'We've got work to do': Spartans sputter, pull away late from Broncos in opener

East Lansing — Perhaps Jacoby Windmon summed it up best.

“Playmakers come out in the fourth quarter,” he said. “That’s pretty much it.”

It wasn’t everything for No. 15 Michigan State on Friday night in its season opener against Western Michigan in front of 73,928 at Spartan Stadium, but it surely helped that the Spartans made some big plays when it counted most in a 35-13 victory over the Broncos.

Windmon led the charge for the defense, collecting two of his four sacks in the final 15 minutes, each of them critical as the momentum had shifted early in the quarter in favor of the visiting team. And running back Jalen Berger sparked the offense, a unit that had didn’t score a point in the third quarter but came to life when Berger scampered for a 50-yard gain then seized the momentum back for the home team with a 1-yard plunge with 6:28 to play.

BOX SCORE: No. 15 Michigan State 35, Western Michigan 13

It helped, too, that quarterback Payton Thorne finally settled in late in the game, icing the victory with a perfectly thrown ball to Tre Mosley for a 43-yard score to cap the scoring and hand Michigan State a well-earned victory, if not a spectacular one.

“We've got a lot of work to do,” Michigan State coach Mel Tucker said. “I like what I saw in the locker room after the game from our team and from our leaders. It’s a hungry football team and we know that we need to get better. But it was just a very, very mature locker room after the game and so it's all going to be about how we show up tomorrow.

“I saw some good things on offense and also saw some good things on defense, saw some good things on special teams. We left some plays on the field, obviously, and those things need to get cleaned up, but I expect our best and most improvement between our first and second games.”

The good things he saw clearly began with the pass rush, which accounted for seven sacks — four from Windmon and one each from Khris Bogle, Aaron Brule and Chester Kimbrough.

“I was just doing my job,” said Windmon, the transfer from UNLV said when asked if it was his best game. “Honestly, I don't know. I just go out there and play, man. We’ll look at the film the next day and just kind of go from there. I don't look at stats or nothing. I just play my heart out and then let the rest take care of itself.”

And while the offense wasn’t great, it was diverse with Berger running for 120 yards and four different players catching touchdown passes, including Mosley, Keon Coleman, Daniel Barker and freshman Germie Bernard on the first reception of his career.

Thorne was far from perfect, going 12-for-24 for 233 yards and an interception.

“I was pretty disappointed with how I played,” Thorne said. “But again, there were a lot of factors going into that, but definitely a ton of room to improve.”

After a slow start with two straight three-and-outs, the Michigan State offense came to life, trailing 3-0 after a 27-yard field goal from Western Michigan’s Palmer Domschke.

Thorne connected with Bernard on a 44-yard touchdown pass to give Michigan State a 7-3 lead before Thorne hit Barker with a 13-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the second quarter to push the lead to 14-3. Thorne later found Coleman for a 41-yard scoring strike to give the Spartans a 21-3 lead with 12:26 left in the second quarter.

A late drive was thwarted when Thorne made a poor decision and threw across his body, his pass getting intercepted by Western Michigan’s Keni-H Lovely in the final minute of the first half as Michigan State headed to the halftime locker room with a 21-3 lead.

“Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” Thorne said of the interception. “That's what it was, really. I’m not happy with that at all.”

It was in the third quarter when things truly started to swing Western Michigan’s way. On Michigan State's first offensive possession of the second half, Berger fumbled near midfield. Replays showed he was down but the call of a fumble was confirmed and the momentum began to shift.

The Broncos responded by going 67 yards on seven plays to pull within 21-10 when Sean Tyler scored on a 4-yard run, a play after he scampered 45 yards to get inside the MSU 10. Michigan State’s next drive ended when freshman Jack Stone’s 44-yard field goal attempt sailed wide left.

Western Michigan added another Domschke field goal to pull within 21-13 with 49 seconds left in the third quarter and Michigan State then went three-and-out. But the defense, after giving up a pair of third-and-10 conversions, got a stop and MSU took over at its 8 with just more than 10 minutes to play and the pressure clearly mounting.

The Spartans answered with a 91-yard drive that as highlighted by Berger’s 50-yard run before the defense got a fourth-down stop leading to Mosley’s touchdown grab.

“We talked before we even came into the game about not flinching,” Tucker said. “There’s gonna be momentum swings in the game, no matter who you play. How do you get the momentum back? You get the momentum back by executing one play at a time and just stacking plays. That’s how you keep the momentum and what I liked is that I didn't see frustration to the point where we couldn't function. We stayed together, we kept chopping and talking about what adjustments we need to make.

“That’s all it was. It was no rah-rah speech or anything like that.”

Western Michigan quarterback Jack Salopek was effective at times, going 21-for-36 passing for 193 yards for the Broncos (0-1). Tyler ran for 68 yards on 13 carries and scored Western Michigan’s only touchdown.

“I'm proud of them, I thought they fought hard,” Western Michigan coach Tim Lester said. “We didn't get the job done. Our No. 1 thing coming into the game was to take care of the ball and I don't think we did a good job of that. Obviously, we turned the ball over twice in the red zone, two lost fumbles. We need to be better to beat a good team like that.”

mcharboneau@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @mattcharboneau