How Injuries Impacted MSU Players' Snap Counts vs. Northwestern

Michigan State has been drastically impacted by injuries this season.

During Saturday's 24-21 loss to Northwestern, the Spartans went out there without their star running back, top three linebackers, top three corners, another fourth corner who was a key backup, starting fullback, backup quarterback, and starting left tackle. This drastically impacts who MSU could put out there, particularly on defense and each player's snap count.

Same Two Corners All Game

All the injuries at corner basically forced Michigan State to play the same two players at outside cornerback all day. Four players on the Spartans' defense played all 71 defensive snaps on Saturday against the Wildcats; two of them were corners NiJhay Burt and Jeremiah Favorite. Michigan State was actually a little bit fortunate to even have Burt available for this one. He had missed the last two games with an injury he had suffered against Nebraska in Week 4.

Burt is in his second season with the program after transferring in from Eastern Illinois. He redshirted last year as a true senior and was set for a backup role this year. Burt initially got snaps at nickel because of some struggles for starter Michael Richard, but other injuries to those ahead of him on the depth chart forced him back outside.

Favorite got the start as a true freshman. He'd gotten some playing time at Wisconsin and against Illinois, but the Spartans were really asking a lot of him in this one. Favorite ended up being the lowest-graded player on MSU's defense on Saturday, with a 54.3 mark.

That made sense with what showed on the field, but Favorite deserves a ton of slack. He still made a couple of nice plays for a true freshman. Open-field tackling will be the big thing to work on for Favorite, but that should come with experience and some additional weight. The secondary and the short-handed defense just seemed to run out of gas a bit after the Spartans' offense extended the lead to 21-13 in the fourth quarter.

Linebacker Situation

Michigan State also had to figure out how to shore up the linebacker spot without Jordan Hall, Brady Pretzlaff, and Caleb Wheatland. Hall has been in and out of the lineup this year with several different ailments. Pretzlaff is out with an injury he suffered vs. Illinois. Wheatland missed his second straight game with an injury he suffered at Wisconsin.

That essentially left Cam Stodghill and Dion Crawford. Both of them are true seniors who transferred into the program this offseason from FCS Albany and Buffalo, respectively. Stodghill played every snap on Saturday. Crawford played 54 snaps, good for a 76% snap share. Both of those are season highs for him.

One surprise was that second-year linebacker DiMari Malone didn't play on defense against Northwestern. Malone had played just over half of the snaps against Illinois a week ago and seemed to play fine.

There were points when Michigan State only had one true linebacker on the field, largely on obvious passing downs. Things were thin enough that defensive coordinator Joe Rossi had to get creative. Rush end Kenny Soares Jr., who was previously a linebacker at Northwestern and NC State, was the one spying NU quarterback Aidan Chiles on at least one play.

Different OL Rotation

Michigan State's offensive line had actually stayed pretty healthy through the first half of the season. The Spartans started the same combination in each of their first six games. That had to change when left tackle Ben Murawski popped up on the availability report last Wednesday and was ruled "out."

The expectation was that Rakeem Johnson would fill in at left tackle and Robert Wright Jr. would start on the right side, and that's what happened. MSU has rotated its tackles a fair bit this season. Johnson generally would play almost every snap, and Wright would normally come in whenever Murawski came off the field.

Johnson played every snap of the Northwestern game. Wright was out there for all but one, and that was because his helmet came off at one point, and he was required by rule to sit out a play.

It was a decent day for MSU's offensive line. Alessio Milivojevic was only sacked once, and it felt like the Spartans were winning at the line of scrimmage for a good portion of the game. Murawski is one of Michigan State's better run blockers, but the pass protection actually seemed better on Saturday than it had been previously.