Maryland will look to hand Michigan State its second consecutive loss this weekend when they head to East Lansing. The Spartans are coming off a 41-7 loss to Washington as quarterback Michael Penix Jr. completed nearly 80% of his passes and threw for four touchdowns and nearly 500 yards. Washington racked up over 700 yards of total offense as interim head coach Harlon Barnett will hope to turn the page against the Terps.
“We had to address the elephant in the room, we definitely addressed that,” Barnett said. “We got out butt kicked on Saturday, OK, bam, now how do we improve from that and get better from that? It was one game.”
Now, the Spartans are tasked with gameplanning for Taulia Tagovailoa, who leads the Big Ten in passing yards (889) and total offense (905). That’s helped Maryland’s offense as a whole also lead the Big Ten through nonconference play, while also leading in third-down percentage (.537) and stands second in first downs (78) and passing offense (304 ypg), but the Spartans will hope their experience of facing a prolific passer last week will prepare them for the upcoming Big Ten opener.
That doesn’t mean the Spartans view the two as similar quarterbacks with Taulia adding a different element to the defensive gameplan.
“This dude is all over the place. He’s running all over the place, so he’s different in that manner,” Michigan State interim coach Harlon Barnett said. “He’ll move out of the pocket, he’ll throw the ball from anywhere whereas I think [Michael] Penix was more of a pocket guy, although we’ve known him to be a runner years ago at Indiana…but he’s trying to stay in the pocket a little bit longer and throw from the pocket where Taulia, he wants to be in the pocket, all of them do. But he [doesn’t] mind getting out running around and still throwing it. It’s going to be a challenge trying to capture him and get him on the ground.”
The Spartans will present that challenge to the Terps’ offense as they enter the weekend second in sacks (10) thanks to seven sacks against Richmond. Khris Bogle, Simeon Barrow, Derrick Harmon and Zion Young are all back to lead the Spartans’ defensive line, starting in all three games, with Jacoby Windmon and Cal Haladay at linebacker, while the secondary should get a key piece back.
“[Cornerback Charles] Brantley will be fine, nothing major with Chuck,” Barnett added.
On the offensive side, running backs Jalen Berger and Jaren Mangham are “probably a week or so away” with Nathan Carter leading the Spartans’ rushing attack. They’ll look to create a more balanced approach despite entering the weekend with the second-worst rushing offense in the conference through the first quarter of the season. Whether Maryland’s defense is able to take advantage in the front seven and force quarterback Noah Kim to beat them remains to be seen, but for Barnett, he admitted he feels “more prepared than I did last week for Washington.”
“I also jumped on the Maryland film on Sunday. I’m watching Maryland, Maryland, Maryland. We got the film graded on Saturday night, just how I do it no matter what time the game ends, watch the film. So Sunday, I had a chance to really focus on Maryland and watch them.”
Maryland will prepare for its first hostile environment of the season as they look to finish .500 or better for the first time in conference play since 2014.
“Obviously they’ve lost their head coach and when you watch tape, as I told them, what you saw against Washington will not be the team that shows up Saturday. And I’ve been a part of a coaching change in the middle of the season when I took over for Randy Edsall. We were fortunate because we had a bye week, and it gave us a week to kind of get it out our system with those kids unfortunately didn’t have an opportunity to get it out their system or flush. It probably showed because the tape before that game, they’re the same Michigan State team.”
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