Michigan State vs. Illinois Game Preview

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Homecoming at Michigan State will hopefully feature some beautiful fall colors and weather. Unfortunately, it will also feature two struggling football teams. The Spartans and Illinois enter Saturday’s matchup (3:30 PM ET, FS1) with identical 2-3 records, including 0-2 in the Big Ten.

MSU, as we’ve seen, struggles to prevent big plays on defense and cannot, to save their life, create any sort of big play on offense. Perhaps we would all be perfectly happy with three yards and a cloud of dust if it were working. But it’s not working.

Michigan State averaged only 3.2 yards per attempt on passing plays at Wisconsin while completing less than half of these attempts. (Side note: as I’m typing this on Sunday, Keon Coleman just scored a go-ahead TD for the Buffalo Bills on a beautiful post route and I wonder if we’ll ever see a play like this again in East Lansing). Running was no better. The Spartans gained 127 yards but managed only 2.8 yards per attempt.

Without any threat of creating a big play, the Spartans need to grind out multiple well-executed shorter yardage plays and they are not doing this. Saturday’s effort led to several fourth-and-manageable situations on Wisconsin’s side of the field where Pat Fitzgerald elected to go for it. MSU converted once in six attempts on fourth down and barely avoided a shutout in Madison with a single Liam Boyd field goal.

Meanwhile, the defense was hurt by a dual-threat quarterback for the second week in a row. Colton Joseph also completed less than 50% of his passes on Saturday but his completions included three touchdowns. Joseph added another TD on the ground as part of his 13 carries for 141 yards (10.8 YPC).

Combine this with a lack of impactful plays on defense – MSU could not muster a single sack or turnover against Wisconsin – and we get a 31-3 beatdown and a team that appears to be going backwards in a hurry over the last two weeks.

The good news if there is any: Illinois is also struggling. This could be the Spartans’ best chance for a win until, dare I say it, November 7 in Ann Arbor.

Let’s take a closer look at MSU’s game six opponent.

Illinois Overview

Illinois opened with a convincing home win against Alabama-Birmingham but then fell to Duke in week two. The Illini rebounded to thump Southern Illinois in week three before the 0-2 start in the Big Ten. In their only road game so far, Illinois fell to Ohio State 42-19 and then lost 24-17 to Purdue on Saturday in the Cannon Trophy game.

Like Michigan State’s game against Notre Dame, there were probably some positives that Illinois took away from Ohio State, at least offensively. The Illini possessed the ball for 30 minutes and produced 462 yards, including 199 rushing yards while averaging six yards per carry. They had 25 first downs, put points on the board in each quarter, and did not commit a turnover.

However, a slow start doomed Illinois in their Homecoming affair against Purdue, as they fell behind 13-0 on the way to a 24-17 loss.

The 2-3 start has to be disappointing for Illinois, who is coming off a 9-4 2025 campaign, including a bowl victory over Tennessee. Despite some defensive personnel turnover and a new quarterback for 2026, expectations for Illinois were still around 7-8 wins and another bowl game. Now, like the Spartans, Illinois desperately needs a win to keep their bowl hopes alive.

Illinois Coaching

Brett Bielema is no stranger to the Big Ten and in his sixth year at Illinois. He’s 39-29 so far in Champaign-Urbana. This includes a combined 19-7 in 2024 and 2025, with two bowl victories over SEC teams.

Michigan State fans will remember Bielema from his time at Wisconsin from 2006-2012, where he went 68-24 overall, 37-19 in the Big Ten, and took the Badgers to three straight Rose Bowls following the 2010-2012 seasons. This stretch included a memorable 2011, where Michigan State defeated Wisconsin on the replay review Hail Mary to Keith Nichol in East Lansing before the Badgers and Russell Wilson inflicted a painful revenge with a 42-39 victory in the inaugural Big Ten Championship Game.

The Spartans vs. Badgers was becoming one of the better rivalries in the league but Bielema decided to head to the SEC for an ill-fated experiment at Arkansas. From 2013-2017 with the Razorbacks, Bielema produced three winning seasons and three bowl games but the high water mark was 8-5 in 2015. He left after a 4-8 (1-7 in the SEC) season in 2017.

After Arkansas didn’t pan out, Bielema spent time as a defensive assistant in the NFL with the New England Patriots and New York Giants before getting the opportunity at Illinois.

Barry Lunney Jr. is in his fifth season as Illinois’ offensive coordinator. With his play calling, Illinois averaged 29.4 points per game in 2025. Lunney was Bielema’s tight ends coach at Arkansas and was the offensive coordinator at UT-San Antonio in 2020 and 2021. UTSA won the Conference USA championship in 2021 and rose to as high as #15 in the national rankings.

While Lunney provides some stability for Illinois’ offense, there is a bit more drama on the defensive side of the ball. Bielema brought in Bobby Hauck during the offseason to serve as Illinois’ defensive coordinator. Hauck was an incredibly successful head coach at Montana at the FCS level but retired after the 2025 season citing fatigue and frustration with the NIL landscape.

Bielema lured him out of retirement but it didn’t last long. Hauck stayed for just four games in Illinois and decided to call it quits after the loss to Ohio State. After Hauck’s departure, Bielema didn’t provide a succession plan until just before kickoff at Purdue, when inside linebackers coach Roger Cooper was announced as the defensive play caller. This article recaps the whole situation.

Cooper is in his first year at Illinois and also came with Hauck from Montana where he spent four seasons on the defensive staff, including as co-DC last season. Prior to Montana, Cooper was an assistant at Idaho from 2012-2021.

