Michigan State football had nation’s 4th-most dominant win in Week 8

If you watched Saturday’s Iowa vs. Michigan State football game, you probably came away impressed with Jonathan Smith’s Spartans.

Fresh off a bye week, the offense looked much more dominant than it had been through the first six games of the year and the defense was smothering outside of a 75-yard touchdown run in the second half.

It seems like Joe Rossi and Brian Lindgren are getting more comfortable in East Lansing and they’ve adjusted well. They also used the bye week to fix a lot of small mistakes that had crept up and it showed with a 32-20 dominant win over the Hawkeyes.

Just how dominant was Michigan State’s Week 8 win? According to @statsowar on X (as found by Justin Thind), Michigan State had the fourth-most dominant win in the country this past weekend, out-classing the likes of Oregon, Notre Dame, Georgia, Tennessee, and Miami. The “dominance” is measured by per-play success rate.

#MichiganState’s win over Iowa was the 4th-most dominant win of Week 8 on a per-play success rate basis, via @statsowar.

(Also: MSU’s Week 10 opponent #Indiana continues to dismantle everything in its path) pic.twitter.com/QSuWIHcRJ3

— Justin Thind (@JustinThind) October 21, 2024

When you really sit down and look at the numbers, this makes sense. The Spartans were dominant from start to finish on the offensive side of the ball, and the defense was effective, winning a lot of early battles. In the end, Michigan State finished the game with zero punts which is almost unheard of nowadays, especially in a game against traditional defensive power Iowa.

The only teams that had more dominant wins in Week 8 than the Spartans were Wisconsin (23-3 at Northwestern), SMU (40-10 at Stanford), and Indiana (56-7 vs. Nebraska). The Spartans were somehow more dominant than Oregon which beat Purdue 35-0 in West Lafayette.

Honestly, it’s not that surprising to hear. If you think about it, the six field goals that Michigan State finished with could have been half touchdowns. The Spartans failed to convert on seven long drives, leading to seven attempts by Jonathan Kim. If Michigan State scores a touchdown on even two of those drives, the final is 46-20. Three of them would be 53-20, and so on.

So yes, this was a dominant performance by Michigan State football, and the numbers agree.