Talking Through Michigan State's 45-31 Loss at USC

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Jacob Cotsonika | Last updated Sep 21, 2025 4:34 AM ET

Saturday's game against No. 25 USC could've been a winnable game for Michigan State. There was some admirable fight shown, but a couple key plays that went the Trojans' way allowed them to pull away to a 45-31 victory over MSU.

On this episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, we break down the Spartans' Week 4 loss to the Trojans, what went wrong, and what some of the positives from the game are.

Video of the full episode can be found down below.

Watch here:

Below is also a partial transcript of head coach Jonathan Smith's press conference from after the game.

Jonathan Smith

SMITH: We just didn’t have enough. Credit to USC, that’s a good football team… but we didn’t have enough, at the end of the day.

Our guys, I appreciate it; we're down at halftime, went in there, regrouped. SC scores first, in the second half we're down 21 points, and the guys continued to battle, find a way to get into a seven-point game into the third quarter. But then again, we just don't have enough to finish the deal.

Credit to them. I thought a couple of times we had forced them to a fourth down, they convert. A couple of times, the quarterback, we're around him, a chance to come on the ground, don't do it. And so they finished better than us.

Defensively, we've gotta find a way to play the run better throughout the game. And they did a nice job, mixed in some pressure and they were not pressuring. Credit to those guys, the way they ran the ball, that really was a big, big difference, I think, in their success.

They knew they were gonna be exposed in the pass game, but when you got both of that going, pass game and then the run game where it was. Yeah, made it tough.

Q: Do you have injury updates on Wayne Matthews III and others?

SMITH: Yeah, what I was just told quickly that going through all the thorough evaluation, took them over to the hospital, positive signs. But they were looking for confirmation on tests and things, but positive signs, that's what I was quickly told.

Stanton Ramil, first quarter, couldn't return. And then, yeah, Quindarius (Dunnigan) and Nikai (Martinez), both of them, same play, couldn't return after that, and then Wayne.