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MSU’s conference season is only one game in and it’s only going to get better from here. Michigan State faces their three toughest match-ups here in the next six weeks or so with at Penn State, Michigan and OSU.
In order for the Spartans to deliver promising results for the season, it boils down to Brian Lewerke’s ability to take a game over. The running game so far for Michigan State has averaged 3.3 yards per carry, with only LJ Scott having over 100 yards this season.
The first two games for Brian Lewerke included 601 passing yards and three touchdowns with a 69.4 percent completion rate. The performance against Indiana where he only completed 56 percent of passes and threw two interceptions cannot happen moving forward.
Last year on top of Lewerke’s almost 2800 yards he threw for, we saw an additional 559 yards on the ground and five extra touchdowns. His ability to escape from the pocket this year has almost disappeared aside from one 27 yard run he had against Utah State.
The dual threat ability of Brian Lewerke was incredibly hard to stop for defenses. With the injury to LJ Scott and young running game at MSU, we need to see Brian Lewerke getting protection and being able to escape the pocket again to gain crucial yards.
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His receivers this year of Felton Davis, Cody White and Darrell Stewart Jr. have already combined for 73 percent of Lewerke’s total completions. With Stewart injuring the ankle against ASU a few weeks ago, Felton Davis and Cody White will need to use their big play ability to continue to move the ball for Michigan State.
There has been flashes of greatness we have seen from Brian Lewerke, the back to back 400 yard passing games last year and the ability to drive a team down the field with ease when it counts. In a year where the offense has many question marks around it, it is now time for Brian Lewerke to continue to improve his performances and be a consistent player for the Spartan offense.
With the Spartans having two injuries on the offensive line in Kevin Jarvis and Luke Campbell and two ankle injuries for LJ Scott and Darrell Stewart Jr, the time for Lewerke to get creative and find a way to get MSU’s offense rolling is now.
Michigan State’s next two games are incredibly important to set the tone for the offense going in to a tough match up at Penn State, Lewerke’s time to perform is now.