EAST LANSING — It was the bounce-back performance Michigan Statefootball needed, even if everything appeared to come harder than anticipated against Maryland.
But the ninth-ranked Spartans scored fast and slow, doing just enough with their depleted defense to outdistance the Terrapins, 40-21, at Spartan Stadium.
MSU (9-1, 6-1 Big Ten) travels to No. 5 Ohio State next Saturday, with the winner taking command of the East Division. Kickoff at Ohio Stadium is noon on ABC.
“November is championship football, and I’m blessed to be able to be a part of that, part of something we’re chasing,” said senior safety Xavier Henderson, who is from Reynoldsburg, a Columbus suburb. “We put ourselves in good position to have opportunity (with) the big one next week in a crazy environment.”
Payton Thorne threw four touchdowns and went 22-for-31 for 287 yards with an interception, with two of those TDs going to Jayden Reed among his eight catches for 114 yards. Heisman Trophy hopeful Kenneth Walker III ran 30 times for 143 yards with two more touchdowns.
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The Spartans held Maryland (5-5, 2-5) to 3-for-13 on third down and had 481 yards to the Terps’ 447. Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa was 29-for-48 for 350 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, but MSU sacked him four times.
“We were aggressive in what we were doing, and the guys carried out the game plan and played hard,” coach Mel Tucker said. “It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But it was good enough to get the job done. That’s something that we can build upon moving forward.”
Down several key bodies on defense, the Spartans’ offense came out quickly to establish a lead with the help of an old friend: The flea-flicker.
For the fifth time this season, Thorne handed the ball to Walker and took a return pitch. And for the fourth time, the defense left a receiver wide open downfield. This time, it was sophomore Montorie Foster’s turn to benefit, snagging Thorne’s deep throw in stride for a 52-yard touchdown, his first TD as a Spartan and his longest catch. Foster started at wideout in place of the injured Jalen Nailor, who did not play for the second straight week with a right hand injury.
“You never want to come out sluggish on either side of the ball,” Thorne said. “We have a script and the play we scored on early was the third play on the script, and we got to it. Our guys executed it well, and Montorie did a good job getting open and then getting into the end zone.”
Matt Coghlin, who missed the Purdue loss, booted the extra point to make it 7-0 just 1:17 into the game. That allowed the sixth-year senior kicker to tie the school record for games played (with six others) at 54.
Two drives later, it was another quick-strike score for the Spartans. Thorne quickly marched them 86 yards in just five plays, starting the drive with completions to Maliq Carr and Reed, then getting 21 yards on Walker’s longest run of the first half. Two plays after that, Thorne found Reed, who broke free from his coverage, over two Terrapins at the left pylon for a 29-yard touchdown. However, freshman walk-on kicker Stephan Rusnak missed the extra-point attempt, leaving MSU’s lead 13-0 with 6:51 left in the period.
“We preached tremendously how attacking early was gonna help us out,” Reed said. “(Offensive coordinator Jay) Johnson had a game plan to make those play calls, and we executed those plays. And obviously, that helped us out tremendously to start fast. That’s what we harped on in the locker room before coming out.”
Maryland responded, though, by puncturing the Spartans’ defense twice on third down — a 19-yard throw on third-and-9 from Taulia Tagovailoa to receiver Rakim Jarrett, then a 45-yard designed run for the Terps quarterback around the left end. Peny Boone plowed in from 4 yards out on the next play to get the Terrapins on the board.
MSU broke character from there, putting together two of its best drives of the season. The Spartans’ 14-play, 59-yard march gnawed 6 minutes and 49 seconds off the clock — their longest scoring drive by time of possession — and capped it with a 2-yard TD pass from Thorne to Connor Heyward. They followed that up with a 13-play, 68-yard drive that took 5:44, with Thorne hitting Walker on a swing pass for a critical third-down conversion and the running back finishing it with a 1-yard plunge with 1:42 to go before half. Coghlin kicked both extra points.
All that time on the sideline, though, did not help MSU’s depleted and banged-up pass coverage. Tagovailoa needed just four passes to cover 80 yards in just 46 seconds, making it 27-14 in the final minute of the half on an easy 32-yard touchdown toss to a wide-open Chigoziem Okonkwo.
Maryland got most of its first-half yards on that final drive as Spartans had a 293-229 edge at the break. Thorne was 16-for-23 passing for 209 yards and three touchdowns in the first half, with 80 yards to Reed. Walker ran for 45 yards and added 29 receiving yards.
Thorne threw an interception on an end-of-half Hail Mary attempt that nearly turned into a big play for the Terps until his tackle on the runback. And Maryland carried that buzz into its opening drive of the third quarter, slicing apart the Spartans defense with a mix of short and long passes. Then linebacker Noah Harvey was called for pass interference on a pass intended for Okonkwo in the end zone.
On the next play, Harvey stepped in front of an errant Tagovailoa pass for his first career interception and returned it to the MSU 35. Thorne and Walker quickly led the Spartans down the field, with the quarterback hitting Reed for their second scoring connection, on a 3-yard slant, to swing the momentum. Coghlin’s kick made it 34-14.
It didn’t take the Terps long to answer, though — just three plays and 54 seconds to go 64 yards. Tagovailoa set up Okonkwo on a screen, Henderson missed one tackle and the Maryland tight end hurdled two other Spartans near the goal line for a 32-yard touchdown.
Things got weirder after that.
Spartans tight end Tyler Hunt was stripped after a catch on the next play, setting the Terrapins up deep in MSU territory. Tagovailoa moved them to the 2, but he was stopped on first down, nearly fumbling, then threw an incompletion at the back of the end zone. The Spartans dialed up a huge blitz on third down, and the QB was called for intentional grounding. Kicker Joseph Petrino missed a 41-yard field goal try on the next play.
Walker appeared to get hurt on the ensuing drive, leaving the field before Thorne got sacked on third down. Then after the punt, MSU defensive tackle Maverick Hansen was ejected for throwing a punch. The Terps moved to the Spartans’ 24, but cornerback Ronald Williams broke up a Tagovailoa fourth-down pass to force a turnover on downs.
MSU took over, with Thorne hitting Reed for 28 yards and Walker following with a 36-yard run to go over 100 yards for the seventh time this season. Walker capped the drive with a 3-yard run, his 17th score of the year, to put the game away with 10:34 to play.
Which sets up next week’s showdown in Columbus against the Buckeyes, who improved to 9-1 overall and 7-0 in the Big Ten with a 59-31 blowout of the same Purdue team that MSU lost to, 40-29, a week ago.
“I don’t remember the last time I played in the game like that, to be honest,” Walker said, “but we know they’re a great team.”
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