Michigan State football stock watch after Week 2 Maryland win

Michigan State football took down Maryland in Week 2 and there are plenty of stocks on the rise. Who is rising and who’s falling?

Big Ten play has begun and under Jonathan Smith and Michigan State football secured its second win of the season and first in conference play. With some good moments and a road win, there were a lot of good things to take a way from this game including some players that increased their stock.

There are other areas that this team still needs to improve on.

With both the good and bad moments, whose stock is up and whose is down?

Stock Up

• Nick Marsh

Welcome to college football, Nick Marsh. If you wanted to see Marsh burst onto the scene, this was the game to witness. Marsh was electric with 194 yards receiving and a touchdown. His 194 yards were second-most in Michigan State history for a freshman. He made big play after big play, none bigger than his 77-yard touchdown catch and run that tied the game late in the fourth quarter. For the first time of the year, we finally saw Michigan State connect on deep routes and Marsh was the beneficiary of most of them.

• Offensive play-calling

A week after the offense struggling especially with the play-calling, I thought the game plan was pretty good this week. It started out with getting Aidan Chiles easy throws and completions on the first drive of the game. It also included letting Chiles know that the coaching staff had confidence in him by giving him the ball even after making a mistake. You saw a lot more motion and confidence in this offense this week and it is a good step forward for the offense.

• Aidan Chiles

You saw why Chiles was considered one of the highest ranked transfer quarterbacks in the country. With big throws throughout the game, you saw Chiles grow confidence in himself. There were moments that fans, and Chiles himself, can look back on and wish for better results but whenever he made a mistake, he bounced back right away and showed us why we should be excited for the future.

• Tackling

I thought tackling on Saturday afternoon was fantastic by this defense. They flew around the field and did a good job getting the player down on the ground. Against a team like Maryland, you can not allow them to break tackles because that is how they get their big plays. Overall, Michigan State did a great job with its tackling especially when Maryland was calling screens.

Stock Down

• Penalties

Another game, more penalties. In Saturday’s game, Michigan State had 10 penalties for 100 yards. You are not going to win many games especially against better teams with the amount of penalties this team has had in the last few years. Some of these penalties included driving killing plays or a few really huge holding calls that took away a big play. If this issue isn’t fixed, it might be a long year.

• Secondary

This was one of those games that the secondary had an up-and-down game. Tackling was good for the secondary but at times, this team got burnt. Early on in the game, there were a few deep shows that Maryland did not convert on, which would have led to easy touchdowns for Maryland. There was other times that there were miscommunications but those were less than last week. With the offense and wide receivers that Maryland have, it was a tougher game but one that still wasn’t a great performance by the secondary.

Overall, this game was a positive for this team. Starting 2-0 after the year that Michigan State football had last year is a great start especially when you go on the road and beat a Big Ten opponent. While not everything was great all the time, it was fun to watch this game and will be headed into next week 2-0 on the year overall and 1-0 in the Big Ten.