No. 8 Northwestern suffered its first loss of the year on Saturday, a 29-20 upset at the hands of Michigan State.
Here are our five takeaways from a disappointing day in East Lansing:
Ramsey struggled: Peyton Ramsey had been Northwestern's safety net. When the sky was falling, he was calm and helped Northwestern weather the storm.
He was anything but that on Saturday.
Ramsey missed receivers on a lot of his passing attempts, with many of his completions requiring leaping or diving catches. He forced the ball into coverage repeatedly.
Most damaging were the two interceptions he threw, including one in the fourth-quarter that set up Michigan State's game-winning score. He came into the contest with an 8-4 TD-INT ratio, but threw two picks without a score on Saturday.
In Ramsey’s defense, he was also under quite a bit of pressure as MSU’s front consistently got into the backfield (more on that later).
Ramsey has played a lot of football, and Northwestern needs his experience and production moving forward, because it doesn’t look like the running game is going to be much help.
Ruiz cost the defense: It seemed like Cameron Ruiz had settled into a role as Northwestern's slot corner. But on Saturday, Ruiz played on the outside, and he clearly struggled out there as MSU quarterback Rocky Lombardi picked on him repeatedly.
Ruiz got beat on the Spartans first TD when Jalen Nailor got behind him for a 75-yard TD. MSU’s other TD also came against Ruiz, on a fade to Jaden Reed.
The last four touchdowns surrendered by Northwestern's defense have all been against Ruiz.
AJ Hampton came on in relief of Ruiz on the outside corner spot opposite of Greg Newsome II.
Ruiz is a little undersized but physical and loves to stick his nose in there on run plays — a perfect mentality for a slot corner. We’ll see if he stays inside in the future.
Turnovers turned the tide: Northwestern had made a living this season forcing turnovers and then taking advantage of them. MSU, on the other hand, ranked 124th in the nation in turnover margin.
Michigan State turned the tables on Saturday and gave the Wildcats a taste of their own medicine. The Spartans had three takeaways and gave away just one.
After Cam Porter's go-ahead touchdown early in the fourth quarter, Paddy Fisher picked off a Rocky Lombardi pass in MSU territory. It seemed like Northwestern had all of the momentum at that point and was looking to put the game away.
Then Kyric McGowan dropped the ball on a jet sweep, and Michigan State recovered near midfield, setting up the tying Matt Coghlin field goal.
Ramsey’s second interception, a short while later, set up Coghlin's game-winning field goal.
Including a turnover on downs, Michigan State scored 13 points in the game after Northwestern turnovers. The Wildcats didn’t get any points off of their lone interception.
The running game sputtered again: Northwestern cannot run the ball. Period. It’s not a trend anymore, it’s a fact.
It seemed like the Wildcats were trying to prove they could move the ball on the ground early against Michigan State, but four times in their first two possessions the Wildcats failed to gain a first down on plays where they needed two yards or fewer.
On their first drive of the game, they had three shots to gain a yard in MSU territory and couldn’t convert, eventually turning the ball over on downs and setting the tone for the game. Later, near the MSU goal line, Northwestern ran the ball up the middle three times and couldn’t break the plane until Ramsey scored on a bootleg.
They would end up with just 63 rushing yards on 37 carries, an average of 1.7 yards per run. Last week, they averaged 1.0 yard per tote against Wisconsin, and the week before that 2.0 against Purdue.
Offensive line fails to hold up: Northwestern's offensive line got bullied by Michigan State's front seven. There's no way around it.
Multiple times, Northwestern runners got stuffed at the line of scrimmage, and the Spartans had eight TFL.
The Spartans also were able to put pressure on Ramsey, usually by rushing just four. He was sacked four times, hurried six more and was often flushed out of the pocket, where he had to make throws on the run.
Northwestern was playing with a backup left guard Charlie Schmidt in place of starter Ethan Wiederkehr, Northwestern's five up front have struggled in the running game all season. To this point they had been pretty good in pass protection, but that wasn't the case on Saturday.
