MSU football should start Rocky Lombardi — for now

Hey, we all watched the same game on Saturday.

The quarterback play was…wow. After the game, it made sense that Brian Lewerke didn’t practice all week due to a shoulder injury.

You know what didn’t make sense? Leaving him out there for the entirety of a 5-25 passing performance where coaches wouldn’t even let him run the option.

Just two quick points on that decision…

1. Lewerke is a good quarterback in part because of what he can do on his legs. You take away the option to run and, well, he’s just slightly above average. You take away his healthy throwing arm too and he’s, well, a 5-25 passer.

2. Lewerke wasn’t barely missing receivers. He was missing by a lot. I don’t know how the staff sees him go from the sidelines the entire week of practice to airmailing damn near every pass he throws throughout the game and says “yeah, this is still our best chance” for pretty much the entire game.

And you know what else? That proves MSU didn’t have a Plan B on Saturday either. Rolling out your backup after 20 incompletions with three minutes left in the game isn’t a Plan B.

Going with a guy who didn’t practice all week and couldn’t hit his receivers even if they were 11 feet tall over the backup that did practice with the first team all week is a bad sign.

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

With that being said…you still have to go with Rocky Lombardi here. I’ll type it until my fingers fall off – it’s not like Lewerke was on the fringe of a somewhat decent game. He was a shell of a shell of himself.

Now, I want to make this clear – LEWERKE IS A GOOD QUARTERBACK AND WILL RETURN TO HIS WAYS. They just need to get him right with rest and recovery.

Maybe (dare I say probably) Lombardi isn’t that good if they settled on a hurt Lewerke who couldn’t run in the Michigan game. I don’t care – he can’t perform any worse than what we just saw.

At least Lombardi will give us a chance. At least, I’m assuming, he can put balls in spots that give his receivers the opportunity to catch. And at least he’ll be able to run.

And finally, and this is the most important part here, it gives Lewerke time to rest. Aside from chasing six wins, this is a lost season. The Big Ten is out the window. New Years Six Bowl eligibility is way out the window. Let’s not make this any worse and have Lewerke’s junior season fly out the window too.

Shut Lewerke down for as many games as it takes to get healthy. Give Lombardi or Theo Day a spin this week and maybe the next. And let’s give the offense at least a chance to produce points, because that aint happening with what we saw on Saturday.