MSU ground game wakes up, runs over Eastern Michigan after halftime
· Yahoo Sports
EAST LANSING — Ten yards from the end zone, Michigan State running back Cam Edwards strained as three defenders tried to wrangle him to the ground in the backfield. He dove forward toward the line of scrimmage with seemingly all his might. It wound up costing him. For the first time in Edwards’ five-year college career, he fumbled.
If that fumble pierced Edwards’ perfection protecting the football, then he made up for it the next play: a 40-yard gain that set up the final touchdown of Michigan State’s 35-7 win over Eastern Michigan at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 12. He finished the game with 21 carries for 152 yards and two scores. Both are season highs, two games into his Spartan career.
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“It’s not acceptable,” Edwards said of the fumble. “I was beating myself up about it, but I think I did a really good way of responding for the team and just putting that play aside.”
In a game MSU only led 14-7 at halftime, both outgained and out-possessed by a Mid-American Conference team it entered a 17½-point favorite against, Michigan State turned to its run game to lead it forward. It ran for 198 yards in the second half, and 258 of its 472 total yards in the entire game.
All those rushing yards offered redemption for an offense that prides itself on running the football. And for Edwards, who prides himself on protecting it.
“We didn’t want his last touch to be what happened there,” MSU coach Pat Fitzgerald said.
Three of Michigan State’s five touchdowns came on the ground, two of those direct snaps to Edwards. He rushed in a 1-yard touchdown to take a 14-0 lead midway through the second quarter and added a 2-yard gain in the third.
“When I was in high school, I used to play a little bit of quarterback, and we used to do a little bit of wildcat,” Edwards said of the genesis of those looks. “So you know, I kind of just stretched it over to Coach (Nick) Sheridan, and was just making a joke out of it. And then he actually took it really serious.”
So did Eastern Michigan. Michigan State called 45 runs to 26 passing plays. However, the Spartans had only mustered 60 yards rushing by halftime compared to 107 by the Eagles. In the second half, Eastern Michigan saw more of the team it expected to see: one that feeds itself through its gifted tailback Edwards.
“I think what they want to be is downhill running, tough, physical — you know what I mean?” Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton said. “Big Ten, Michigan State football, right? And I think that you can see that just in the first two games.”
“We took their best punch in the second quarter,” Fitzgerald said. “And again, credit to Coach Creighton and the staff.”
Already, Michigan State is up to 408 rushing yards through two games, with 250 of those and three touchdowns belonging to Edwards on 48 carries. Twenty-one of those carries came Saturday, and the Spartans plan on many more for the bell cow. Two of those — the aforementioned 40-yarder and a 33-yard gain in the third quarter — accounted for nearly half his yards Saturday and both led to touchdown drives.
“It makes it a lot easier on me to go out there and win a game when you got a guy like this guy running for I don’t know how many it was, but I know it’s a lot,” quarterback Alessio Milivojevic said of Edwards. “You got Marv (Parrish), Jazz (Patterson), and the guys in front that played their butt off. So I think it just makes it easier on me, and I think together, mixing the run and pass, it makes it a tough offense to stop.”
All three of those touchdowns, surprisingly, have come on direct snaps. If Michigan State is skipping the middle man on some looks, Milivojevic hopes his running back doesn’t get too carried away.
“This guy thinks he’s a quarterback, but I think he’s a pretty good running back,” Milivojevic joked. “So hopefully he can stay in that position.”
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: MSU ground game wakes up, runs over Eastern Michigan after halftime