Three Reasons the Michigan State Spartans Can Win The Big Ten

QUARTERBACK

I’m not a big fan of Brian Lewerke as a Division one QB, he has a wild arm and isn’t a great enough runner to make up for it. While he’s good at a lot of things he isn’t great at anything. If the Michigan State Spartans are not able to win the Big Ten in his three years at the reigns, with the defense’s he’s had. No other one player is to be blamed more than Brian Lewerke.

There has been a lot of mystery as to how much Lewerke’s shoulder injury was an issue for him last season. According to Chris Solari of the Detroit Free Press;

"Lewerke was just 5 of 25 for 66 yards in Saturday’s 21-7 loss to Michigan as the Spartans’ offense generated just 94 total yards. The junior confirmed afterward that he was playing with an injured shoulder that he suffered a week earlier in an upset win at Penn State. “I don’t really want to talk about the arm right now,” Lewerke said. “I’m just working through it to see if I’ll feel good in practice”. On Tuesday, he also would not say when he got hurt against the Nittany Lions, other than it was one play and not a cumulative effect."

If that’s the case, Lewerke didn’t get hurt until week 6 and was already having an underwhelming junior season before that. According to Sports-Reference.com, Lewerke had to 10th best QB rating in the Big Ten last season with a rating of 106.1. Let’s look at the numbers pre and post-injury;

Weeks 1-5 – 6TD, 6INT, 134.2 Rating

Weeks 6-13 (5 games played) – 2 TD, 5INT, 75.42 Rating

The 134.2 rating pre-injury if continued until seasons end it still would have only been good for 6th best in the Big Ten. So while Lewerke wasn’t having a good season before the injury, there was still an obvious decline post-injury.

I still question a healthy Lewerke being able to lead a team to a Big Ten title. Even if you go back and look at his ‘break out’ 2017 season he had a QB rating of 127.7, 6th best in the Big Ten. For a scary reference Tyler O’Conner the season before had a QB rating of 135.2.

To be fair, I believe Lewerke is a better quarterback than O’Conner, but it proves he does have some things to work on. If Lewerke can improve even to top 5 status in the Big Ten conference, it will go a long way for the Michigan State Spartans division title hopes.