The senior quarterback went 33-for-48 for 356 yards and two touchdowns, while running seven times for 11 yards and a touchdown.

And Saturday afternoon, the results were similar, as Thorson completed 31-of-47 passes for 373 yards, four touchdowns, including a rushing touchdown to give Northwestern (2-3, 2-1 in Big Ten) the 29-19 win over Michigan State (3-2, 1-1) at Spartan Stadium.

“He’s a good quarterback,” said Bachie, who had six tackles and two pass breakups against the Wildcats. “He’s a guy that has a chance to play at the next level. Got a big strong arm, sees the whole field, and had a very good game plan coming in the past couple years.”

Defensive tackle Mike Panasiuk said Thorson’s scrambling ability allowed him to make plays. Combine that with Thorson’s knowledge and accuracy, and he becomes one of the better quarterbacks MSU has seen this season, according to Defensive Coordinator Mike Tressel.

“He knows what the wide receivers are doing out there,” Panasiuk said. “That’s why he’s able to have that wide receiver turn at the last second and the receiver is able to make the play.”

While Thorson can be effective with intermediate routes, he also completed nine chunk passes — plays which are 15 yards or longer. And in those nine plays: a 77-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Kyric McGowan with 59 seconds left in the first quarter and a 34-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver JJ Jefferson to give Northwestern a 14-3 lead with 13:58 left in the first half.

Thorson also completed a 21-yard touchdown pass to Cameron Green, who said Thorson “put the ball in a perfect spot.”

“He knows his offense,” safety Khari Willis said. “He knows reads, he goes through his progression. When there’s enough pressure on him he’s super, super comfortable, and he can throw every ball. So he made some great throws tonight. Hats off to him. But, I feel like he did what he does, and we didn’t play our best ball.”

Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald said his team had to have a good game plan, especially with MSU’s run defense being ranked No. 1 in the nation.

And he was right, as the Spartans only allowed the Wildcats to rush for eight yards on 20 carries. But, from watching film, Fitzgerald knew his team couldn’t abandon the run game like other teams have.

“We watch other teams play against State and they abandoned it completely,” Fitzgerald said. “We still felt like we had to make them play honest and at times we did, and then like I said, they were a lot of one guy breakdowns or one guy getting beat at the point of attack, which makes it tough.”

Though Thorson threw two interceptions, the first being to safety Khari Willis with 5:31 left in the first quarter and the other to defensive tackle Mike Panasiuk with 6:39 left in the third, coach Mark Dantonio said it wasn’t enough.

“We stopped the run, which we've done, but you got to pressure the quarterback,” Dantonio said in his postgame news conference. “Come away with two turnovers, so you know, we needed three.”

Stopping the run also forces the opposition to throw more, which linebacker Andrew Dowell said makes the linebackers focus evenly on the run and pass.

“It’s not like we’re hanging our hat on stopping the run, if we’re not helping the defensive backs, stuffing passes and stuff like that, so as an entire defensive unit, we’ve got a lot to improve on,” Dowell said.

However, safety Khari Willis said due to MSU's run defense being as stout as it is, combined with the amount of passes thrown, more passes than normal are bound to be completed.

“It’s frustrating, but they’re throwing it a lot more than normal,” said Willis, who had five tackles to go with his interception. “So, obviously some of those things are gonna get (through). But we have to limit those things, and we gotta be better at tackling, we gotta be better at calling out things, we gotta be better at driving on the ball and be in position to make plays on the ball. And like I said, (it's) little things that are turning into bigger problems.”