Alessio Milivojevic Is Questionable and Michigan State Ruled Out Four Cornerbacks Before UCLA: What It Means for the Spartans
Michigan State released its first availability report of UCLA week on Wednesday night, and it reads like a roster audit. Ten players are out. Six more are questionable, including starting quarterback Alessio Milivojevic.
The Spartans are 2-5, 0-4 in the Big Ten, riding a five-game losing streak, and they fly to Pasadena to face a 6-0 UCLA team ranked ninth in the country.
Nobody Has Said What Is Wrong With the Quarterback
The report lists Milivojevic as questionable. That is all it lists. Michigan State has not disclosed the nature of the injury, when it happened, or whether it came in practice or in Saturday’s 24-21 loss to Northwestern.
He played that entire game and spoke to reporters afterward. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald said the team was injury-free following it. Fitzgerald’s weekly press conference came Monday, two days before the report went out, so there is no coaching comment on the designation at all.
If Milivojevic cannot go, Michigan State has a problem experience will not solve. Backup Cam Fancher is out for a third straight game with a knee injury from the Oct. 3 loss at Wisconsin. That leaves true freshman Kayd Coffman, who has played 11 career snaps and has never attempted a college pass.
Milivojevic, a redshirt sophomore, has completed 121 of 185 passes for 1,263 yards with seven touchdowns and three interceptions this season, a 65.4 percent clip.
The Secondary Is the Real Emergency
Four cornerbacks are listed out: Tyran Chappell, Tre Bell, Charles Brantley and Keshawn Williams. Linebacker Jordan Hall, receiver Charles Taplin, fullback Jay Coyne, offensive lineman Tristan Comer and tight end Joe Caudill join them, along with Fancher.
Running backs Jaziun Patterson and Darrin Jones Jr., linebackers Brady Pretzlaff and Caleb Wheatland, and left tackle Ben Murawski are questionable alongside the quarterback.
UCLA is a bad week to be short on defensive backs. The Bruins have outscored opponents 125-50 in the second half this season and 90-26 in the fourth quarter. Running back Wayne Knight has a rushing touchdown in all six games, the first UCLA player to do that since Maurice Jones-Drew in 2005.
UCLA Has Its Own Quarterback Story
The Bruins are 6-0 without the quarterback they planned on. Nico Iamaleava needs season-ending knee surgery after getting twisted up in the Oct. 10 win at Oregon. Coach Bob Chesney, in his first year in Westwood, called the injury “severe” when he announced it Monday.
Ty Dieffenbach has the job instead. He is a senior who never played a game at Pittsburgh, started nine times at Cal Poly last season, and opened this year third on UCLA’s depth chart. He has thrown for 307 yards with a touchdown and an interception in two appearances, including a 264-yard afternoon in last week’s 17-7 win over Wisconsin. Chesney called him “a warrior, all the way around.”
What It Means
Michigan State needs four of its last five to reach bowl eligibility, and the remaining schedule is UCLA, Michigan, Washington, Oregon and Rutgers. That is not happening. Fitzgerald’s first season is about development now, and Saturday is the kind of game where a thinned-out roster gets exposed in front of a national CBS audience.
Kickoff is 3:30 p.m. Eastern at the Rose Bowl, UCLA’s homecoming. It is Michigan State’s first game there since the 2014 Rose Bowl win over Stanford.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
