Eastern Michigan Eagles at Michigan State Spartans

Edwards runs for 2 TDs in Michigan State's 35-7 win over Eastern Michigan

The Spartans (2-0) broke away from a close game at the start of the third quarter with two quick touchdowns. Edwards ran for 2 yards on the first score and Milivojevic threw a 38-yard pass to Charles Taplin to put Michigan State up 28-7. Jazium Patterson also added 7-yard score midway through the fourth quarter.

Milivojevic completed 12 of 20 passes for 170 yards as the Spartans outgained the Eagles (1-2) 472-219. Michigan State totaled 258 yards rushing, the most since gaining 260 against Akron in 2022.

“I think the run game was great today,” Milivojevic said. “Makes it a lot easier on me to go out there and win a game when you got a guy like this running for I don’t know how many it was, but I know it was a lot.”

Despite the win, Michigan State coach Pat Fitzgerald said his team has plenty to work on.

“We’ve got to be better fundamentally in the second quarter,” Fitzgerald said. "We weren’t doing a great job block destruction. We weren’t fitting gaps right. We didn’t tackle well. We went under blocks. And then you know the play they scored on, we practiced.

“So just a lot of things we need to still really work hard on and improve, and we’re going to coach the living, you-know-what out of our guys.”

Michigan State took a 14-7 halftime lead on Milivojevic’s 18-yard touchdown pass to Fredrick Moore and Edwards’ 1-yard run.

The Spartans led 14-0 after Edwards scored with 8:45 left in the second quarter, but Eastern Michigan responded with a 78-yard drive. Noah Kim scored on a 4-yard run with 1:50 remaining. The Eagles (1-2) were able to move the ball throughout the half but struggled to convert drives.

“We wore down a little bit, and then offensively we moved the ball but we didn’t finish drives,” Eagles coach Chris Creighton said. “I’m not discouraged. It’s discouraging if you can’t just stop them and it’s discouraging if you can’t even move the ball. You just try to figure out how to do those things. That’s not the feel that I have from this.”

Kim, who played four seasons at Michigan State from 2020 to 2023, completed 16 of 26 for 118 yards. The seventh-year quarterback transferred to Coastal Carolina for a season before landing with Eastern Michigan in 2025.

The takeaway Eastern Michigan: The Eagles showed that they could move the ball but were only able to get into the red zone one time during the game.

Michigan State: The Spartans were efficient on offense, converting 10 of 15 third downs and all three of its fourth-down attempts.

Up next Eastern Michigan: Travels to Wisconsin next Saturday.

Michigan State: Visits third-ranked Notre Dame next Saturday.

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