Spartan helmets held aloft in celebration following the conclusion of Michigan State's night game against Central Michigan Universy on Sept. 1, 2023. Michigan State won their home opener 31-7.
For a majority of the first half, not much was going right on either side of the ball for Michigan State football.
Between dropped passes, overthrows and miscommunications on routes, there were not many positives to take away, until the ball found redshirt freshman Jaron Glover twice down the field with less than two minutes to go in the first half.
“Explosive play, we knew he had some explosives obviously,” Head Coach Mel Tucker said. “He's a player we recruited because he has a very big skill set. He’s fast, he has some really good hands and he showed that during spring football and the fall. We’re expecting him to make some plays. So it was really good to see, but we weren't surprised. We have seen that in practice.”
After Glover’s back to back 32 yard receptions, redshirt sophomore Nathan Carter punched in the Spartan’s first touchdown of the game to take a 10-7 lead before the end of the first half. Coming out of the second half, a switch was flipped that pushed MSU to a 31-7 win.
A big part of MSU’s second half push was redshirt junior Noah Kim’s poise. He had some overthrows and misreads in the first 28 minutes of the game, but once he and his receivers started to get in sync in the offense along with the run game and offensive line, the plays started to open up in his first start where he finished with 279 yards and two passing touchdowns.
“I never lost my confidence, Kim said. “I was confident going into the game and I was confident when we had a three and out. I know the plays are there. It's not like we were just making dumb mistakes like that. It was just like one guy here and there, me missing a pass or whatever it was, it was just something little every single play and I knew everybody on the sideline was on the same page. Nobody was going crazy like, well, what are we doing? We know we can make the plays.”
A big question going into the game was who was going to step up at wide receiver since the departures of Keon Coleman and Jayden Reed over the offseason, and along with Glover, sophomore Tyrell Henry made an incredible one handed catch in the end zone after redshirt junior Christian Fitzpatrick’s dynamic 72 yard reception set up the play of the night.
Another one for @MSU_Football 👏👏@noah_kim12 ➡️ Tyrell Henry pic.twitter.com/upCYFm57os
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 2, 2023
Redshirt junior tight end Maliq Carr also got in on the scoring action after some early drops as he was somehow able to get a foot down in bounds to make an athletic grab with a defender draped all over him to fuel MSU’s 21-0 second half run.
“It’s great for confidence,” redshirt senior Tre Mosley said, who made three catches for a total of 39 yards. “They’ll continue to make plays like that because they know they are capable of doing it. We had seven guys suit up at receiver and everyone was out there and able to get their feet wet which is good, especially early in the season, because we are going to need everyone down the road.”
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