For the first time this season the Spartans had better special teams play than their opponent. Junior kicker Michael Geiger made his only field goal attempt.

Maryland's most dangerous player, junior return man William Likely was held mostly in check— after setting a record for most kick return yards against MSU last year the junior had just 58 return yards and seven punt return yards.

Redshirt freshman punter Jake Hartbarger had a very solid day, finishing with 297 punt yards on seven attempts, a 42.4-yard average. Maryland had two punters combine for an average of just 29.9.

"Special teams, to me, was as big as anything in this football game. William Likely, No. 4 for them and the possibilities that existed with him," head coach Mark Dantonio said. "I thought [Jake] Hartbarger performed tremendously. Great punting execution, great coverage by our people in protection, snapping, and then our kickoff team and Kevin Cronin did the job and we covered well down on the kickoff. Those are two big things in a football game."

Outside of a terrible attempt at a fake field goal, the special teams unit was much better than they have been.

Cook banged up

Senior quarterback Connor Cook finished just 6-for-20 for 77 yards and one interception after sitting the entire second half for precautionary reasons.

Cook obviously wanted to finish the game, but his velocity wasn't there and it was better to just leave him out rather than risk his health before next week's matchup against Ohio State.

"I just landed on it funny and dinged it up a bit," Cook said. "Nothing too bad, it was just for precautionary reasons, wanted to get some of the younger guys involved like Damion (Terry) and Tyler (O'Connor). It was a coach's decision and we just wanted to play it safe."

O'Connor played the whole second half in place of Cook and Terry made the occasional appearance, but never threw the ball.

Important reps

Before Cook even left with an injury, he sat for the second offensive possession of the game. Knowing that opportunities to give his backups reps will be few and far between, Dantonio elected to give O'Connor and Terry an opportunity so that when Cook is gone next year, they are not tossed into the fire like Andrew Maxwell was after the departure of Kirk Cousins. 

"Well, it's the 10th week of the season. We certainly did not want to do it next week," Dantonio said. "We didn't want to do it next week and we really didn't want to do it last week. We felt like early in the game, we should go ahead and do something.

"I also felt like it was important to give Damion Terry reps, quality reps with eight minutes to go because he needs, both of our other quarterbacks need to have game experience to be able to go in there with ease when they go into a football game. I think that is very important. They don't stress; they get in there when the game is a little bit on the line and they have a presence. Tyler [O'Connor] did a nice job, two touchdown drives especially on the second series."

Dominant D

A week after what was debatably their worst performance of the season, the Spartan defense responded with their best. 

MSU forced Maryland to turn the ball over seven times on three interceptions, two fumbles, and two turnover on downs. 

The performance should give the Spartan defense some much needed confidence with the biggest game of the season on the horizon.

"Leading up to (the Ohio State) game, it's very important (that we played this way)," sophomore linebacker Jon Reschke said. "We're going to into this week with confidence, we're going to play with energy and passion—that's what we needed to have."