Did Michigan State intentionally take a safety vs. Ohio State?

In one of the stranger plays you’ll see in college football, the Michigan State Spartans appeared to intentionally take a safety against the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The Michigan State Spartans haven’t had the season that they were hoping for, going 6-3 heading into Saturday’s game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. They’re doing what they can to pull out wins, even if that means giving up a safety, apparently.

In the second half of this Big Ten matchup, the Spartans continued to face tough field position for their offense. Ohio State’s punter continued to pin the Spartans inside the five-yard line, and Michigan State struggled to move the ball forward in those situations.

Late in the third quarter, the Spartans were forced to punt from their own one-yard line. However, instead of risking a potential blocked punt, or even trying to get a punt off, the Spartans appeared to intentionally snap the ball out of the end zone and take the safety.

The potentially intentional safety gave the Buckeyes a 9-6 lead. You can see the play below for yourself and decide if you think it was intentional or not.

Considering Michigan State was playing two different punters in the game and that their previous two punters were sidelined, perhaps the Spartans didn’t want to risk giving up a defensive touchdown.

I can appreciate the appeal of keeping it a one-score game and try to win the field position battle. Unfortunately, the Spartans punted the free kick after the safety out of bounds to give the Buckeyes solid field position on their next drive.

Although the Buckeyes weren’t able to score on offense, their punt team once again pinned the Spartans back near their own goal line. A fumble from Michigan State led to a defensive touchdown for Ohio State to give the Buckeyes a 16-6 lead.

Giving up a safety intentionally is one of the weirdest strategies we’ve seen in a while, and as we quickly learned, it’s hard for that strategy to pay off.