MSU will be able to keep him?

There are a lot of challenges in college sports right now. But at the forefront of what is damaging this sport is fans’ inability to build lasting connections with players and trust that a young talent is going to be part of their program for years to come.

Part of being able to endure seasons like this MSU football season is being able to find elements of hope for the future. That no longer exists in college athletics in any concrete form. That’s a problem.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Graham Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State’s OT loss to Illinois