Michigan State's Wayne Matthews III, left, tackles Penn State's Kaytron Allen during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Postgame Thoughts on MSU's Seventh Straight Loss

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Jacob Cotsonika | Last updated Nov 16, 2025 8:00 AM ET

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Michigan State lost again on Saturday. This time it's to the formerly 3-6 Penn State Nittany Lions, 28-10.

MSU is 3-7 overall now, and a dreadful 0-7 against the Big Ten. The existence of light at the end of this tunnel has not been proven yet.

On this postgame episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, we break down the Spartans' seventh consecutive loss and also about how, really, unsurprising Saturday was as a whole.

Video of the entire episode can be viewed below.

Watch the MSU Spartans Insider Podcast here:

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

Jonathan Smith

SMITH: We got beat tonight by a Penn State team. Congratulations to them. They earned that win tonight.

We just thought the game... We really wanted the game to kind of be tight throughout in regards to, I don't know what you want to call it, dirty, sloppy, physical. We thought that would take place and the score sat at 14-10 for a lot of the game. Punting, field position.

They are good on defense and we did think that we had to create a couple opportunities situationally to take a shot. We just did not capitalize a couple of times.

I think about the first half, even, we had a possession start on their 45-yard line. We go four-and-out. You're not going to get many opportunities like that in a short field. We didn't take advantage of that.

And then into the second half, we came in about the first series. We go down there, it's third-and-4. Really, we're going two-play thinking. We get into the wrong direction on the play and they hit us in the backfield. We end up punting. That was an opportunity with the field position to continue to drive; we didn't do it.

And then at the end, you got one red zone chance. They're up two scores at that point. Then we got the sack-fumble that they were able to separate from there.

Proud of some defensive effort. The fourth-down stops. I thought they kept us in it throughout the night.

Gave up the one 75-yarder; that was a [coverage] bust. Outside of that, I thought they really battled to keep us within striking distance throughout the night, and then it got away from us at the end there with the sack-fumble that I mentioned.