Illinois Offense

After facing former Spartan quarterback Noah Kim in week two, MSU will see another another familiar face with Katin Houser returning to East Lansing on Saturday. Houser was at Michigan State in 2022 and 2023 before departing for East Carolina. After two successful seasons at ECU, Houser took advantage of the chance to return to Big Ten football at Illinois, where he took over for multi-year starter Luke Altmeyer.

Through five games with Illinois, Houser is completing nearly 66% of his passes for 1246 yards, 11 touchdowns and three interceptions. After the last couple of weeks, MSU fans won’t want to hear this, but Houser can also move with is feet, although probably not quite to the extent of the Nebraska and Wisconsin quarterbacks. Houser has 106 rushing yards and one touchdown on 25 carries so far this year. This includes eight carries for 42 yards in the loss to Purdue.

Houser is Illinois’ third-leading rusher behind running backs Aidan Laughery and Ca’Lil Valentine. Laughery (5-11, 200) is a senior who has spent his entire college career at Illinois. This year he’s run for 321 yards and a very impressive 7.1 yards per carry. Valentine, unfortunately, suffered a season-ending injury in the first quarter at Purdue. Illinois may lean even more on Laughery or look to freshman Javari Barnett, who has 10 carries for 54 yards this year, with the bulk of this coming in Illinois’ blowout win over Southern Illinois.

Houser throws primarily to four wide receivers: Collin Dixon, Hudson Clement, Ty Robinson, and Brayden Trimble. Running backs and tight ends have only 15 of Illinois’ 102 receptions. Dixon (6-1, 215) has been the primary target with 40 catches for 546 yards and eight touchdowns already this year. He’s coming off a big game at Purdue with 10 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown.

OC Lunney uses a “Tem-Pro” system that combines high-tempo spread and RPO concepts with traditional, pro-style gap-and-zone blocking in line with Bielema’s emphasis on physical football. This article from Matt Stevens at IlliniGuys.com is from 2022 but explains Lunney’s offensive concepts.

In short, even though they don’t throw to them a lot, Illinois does use some two and three tight end sets. They try to balance the run game with inside zone, pulling guards and tight ends, and run-pass option plays. The passing game consists primarily of shallow crossing routes and 12-15 yard intermediate routes.

Illinois Defense

I listened to some of the Illinois-Purdue game on Saturday and the announcers talked about how Hauck installed a 3-3-5 defense for the Illini. Now, even though Hauck is gone, Illinois can’t just change mid-stream to another base defense even though the 3-3-5 isn’t really getting the job done to this point.

Illinois gave up 31 points and and 376 total yards in a loss to Duke. The worst part was probably the Blue Devils getting 170 yards on the ground with five yards per carry.

Ohio State put up 42 points and 518 total yards. OSU quarterback Julian Sayin did most of the damage with 367 yards through the air but the Buckeyes also ran for nearly five yards per carry against Illinois.

Illinois is last in the Big Ten with three sacks through five games. The Illini have yet to recover a fumble this year and have intercepted just two passes. Three of their top four, and four of their top six, tacklers are defensive backs, so teams have had success getting into Illinois’ second and third levels.

Finally, in addition to the situation with the play calling, Illinois apparently lost a lot of their front seven players from last year to the transfer portal and, presumably, better NIL offers. So, if there was ever any hope to get some momentum going for MSU’s struggling offense, it might be this weekend.

What to watch for

Homecoming crowd support. Robbie and Darin held a “therapy session” in their Sunday Red Cedar Rundown podcast, where one of the topics was fan support. While some fans, after going on five years of disappointing results, have thrown in the towel, Robbie and Darin argued that it’s still important to support the team. It will be interesting to see what the stadium looks like on Saturday.

What will offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan come up with? He will have had another week to adjust to life without Cam Edwards but backup quarterback Cam Fancher left the game at Wisconsin with a knee injury and did not return. If Fancher is out, so is MSU’s ability to give a different look and play package at the quarterback position. The short passing plays simply did not work at Wisconsin but the protection needed to set up longer plays also seems to be lacking. Some have been critical of Sheridan but it just seems like his options are extremely limited.

Along these same lines, can Alessio get his groove back? Milivojevic took over the starting quarterback role with four games remaining last year. MSU went just 1-3 in that stretch but the only real clunker was a 28-10 home loss to Penn State. The Spartans fell in overtime at Minnesota in Alessio’s first start, where he threw for 311 yards despite getting sacked seven times. In a three point loss at Iowa, Milivojevic threw for 255 more yards and two touchdowns. In the season-ending win against Maryland, he went 27-39 for 292 yards and four TDs.

Since the opener at Toledo this year, Alessio has struggled, but he’s proven he can play against Big Ten opponents. If there was ever a time to return to form, this is it.

Will Jordan Hall return? The Spartans’ linebacker was out against as Wisconsin after being listed as “doubtful” in the mid-week availability report. Several other key players were also out but Hall is the defensive leader and, even though the defenders actually have to make the plays, Hall probably gives them the best chance of being lined up in a position to do so.

Does the coaching staff still have the team’s ear and will the Spartans still play for each other? Spartan beat writers Graham Couch and Chris Solari broke down the Wisconsin game from Camp Randall Stadium and Solari mentioned that he thought the body language in some of the Spartans may have been telling in Saturday’s loss. If players start to lose confidence in each other, or the coaches’ schemes, it could turn a difficult season into a true nightmare.

It’s obviously been a rough ride for a couple of weeks but Saturday marks just the midway point of the season. Homecoming at Spartan Stadium. Possibly a favorable matchup. It would be nice to get a favorable bounce or two but perhaps there is an opportunity for the Spartans to start to dig out of this hole.

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