EAST LANSING – Mark Dantonio is dead right that he and his team should never apologize for winning a football game, even if they barely thwarted disaster. If Michigan State wins 12 more games like it won Friday night, they’ll be Big Ten champions and headed to the College Football Playoff.

Problem is, if the Spartans play 12 more games like they played in a 38-31 win over Utah State, they’ll be 6-7 and licking their wounds after a loss in the Quick Lane Bowl.

History says that won’t happen. MSU won three division titles and two Big Ten championships after trudging unimpressively through openers in 2011, ’13 and ’15. The Spartans have only covered the Las Vegas point spread once in seven Friday night openers under Dantonio. So this is the norm, however irritating for fans.

“The unforced penalties are what concerns me,” Dantonio said, “jumping offsides, calling the wrong play in the huddle, not having enough guys on the line of scrimmage on a touchdown pass. Those are the type of things that can be corrected.”

It’s what might not be able to be corrected that should — and does — concern MSU’s coaches: The Spartans’ anemic push up front offensively. Because while Utah State could turn out to be a heckuva team in the Mountain West Conference. MSU’s goals have nothing to do with the Mountain West Conference.

MSU’s offensive line entered the season as the biggest question facing this team — a young group that played a ton last year, protected the quarterback pretty well but regularly struggled to get a push. Most of the same guys are back. Still no push. Not great protection Friday night, either.

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“We put a lot of guys up there. And we’re going to find out more about ourselves as we take the next step, the next game,” Dantonio said. “But you’ve got to be able to run the ball and win up front. I’ve said that all along. I’ve said that for years here.

“Everybody is involved in the run game, it’s not just the offensive line. It’s the play selection, it’s the tight ends, it’s the fullback, it’s the tailback, it’s all of it, it’s the wide receivers blocking. You have to look at where the breakdown was if we didn’t get the push or what’s happening. Again, I go back and look at Utah State — they’ve got a guy over the center that’s 310 pounds and pretty active.

“We’ll look at it and try to make a determination as to why.”

Answering the “why” is the first step. I know why I can’t dunk a basketball. That piece of knowledge is relatively useless in getting my hands above the rim. Maybe injured offensive tackle Cole Chewins will eventually make all the difference. I doubt it.

LJ Scott had only three carries longer than 4 yards — the first of those came on his 10th rush — and none of his runs were for longer than 9 yards. If it seemed like the Spartans were relentless in forcing runs with Scott between the tackles, they were. They were hopeful it would begin to work. Life will be a lot easier this season if it does. There’s an argument to be made that Connor Heyward was the better running back Friday. That’s not the issue, though.

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“I’m disappointed in what our run game produced,” co-offensive coordinator and play caller Dave Warner said. “You look at the (numbers), you can maybe misinterpret the rushing because those last couple plays we ran some option right there, we got some big chunks right there. You take those out of it, when we’re trying to bang LJ up in there and a little bit of Connor up in there, we didn’t get much movement. And I’m not sure what our run average was there. We didn’t have any consistency.”

If you take away MSU’s 70 yards on four runs that were either gadget plays, option pitches or quarterback Brian Lewerke darting out of trouble, and also subtract the lost yardage for three sacks, MSU averaged 3.37 yards per rushing attempt.

The Spartans had similar issues churning out consistent 5- to 7-yard runs last year against Bowling Green and Western Michigan — and it wound up being a theme much of the season.

Utah State’s defensive players figured they might be on their heels, given how many MSU linemen were returning and how the Spartans bullied Washington State in the Holiday Bowl.

“Coming into a Big Ten school that runs the ball well, that’s known for running the ball well, that has a really good running back and returning offensive line, yeah, (I’m) a little bit (surprised),” said Utah State safety Gaje Ferguson, who returned a Lewerke interception 40 yards for a touchdown.

Making season-long judgments on a team after an opener is only so fair, for several reasons. Teams do often improve before Week 2. And it’s impossible to know the quality of either team when neither has played another game. Heck, two years ago, even after the second game, MSU’s win at Notre Dame, we all thought the Spartans were a top 10 squad. They didn’t win again until November.

Utah State could wind up 11-1 atop the Mountain West. Maybe the Aggies will wind up being a comparable test to everything MSU sees before its trip to Penn State in mid-October.

“I think we were all a little bit surprised how fast Utah State was able to run their offense,” MSU defensive coordinator Mike Tressel said. “Utah State offensively, I was impressed with their consistency. They did a very good job. They were able to string together drives without explosive plays. Usually a team (like that) needs an explosive play or a penalty to score.”

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“I think their defense was good talent-wise,” Warner said. “I was impressed with their speed. That being said, I thought we would have been able to handle them better, most especially in the run game a little bit. We (also) had some early struggles in pass protection coming off the edge.”

MSU’s offensive line had its limitations last year, but it made a point to protect Lewerke. That again should be priority numero uno. He’s the season. MSU's passing game can carry the Spartans a ways. We saw that Friday. The Spartans did score 38 points — that’s more than they scored in all but two games last season, the last two, against Rutgers and Washington State. But Lewerke was under duress too often, sacked three times, hurried and hit several more.

He and MSU’s receiving trio of Felton Davis III, Darrell Stewart and Cody White were poised in the final minutes, when anything short of points would have meant defeat. There were NFL throws and catches made on that last drive.

And, after MSU took the lead with 2 minutes to play, its defensive star, middle linebacker Joe Bachie, finished the deal, both tipping and intercepting a pass as Utah State tried to mount a drive.

The Spartans have their share of big-time players who aren’t afraid of the nervous moments. That’s an awesome quality to have on a roster. It’ll win them a lot of games. Just not the ones that are attached to their hopes and dreams — unless that offensive line turns out to be among the “type of things that can be corrected.”

Contact Graham Couch gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.