Michigan State Spartans quarterback Alessio Milivojevic (11) hands the ball off during a game against the Iowa Hawkeyes Nov. 22, 2025 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Talking Through Michigan State's Painful Defeat to Iowa

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Jacob Cotsonika | Last updated Nov 23, 2025 8:00 AM ET

The losing, quite literally, may never end for Michigan State football, at least this year. Ever since the Spartans started 3-0, they've lost eight in a row, all of which have been in Big Ten play.

MSU now only has one more chance to avoid becoming the first Spartan team to lose all of its conference games since the school started competing in the Big Ten in football in 1953.

Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Saturday's loss to Iowa was as gut-wrenching as any of the others, though. Michigan State led by 10 entering the fourth quarter, but squandered opportunities to put the game away and lost on a walk-off, 44-yard field goal in a 20-17 result.

On this postgame edition of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, let's break down what went wrong for the Spartans down the stretch and maybe some of the few positives that are remaining from this season everyone is going to wish they could forget.

Watch the MSU Spartans Insider Podcast here:

Additionally, a transcript of head coach Jonathan Smith's opening statement from his postgame press conference has been provided further below.

Transcript

Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

SMITH: OK, well, painful, really, for our guys. The amount of work we continue to put in and play with competitive character. It is tough. There's no other way to say it.

Give credit to Iowa; they beat us. Made one more play than we did at the end, and so I give them credit.

I look at it, the effort defensively really throughout the night. Did a great job at the plan. I thought the guys were executing the plan, flying around, got a takeaway that turned into points. And throughout the night defensively is good.

Offensively, we knew it was gonna be tough. This is a good defense on the road, things like that. We wanted to keep plowing away, kind of broke through there in the third quarter to take the lead.

And obviously, we want to finish better offensively; get the ball with the lead, get some first downs, run some clock, and obviously, finish the thing with the stop defensively.

Special teams hurt us. Going into it, knowing that the returner [Kaden Wetjen] is a good player. Wanted to challenge that to start, he hurt us early, and so then made some adjustments to get away from it. Whether you're putting on offense, directionally, and then the last two punts did not get executed the way we wanted.

And that turns into a three-point loss. But I appreciate the effort these guys continue to give. It is painful though for them right now.