The Michigan State Spartans defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes to break their three-game losing streak

East Lansing – Michigan State found itself at a fork in the road, and it lasted – right in Iowa, all night.

The Spartans were especially spectacular on defense, quarterback Aidan Chiles showed a huge improvement in his poise and decision-making ability, and Michigan State rode kicker Jonathan Kim's strong performance to a 32-20 victory over Iowa before an appreciative homecoming 69,682 spectators on Saturday evening at Spartan Stadium.

The win ended Michigan State's three-game losing streak as the Spartans won for the first time in more than a month. Hell, this was the first time in nearly a month that they took a lead in a game, improving to 4-3 and 2-2 in the Big Ten and within two wins with five games left in the regular season came close to bowl eligibility.

Iowa fell to 4-3, 2-2, suffering its first loss to a team not ranked in the final AP Top 10.

“I think this is one of the best games we've had as a unit so far,” said freshman wide receiver Nick Marsh, who had eight catches for 113 yards, including a nifty 11-yarder highlighted by a great spin Move – set up the Spartans' final score and put the dagger in the Hawkeyes' mouth.

“On offense, we are getting closer and closer to perfecting our skills and executing certain plays each week.

“I think we are getting very close to our goal.”

Perfect timing, rival Michigan is next.

Chiles led Michigan State to points on eight of 10 drives, including on the final one when redshirt junior running back Nate Carter rushed downfield from a yard out to seal the game after Marsh's 11-yard reception The initial decision was set by a 12-yarder and a TD. Replay said he was down at 1st. Early in that drive, Chiles found Marsh for 24 yards and Kay'ron Lynch-Adams had a big, 15-yard tackle break sprint for the first down.

Marsh and redshirt-senior receiver Montorie Foster Jr. both finished with 100 yards, with Foster finishing with 100 yards. It was the first 100-yard receiving game of his career for Foster, who also had a touchdown catch.

BOX SCORE: Michigan State 32, Iowa 20

This final scoring drive was the answer to Iowa's touchdown by Kaleb Johnson, who used a 75-yard scoring run to cut MSU's lead to 25-20 with 7 minutes, 22 seconds left. It was Johnson's (105) sixth 100-yard rushing game of the season, but he only had 15 yards at halftime. Other than that Johnson run, Iowa only had 58 rushing yards.

“Thanks to Michigan State, they played an outstanding game and we clearly didn’t,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “One thing about conference play is that every week is a test and we failed that test.”

“So we have to get back on our feet.”

Speaking of feet, Kim has a good one.

The graduate placekicker set the Michigan State single-game record with six made field goals (including a 46-yarder) in the fourth quarter, just before Johnson's TD run, making it a two-score game (25). :14). That score was achieved by Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara's interception by Nikai Martinez, who had led the Hawkeyes in scoring drives on the previous two possessions after Iowa had managed just 58 yards of total offense in the first half.

Kim also made field goals from 42, 43, 36, 29 and 55 yards, with the 55-yarder being his longest of the season.

At the end of the half, he missed the ball from 55 yards – up to that point he had gone 13-for-13 this season – and he called it “annoying” but made up for it. The 55-yarder he made in the second half tied the Michigan State single-game record of five, which he had previously made three times, twice by Paul Edinger and once by John Langeloh.

“I wouldn’t talk about making amends,” Kim said of the 55-yard mark. “I would just say it was another opportunity.”

Kim accounted for all the scoring in the first half as Michigan State led 12-0.

Before Kim's record-tying sixth field goal, Iowa had made it 22-14 on a 2-yard run by red-zone quarterback Brendan Sullivan, a junior and Davison, Mich., native, who caught a high snap and headed to the corner of the end zone for an easy touchdown. Sullivan now leads Iowa at 7-7 scoring points in the red zone this season.

Chiles, a redshirt freshman, found the end zone himself for the first time late in the third quarter, leading the Spartans with an impressive 75-yard touchdown drive and capping it off with an 18-yard strike to Foster in the corner of the end zone for a lead of 19-7. The Chiles kept the offense going with a great third-down run, breaking a tackle and traveling 26 yards into Iowa territory. The touchdown drive, which lasted more than five minutes midway through the third quarter, was the answer to Iowa's first score when McNamara hit an 18-yard touchdown pass to freshman Reece Vander Zee.

That Iowa drive covered 58 yards. Iowa had 58 total yards of offense in the first half.

“They pushed us in the second half and managed to get within one goal a couple of times,” said Michigan State University head coach Jonathan Smith, who may have just landed the first commitment of his tenure.

“And the response from this group was huge.”

Michigan State suffered tough losses to two of the top five teams in the country, Ohio State and Oregon, and talked last week about how it won the bye week. Turns out the Spartans weren't kidding. They bullied a team known for its physicality in Iowa, dominating all three phases of the game from the start.

Michigan State scored on four of its six drives in the first half, with Chiles moving the ball well except for a first-quarter interception by Iowa sophomore defender Koen Entringer, an Ypsilanti native and Walled Lake Western graduate. It was the Chiles' ninth interception of the season, but even that was on third-and-long and the end result wasn't much worse than what a punt would have found out anyway. The Hawkeyes did miss a golden opportunity to shut him down early in the first quarter, but it was wasted.

Chiles finished the game 22-for-30 for 256 yards. His 73.3% completion rate was his best as a Spartan.

Chiles also managed 51 yards on 11 carries, but was hardly happy.

“I think we're still a lot better than what we showed today,” Chiles said. “We did a great job getting into the red zone, but we have to finish now. Kim can make his shots, but we also want to get into the end zone. So it was good to have Kim out there, you can't really do that. “I complain about having a good kicker. I think we still did some great things moving the ball. My own performance is the team's performance, so it's like, “Hey, I have to finish too.”

“It’s all about me, I have to figure that out.”

The Spartans' defense had the Iowa offense in check. And it's an Iowa offense that improved in the first half of the season under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester, the former Western Michigan head coach. The Hawkeyes scored 40 points in a win over Washington a week ago.

But on Saturday, Iowa lost 470-283 and didn't get a first down until the second quarter, thanks in large part to a pretty strong Michigan State defensive line that rotated personnel and stayed fresh throughout the game. Iowa had just 12 first downs in the game, while Michigan State had 27. In its five first-half drives, Iowa punted four times and missed a 58-yard field goal attempt by Drew Stevens, who had plenty of leg, but right went just wide.

McNamara, the senior quarterback who last played with Michigan at Spartan Stadium in 2020, threw for just 30 yards in the first half and finished the game 12-for-25 for 181 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. Martinez, a junior defensive back, and redshirt-senior linebackers Jordan Turner and Cal Haladay each had six tackles.

The Spartans rushed for a season-high 212 yards, with Lynch-Adams, a sixth-year running back, finishing with 86 yards, as Michigan State improved to 71-34-3 all-time in homecoming games.

“I definitely think we have a high ceiling. We haven’t reached our full potential yet,” Foster said. “I definitely feel like we have a lot of growth ahead of us and I can’t wait to see it.”

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The Michigan State Spartans defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes to break their three-game losing streak

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