If you want to know how much having Michigan State play a football game at Arizona State means to Brian Lewerke and his family, ask his grandparents.

His grandmother on his father’s side, Diane, has never seen him play college football in person. His grandfather on his mother’s side, Darwin, last saw Lewerke play at the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 28. That game wound up being the last game Lewerke’s grandmother Anne ever attended. She died of cancer on March 11.

“We almost didn’t go, but we decided, ‘Who knows, this may be the last time,’ and it actually was,” Darwin said of the Holiday Bowl. “We had this game (Saturday) planned, as well as other games planned, to continue to go see Brian.

“His coming back here just evokes all sorts of emotions on a number of different levels. I’m just so excited to see Brian again, at home, against the Sun Devils. And for him to have that opportunity really in his back yard, to play.”

The Spartans’ date Saturday night at Arizona State, from MSU’s perspective, might as well be dubbed the Lewerke Bowl. This game in Tempe and next season’s return game in East Lansing were scheduled weeks after Lewerke, a four-star quarterback out of Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, committed to MSU over his second choice, hometown Arizona State.

The friends and family contingent — some more loosely connected than others — figures to be in the 100s Saturday.

“His high school friends either went to UA (Arizona) or ASU, most of them,” Lewerke’s father, David, said. “In the (Arizona State) student section alone, I suspect there’s going to be a cluster of Spartan fans I think you’ll see there.”

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Lewerke’s father has been working on the ticket plan since May, trying to accommodate as many as he can of the roughly 65 family and friends from his school and church and elsewhere who want to go. “I won’t be able to get them all there,” David Lewerke said. “We’re trying to get as many tickets as we can. We have a friend who’s buying a suite and we have other friends who are just buying tickets in club level.”

David and his wife, Angela, travel to almost all of their son’s games, home and road — racking up more than 45,000 miles during the last couple MSU football seasons. For once, MSU is coming to them. They would have been there anyway this week, in Evanston or Iowa City or wherever. For almost everyone else that cares for Brian, this is a rare opportunity. Maybe the only opportunity.

“There’s a lot of special stuff,” Brian Lewerke said. “People will be seeing me play for the first time, almost all my family and everyone I know.”

That includes his grandmother, Diane, whose health prevents her from traveling to most games. She plans to be rested and strong for Saturday night. “It’s a big deal,” she said.

She wants to meet her grandson’s teammates and let them know she prays for them when she watches on TV each week.

“You develop some far-distant relationships with people you don’t even know,” said Diane, who lives about two hours from Tempe in Prescott, Arizona.

“I’ll tell you what’s cool about Brian: After the games, I’ve texted him. Honey, he answers right away. How many young people do that? Or if I’ve called him, he’s walking across campus to go to a meal and he answers his phone from grandma. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Darwin Newton has similar stories about his grandson.

“Brian and I have a very, very, very unique relationship,” Darwin said. “In fact, in the middle of the afterglow of Friday night’s game (against Utah State), Brian texts me and lets me know how much he loves me. This was probably maybe less than an hour after the game was over.

“I have not seen Brian in a while. I saw him when he came back here this summer. Just because of some changes that have taken place in my life since my wife’s passing, I’ve had to move from the house we were in into an apartment. So again his coming back here lands really personal with me. And this will be the first game that I’ve been to without my wife.”

Darwin and Anne made a couple trips to East Lansing to see Brian play. They’d arrive Fridays and join Angela — Brian’s mother, Darwin’s daughter — in cleaning the rental house that Lewerke and several of his teammates share, bathrooms and all. “We love our kids, we love our grandkids and we will just do anything to show our love to them,” Darwin said.

Darwin and Anne didn’t know the Holiday Bowl would be their last trip together. Anne had been battling breast cancer for several years and it had metastasized to her liver. But it wasn’t until after the Holiday Bowl that she declined unexpectedly quickly.

“I was there with her, probably a couple weeks after the bowl game, what we found out is there was nothing more than the doctors could do for her,” Darwin said. “The chemo was not working like it had been.”

Anne died in the early morning hours of March 11.

“I was very close with her,” Brian said. “I would always (lovingly) make fun of her, because if you said something to her, she would always repeat the exact same thing back, like to confirm. My mom started doing it. ‘Ah, you’re becoming like your mom now.’ I loved her. She was awesome. She was the nicest woman in the world.”

Brian’s other grandfather, David Sr., described his grandson’s career at MSU as a bonding experience for the entire family, a reason to call each other and email and get together.

“It’s just been really good,” he said. “It’s really tied the family together. We talk more often. We’re a little closer.”

This week, a lot closer.

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