On Friday, Michigan State football kicks its season off against in-state opponent Western Michigan. The Spartans enter year two under Jonathan Smith returning their star quarterback, wide receiver, and left tackle, but looking to improve and return to a bowl game for the first time in four seasons.<\/p>\n
The Broncos lose a majority of their defense from last season, which was already not among the best in the Mid-American Conference. Combine that with the Kalamazoo squad losing their entire receiving room and RB1 and RB3 from last fall, and there is a lot unknown about the Broncos. Worse yet, critical Michigan transfer running back Cole Cabana, a former four-star and top-200 recruit, has been ruled out for the game.<\/p>\n
The current line, as of 6 p.m. EST on Thursday, was listed with the Spartans at 20.5-point favorites. The line has moved a bit since the news about Cabana broke, with it opening in the 19.5-point range. The point total for the game remains at 49.5 points.<\/p>\n
In turn, some of the projections for Friday\u2019s game got a bit ludicrous. Here\u2019s what our staff writers (and podcast guest) predicted.<\/p>\n
Emmett Matasovsky:<\/strong> 38-10, MSU. This is a Broncos team that I expect to struggle in their first four games. The Spartans have some questions, but Western Michigan has it tenfold. The key for the Spartans is to start hot. Do not let the Broncos begin to feel any momentum. I would also love to see a potent second-half offense, depending on how the score is at halftime.<\/p>\n Ben Schadel:<\/strong> 27-17, MSU<\/p>\n Joey Shaver:<\/strong> 35-14, MSU<\/p>\n Liam O\u2019Malley:<\/strong> 41-13, MSU. Chiles immediately looks very improved and throws for 275+ yards with his dynamic receiving corps torching WMU.<\/p>\n Zack Theis:<\/strong> 38-14, MSU<\/p>\n MSUMan:<\/strong> 65-0, MSU<\/p>\n Anthony:<\/strong> 35-13, MSU. Chiles puts this one to bed early and sits the fourth quarter. MSU\u2019s loaded wide receiver room combines for 300 receiving yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n Chris Norman:<\/strong> 42-17, MSU. Spartans\u2019 offense gets off to a hot start and rolls.<\/p>\n Matt Seybert:<\/strong> 56-7, MSU<\/p>\n Connor Muldowney:<\/strong> 34-17, MSU<\/p>\n With the predictions in, all we can do is wait and watch these age like wine, or age like milk. Let\u2019s hope for the former.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victory for MSU?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[59,191,189],"class_list":["post-21577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}