The Spartans’ running backs have been hit the hardest. Prior to Saturday’s game, redshirt freshman Caulton Ray and sophomore Andre Anderson were deactivated from the team and freshman Larry Caper left early in the second quarter with a head injury.

The Spartans were left with three running backs, down from a unit that had as many as eight when the season began. Just freshman Edwin Baker, senior A.J. Jimmerson and sophomore Ashton Leggett remained when Caper left.

Without consistent backs, the Spartans were unable to consistently run.

“The ability to run the ball consistently was not there last night. You take away Keshawn’s run, it was tough going,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “What we have to be able to do is we have to draw together, look at it, evaluate it, find out the reasons why and move from there with it but we’ve shown the ability to run before.”

The Spartans ran for just 42 yards on 17 carries, excluding sophomore wide receiver Keshawn Martin’s 82-yard end-around run in the third quarter.

Senior safety Danny Fortener also left the game with a head injury when he collided with a teammate. The Spartans lost junior safety Roderick Jenrette for the season against Michigan and sophomore safety Trenton Robinson has missed the past few games with an ankle injury.

Dantonio said he expects both Caper and Fortener to return for this weekend’s game against Western Michigan.

“We had four or five guys get hit with concussions so we’ll see where everybody is at more later this week, but I think everybody will make the game, hopefully,” he said.

Red zone deficiencies

For the fourth consecutive game, the Spartans were unable to score a touchdown from the opponent’s goal line.

In the first quarter Saturday, the Spartans were unable to score a touchdown after a first down inside Minnesota’s five-yard line. The Spartans ran twice for no gain and threw a two-yard completion before settling for a field goal from senior kicker Brett Swenson.

Then in the fourth quarter, with possession on the Minnesota one-yard line, the Spartans ran twice for a minus-one yard and threw an incompletion before settling for another short Swenson field goal.

Dantonio said there was an answer for the goal line struggles — he just didn’t know what it was.

“There’s always an answer for every single play but what you have to be able to do is get it done on the field,” he said. “When you look back at our games, it’s no one particular, it’s not one particular side or one particular person, it’s a group effort; and that group includes the coaches and it includes myself and what you have to do is get it fixed, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Something positive

Despite basically spotting the Gophers a 14-0 lead without taking an offensive snap of their own, the Spartans were able to come back and put themselves in a position to win, something Dantonio said is a positive sign.

“We’ve all been here before where that thing has landslided, including when I was here before,” he said. “Those types of games would go 49-3, those types of games would go the Oregon game in 1998 (a 48-14 loss) or the 1999 Wisconsin game (a 40-10 loss). Those things happened. That didn’t happen to our football team and I think that has to be a positive that we have to look at and say, ‘We can plant our feet on the ground, we can get back and play and fight back and not panic.’”