Is Michigan state football a top 25 program still?

After a staggering loss to the unranked Rutgers in their opening game in the season (currently Rutgers ONLY conference win since joining the Big 10), MSU has since rebounded beating at the time 13th ranked University of Michigan using an aggressive vertical passing offense. The question lingering now is who are these Spartans?

It has been pointed out that the Wolverine's are very young and both their secondary and offensive skill positions are fresh faced and gaining experience. It could be said that MSU just slipped up under-estimating Rutgers in something of a trap game to start the season under a new head coach. Let's touch on that; Mark Dantonio after leading the Spartans through it's most successful seasons in college football and have a better win record agains Ohio State (3-7) or Michigan (8-5) than any other coach to pass through he retired as the winningest football coach in Spartan history (115-57) . He has 3 Big 10 Titles, a Rose Bowl Victory, CFB Playoff appearance, and (6) 10 win seasons.

Leaving big shoes to fill for new head coach Mel Tucker coming off a 5-7 season with the Colorado Buffaloes (PAC-12) looks ahead and after a disappointing start losing 27-38 at home to Rutgers, came back and rallied to beat the Wolverines at home bringing the Paul Bunyan Trophy home to East Lansing. He has a tough schedule ahead though, heading to Iowa this weekend to face unranked and winless Iowa (dropping close games to Purdue and Northwestern) though if we're honest Iowa is always dangerous at home. Then they come home to face Indiana, then off to Maryland, then the schedule gets meaty. They get Northwestern and Ohio State at home before heading to Beaver Stadium to play Penn State. If Sparty can pull off an upset or two (OSU and Penn State) down the stretch you could argue that they just might quality as a top 25 team in college football.

I am going to put this squarely in the too early to tell category, they are certainly better than what they showed against Rutgers but the Michigan/Michigan State rivalry is always bitter and Sparty always comes to play.