Inside Slant


Northwestern takes losing streak to No. 20 Michigan State

Northwestern is seeking its third straight win against Michigan State as the Wildcats travel to East Lansing to face the 20th-ranked Spartans Saturday.

The Wildcats are now 1-3 despite their .500 record in conference play and find themselves in the midst of a three-game losing streak following last Saturday’s 20-17 loss to then-14th-ranked Michigan.

Northwestern won its season opener on the road against Purdue but has dropped the last three in a row despite scoring first in every game this season.

Junior tight end Cameron Green stressed the need for the Wildcats to focus on playing a complete game instead of starting fast and letting up, as has been the case over the course of the losing streak.

“We just need to finish,” Green said Monday. “And finish stronger. Because we do start fast, but at the end of the day, there’s more than just a couple of drives in the game. There’s the whole second half that we need to get better at, and we’re going to work on that this week.”

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald and his staff have a weekly routine of naming players of the week, designating an offensive, defensive, and special teams player that had a significant impact on the previous game.

Following the loss to Michigan, in which Northwestern led 17-0 before surrendering 20 unanswered points, no offensive player received this distinction.

Senior wide receiver Flynn Nagel indicated that the offense was unbothered by the overt message from the coaching staff and agreed with the decision.

“I don’t think it was a very good offensive performance,” said Nagel, who led the Wildcats in receiving against Michigan with six catches for 65 yards. “First half, like we said, we came out and we executed. And then, in the second half, we failed to execute and didn’t perform, and kind of left our defense hanging a little bit. It’s been multiple games now that that’s happened, and we need to get it fixed.”

While Northwestern has beaten Michigan State in each of its last two matchups with the Spartans — 54-40 in 2016 at Spartan Stadium, and 39-31 in triple overtime last season at Ryan Field — the Wildcats initially trailed in both games, something Fitzgerald hopes to prevent Saturday.

“Both games, we found a way,” Fitzgerald said. “They were not pretty at all on our end … There’s one theme — we put ourselves behind in both games. We were down 14-0 in Spartan Stadium the last trip up there and I think we were down 10-0 last year. We can’t let that happen (Saturday).”