Congratulations Michigan State football… you are in a class of your own among your Big Ten peers.
With Saturday’s embarrassing blowout loss to Rutgers, Michigan State officially missed out on the bowl season for a third straight year. Michigan State needed a victory over Rutgers to become bowl-eligible in Jonathan Smith’s first year as the Spartans’ head coach.
It’s disappointing that Michigan State will not be playing in the postseason again this year, especially after a 3-0 start to the year, and quite honestly, a nearly 4-0 start before blowing a late lead against Boston College. But the three-year bowl drought is even worse when you look at all of the other Big Ten teams.
Michigan State is now the only team of all 18 in the Big Ten that will not play in a bowl game over the last three seasons. That means every other team has either already played in a bowl the past two seasons or will be bowling this year. That’s simply bad.
Michigan State still has the ability to get back to winning big if things come together in the right way. But the last three years (and really four of the last five with 2021 being the anomaly) have been rough. It’s an understatement to say Michigan State must get back to a bowl next year as a minimum for the program to get back on track.
It’s going to be a long offseason for the football program. Hopefully, we won’t be having this same bad taste in our mouths this time next year.
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