Western Michigan missteps outweigh 'flashes and splash plays’ in 23-6 opening loss to Michigan State

East Lansing — The bubble of preseason hopes and expectations popped quickly on Friday night, but Western Michigan is undeterred. 

Bitterly disappointed at a subpar showing in a season opener? Sure. Desiring to take back some miscues, mistakes and misjudged playcalls that cost yards and points? Absolutely. But a crisis it is not for Lance Taylor’s team that the season opener resulted in a 23-6 loss at the hand of Michigan State, in which the Broncos didn’t score an offensive touchdown and were shutout until the fourth quarter. The outcome was disappointing and a sobering reality check, with flashes of the team Western Michigan wants to be sprinkled in. 

“We’re better than we played, and you saw moments of that,” Taylor said.

But losing a season opener on the road to a Big Ten team is not something for the Broncos to hang their collective heads about, per se, even if they do feel like it wasn’t a performance up to their standard. 

What matters now is not so much the 60 minutes of football at Spartan Stadium, but how Western Michigan responds in the coming week. 

And there is ultimately much for the Broncos to respond to, starting with the quarterbacks. 

After a battle for the starting spot in fall camp extended into Week 1 between JUCO transfer Brady Jones and redshirt sophomore Broc Lowry, little about their respective performances separated them.

Jones, who started the game and played the entire first half, plus some second half series, finished 11-of-23 for 97 yards and an interception that came on a tip at the line of scrimmage late in the first half. 

Lowry, who didn’t appear until the first drive of the second half, finished 5-of-10 for 91. Lowry was a bit more effective as a rusher, including a 23-yard scramble.

Both quarterbacks led drives that ended in scoring range in Michigan State territory with turnovers on downs, had a handful of splash plays passing — Lowry had a long scramble, too — and generally didn’t have too long to operate on a night where the Broncos gave up four sacks and 11 tackles for loss.

And neither put on a performance to lock themselves in as the starter for good. 

“They both showed why we’re playing two quarterbacks and why they both earned the right to play for us in this game,” Taylor said. 

The ground game’s struggles might’ve been worse.

Western Michigan accumulated 61 net rushing yards on 24 carries (29 yards if accounting for sacks) and the leading rusher was Jalen Buckley, with 21 yards on nine attempts. 

The starting five offensive linemen of LT Adam Vandervest, LG John Hofer, C Jeremy Schleicher, RG Gavin Dabo and RT Chad Schuster held up OK at times but what Taylor called “critical” mistakes hamstrung the whole operation, as even one of the five making a misstep could derail a play. 

That led to the struggles rushing, as well as some of the issues in pass protection. 

And while game one struggles against a Power 5 opponent on the road isn’t surprising for an offensive line with several new pieces, it needs to get better. 

“We have so many new starters and faces on this football team, there were so many unknowns coming into this game,” Taylor said. “Training camp we were really excited about the pieces that we had, but we knew we were going to have to grow and bond through some tough adversity and some hard moments and, really, some failure to really come together as a team and be who we want to be. So with the offensive line, so many new starters up front, we knew we were going to take some lumps early and we’ve gotta continue to grow and get better.”

For all that did go wrong and needs addressing, there’s enough that went right for Taylor to feel good about the eventual outcome for his team. 

“There were moments in tonight's game where there were flashes and splash plays,” Taylor said. “We made some really big plays, offense, defense and special teams to show, I think, a lot of what we’ve seen during training camp, who we can be. But way too many errors, mental mistakes, critical errors, putting the ball on the ground, poor decision making, poor coaching decisions by me. We’re going to grow and get better from this.” 

Both quarterbacks managed to hit explosive passes downfield in the pass game when the protection did hold up. Wideout Baylin Brooks was on the receiving end of a few of them, and wideout Tailique Williams also showed some explosive pop. 

And then there was the defense. 

It did give up 21 first half points, but then pitched a shutout in the second half, as the Broncos outscored MSU 6-2 in the final 30 minutes, coming up with a pair of turnovers and some other key plays, particularly from defensive end Nadame Tucker, who had two sacks.

But the biggest play of the night came late in the fourth quarter, when safety and former Spartan Tate Hallock picked off Michigan State backup QB Alessio Milivojevic and returned it for a touchdown. 

“We were just having fun. Came in a little tense, but second half, we were like ‘Let’s just go have fun, let’s be the defense we know we can be,’” Hallock said postgame. “And that’s what we did. We had fun and we had a shutout in the second half, that’s all we could ask for.” 

Hallock’s interception, Tucker’s sacks or the splash plays on offense didn’t negate the bulk of the game where the Broncos didn’t play up to snuff, though. 

And the Broncos, disappointed as they might be after the loss on Friday, saw enough good to build on, to know goals are still firmly attainable. There’s some bad to leave behind, and some disappointment to channel into prepping to beat North Texas in Week 2. 

Because no matter how disappointing Friday’s outcome might’ve been for Western Michigan, the only way to make it worse is to take it with them. 

“I think that gives our players in our locker room some encouragement as we go into next week,” Taylor said.