Payton Thorne went 12-of-24 passing for 233 yards and four touchdowns to lift No. 15 Michigan State to a 35-13 season-opening home win over Western Michigan on Friday.
Jalen Berger ran for 120 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries in his first game for the Spartans after transferring from Wisconsin.
Michigan State got off to a slow start, trailing 3-0 with 6:31 left in the first quarter after a 27-yard field goal by Western Michigan’s Palmer Domschke.
But the Spartans got rolling after that.
Just 1:54 later, Thorne hit Germie Bernard for a 44-yard touchdown pass to give the Spartans a 7-3 lead with 4:37 remaining in the first quarter.
With 14:55 left in the second quarter, Thorne rolled to his left and threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to tight end Daniel Barker in the left corner of the end zone to make it 14-3 Spartans.
Thorne then threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to Keon Coleman to give Michigan State a 21-3 lead.
The score remained that way until there was 8:20 remaining in the third quarter, when Western Michigan drove 67 yards in seven plays and cut Michigan State’s lead to 21-10 on a 4-yard touchdown run by Sean Tyler.
The Broncos then mounted another drive and cut Michigan State’s lead to 21-13 with 49 seconds remaining in the third quarter on a 42-yard field goal by Domschke.
Michigan State then made a gamble in the fourth quarter that paid off.
After driving from its own 9-yard line to the Western Michigan 1-yard line, the Spartans elected to bypass a field goal and go for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal.
The Spartans then handed the ball off to Berger, who plowed across the goal line to give Michigan State a 28-13 lead with 6:28 remaining.
The Spartans stopped Western Michigan on downs and all but put the game away on a 43-yard touchdown pass from Thorne to Tre Mosley.
–Field Level Media