The No. 15 Michigan State opened up its 2022 season on Friday night with a 35-13 win over unranked Western Michigan but a 22-point win does not mean head coach Mel Tucker was satisfied with how his team played.
In fact, following the game, Tucker told reporters that he was “very disappointed” with how his Spartans came out in the first half against the Broncos.
“I was very disappointed with the first half,” Tucker said after the game. “We scored 21 points, we had three nice plays. I give all the credit to their defense and what they did. They did a lot of things that we really hadn’t seen on film or maybe we saw only like one time on film all last year.”
Tucker noted that though there is a lot of work to be done, he does like what he saw in the Spartans' locker room after the game and that he has a “hungry football team.”
“We’ve got a lot of work to do but I like what I saw in the locker room after the game, from our team and from our leaders. It’s a hungry football team and we know that we need to get better.”
Mel Tucker comments on how transfer Jalen Berger played
Possibly the biggest bright spot for Michigan State on Friday night was Wisconsin transfer Jalen Berger.
When asked about Berger's performance, Mel Tucker noted that he “makes some plays”
“Pretty much what we saw in practice. He runs hard, he’s got good vision, he usually falls forward on contact. He gets out there and he makes some plays.”
Berger, who carried the ball 16 times for 120 yards and a touchdown, knows he left a lot of yards on the field and that he made some mistakes during his first game as a Spartan.
“I feel like I left a lot of yards on the field. I had a dropped screen, which I can’t let that happen, especially on third down. And one of the runs I kind of tripped up and that’s just like a simple drill that we do in (individual periods) every day – just put your hand down and get back up and score.”
Nation, after watching Michigan State's first game of the season, are you more or less confident in how they will fare in 2022?
