East Lansing — The numbers don’t lie.
When a team forces turnovers, it usually wins.
From 2013-15 when Michigan State was going 36-5 and winning a pair of Big Ten championships while reaching the College Football Playoffs once, it was the best in the conference at taking the ball away from its opponents.
Then 2016 crept up on the Spartans, and as they plodded their way to a three-win season, the turnovers all but disappeared. Michigan State was near the bottom of the conference in turnover margin at -5 while it created just 13 total turnovers, one better than Maryland, which finished last in the Big Ten.