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    • Michigan State Spartans defeated Iowa Hawkeyes to break their three-game losing streak
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    Michigan State Spartans defeated Iowa Hawkeyes to break their three-game losing streak

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    East Lansing – Michigan State was at a fork in the road, and it took – all the way to Iowa, all night.

    The Spartans were especially spectacular on defense, with quarterback Aidan Chiles showing great growth in his poise and decision-making and Michigan State riding the big leg of kicker Jonathan Kim to a 32-20, get-well victory over Iowa before an appreciative Homecoming crowd of 69,682. Saturday night at Spartan Stadium.

    The win ended Michigan State’s three-game losing streak as the Spartans won for the first time in more than a month. Heck, this was the first time in almost a month that they led in a game, improving to 4-3 and 2-2 in the Big Ten, and coming within two wins of bowl eligibility with five games remaining the regular season to go.

    Iowa fell to 4-3, 2-2, suffering its first loss against a team not ranked in the most recent AP Top 10.

    “I think this is one of the best games we’ve played as a unit yet,” said freshman wide receiver Nick Marsh, who had eight catches for 113 yards, including a nifty 11-yarder — highlighted by a nice spin move — om set up the Spartans’ final score and put the dagger in the Hawkeyes.

    “On offense, we are getting closer every week to perfecting our craft and executing certain plays.

    “I think we’re getting really close to where we want to be.”

    Perfect timing, with rival Michigan next.

    Chiles led Michigan State to scores on eight of 10 drives, including the last, when redshirt junior running back Nate Carter rushed out from a yard out to seal it, after Marsh set it up with an 11-yard reception that was originally set . a 12-yarder and a TD. Replay said it was number 1. Earlier in that drive, Chiles found Marsh for 24 yards and Kay’ron Lynch-Adams had a big tackle-breaking run of 15 yards for a first down.

    Marsh and redshirt senior receiver Montorie Foster Jr. both finished with 100 yards receiving, Foster with 100 on the spot. It was the first 100-yard receiving game of his career for Foster, who also had a touchdown catch.

    BOX SCORE: Michigan State 32, Iowa 20

    That final scoring drive answered Iowa’s touchdown by Kaleb Johnson, who had a 75-yard scoring run to cut MSU’s lead to 25-20 with 7 minutes, 22 seconds remaining. It was Johnson’s sixth 100-yard rushing game of the season (105), but he had just 15 yards at halftime. Excluding that Johnson run, Iowa had just 58 rushing yards.

    “Credit to Michigan State, they played a great game and we obviously didn’t,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “One thing about conference play, it’s a test every week and we didn’t pass that test.

    “So we will have to get back on our feet.”

    Speaking of feet, or feet, Kim has a good one.

    The graduate student’s placekicker set a Michigan State single-game record with six made field goals, including a 46-yarder, to make it a two-score game, 25-14, in the fourth quarter, just before Johnson’s TD run. That score was set up by Nikai Martinez’s interception of Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara, who had led the Hawkeyes in scoring on each of the previous two possessions after Iowa had managed just 58 yards of total offense in the first half.

    Kim also made field goals from 42, 43, 36, 29 and 55 yards, the 55-yarder his longest goal this season.

    He missed at the end of the half, from 55 yards – he had gone 13-for-13 so far this season – and he called it “disturbing,” but made up for it. The 55-yarder he made in the second half tied Michigan State’s single-game record of five, done three times before, twice by Paul Edinger and once by John Langeloh.

    “I wouldn’t say redemption,” Kim said of the 55-yard mark. “I would just say it was a new opportunity.”

    Kim was responsible for all the goals in the first half as Michigan State led 12-0.

    Before Kim’s record-breaking sixth field goal, Iowa had made it 22-14 on a 2-yard run by red zone quarterback Brendan Sullivan, a junior and native of Davison, Mich., who caught a high snap and ran away from the corner. from the end zone for an easy touchdown. Sullivan is now 7-for-7 and leads Iowa in red zone scores this season.

    Chiles, a redshirt freshman, found the end zone himself for the first time late in the third quarter and led the Spartans on an impressive 75-yard touchdown drive, capping it off with an 18-yard strike to Foster in the corner of the end. zone for a 19-7 lead. Chiles kept that drive moving with a nice third-down run, breaking a tackle and going 26 yards into Iowa territory. The touchdown drive, which spanned more than 5 minutes in the middle of the third quarter, answered Iowa’s first score, on McNamara’s 18-yard touchdown pass to freshman Reece Vander Zee.

    That Iowa drive covered 58 yards. Iowa had 58 total yards of offense in the first half.

    “They pushed us the entire second half and got within one a few times,” said Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith, who may have just gotten the first signing of his tenure.

    “And the response from this group has been tremendous.”

    Michigan State suffered big losses to two of the top five teams in the country, Ohio State and Oregon, and then spent the past week talking about how it won the bye week. It turns out the Spartans weren’t kidding. They bullied a team known for their physicality in Iowa, dominating all three phases of the game from the start.

    Michigan State scored on four of six drives in the first half, with Chiles moving the ball well, save for a first-quarter interception by Iowa sophomore defenseman Koen Entringer, an Ypsilanti native and Walled Lake Western alum. It was Chiles’ ninth interception of the season, but even that ranked third and the end result was not much worse, if not worse, than what a punt would have resulted in. The Hawkeyes did miss a golden ball. opportunity to take him out earlier in the first quarter, but it was dropped.

    Chiles finished 22-for-30 for 256 yards. His completion percentage of 73.3% was his best as a Spartan.

    Chiles also rushed for 51 yards, on 11 carries, but was hardly satisfied.

    “I think we’re still a lot better than what we showed today,” Chiles said. “We did a great job getting into the red zone, but we have to finish now. Kim can make his kicks, but we also want to get him in the end zone. So it was good to have Kim there, you can’t really do that complaining about a good kicker. I think we still did great things moving the ball, but I just have to finish now. My own performance is the team’s performance, so it’s like, ‘Hey, I have to also finish it.’

    “It’s mainly up to me, I have to find out.”

    The Spartans defense had figured out the Iowa offense. And it’s an Iowa offense that improved in the first half of the season under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester, the former head coach at Western Michigan. The Hawkeyes scored 40 points in a win over Washington a week ago.

    But on Saturday, Iowa was outscored 470-283 and didn’t get its first loss until the second quarter, thanks in large part to a pretty deep Michigan State defensive line that rotated personnel and stayed fresh throughout the game. Iowa had just 12 first downs for the game, compared to Michigan State’s 27. In the five drives in the first half, Iowa punted four times and missed a 58-yard field goal attempt by Drew Stevens that had a lot of leg but went just wide. right.

    McNamara, the senior quarterback who last played with Michigan at Spartan Stadium in 2020, threw for just 30 yards in the first half and finished 12-for-25 for 181 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. Martinez, a junior defensive back, and redshirt senior linebackers Jordan Turner and Cal Haladay each had six tackles.

    The Spartans rushed for a season-high 237 yards, with Lynch-Adams, a sixth-year running back, finishing with 86 yards as Michigan State improved to 71-34-3 all-time in Homecoming games.

    “I definitely think we have a high ceiling. We haven’t reached our full potential yet,” Foster said. “I definitely feel like we have a lot of growth to come, and I can’t wait to see that happen.”

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