EAST LANSING – Jordan Turner dropped into coverage on the snap, backpedaling into the middle of the Michigan State football defense with his eyes trained on Ohio State quarterback Will Howard.

Turner glanced to his right, seeing a double-stack of wide receivers starting their break off the line. Instantly and instinctively, the linebacker sensed what was coming.

Facing third-and-4 early in Saturday’s second quarter, Howard looked and kept his focus to his left. Buckeyes wide receiver Emeka Egbuka broke to the inside and ran a stop route, parking himself near midfield. Turner and cornerback Charles Brantley broke on the ball before it ever left Howard’s hand.

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But Turner had a half-step on his teammate as both elevated in front of Egbuka, snagging the ball at its peak as they collided and taking off the other direction for a 36-yard return deep into Ohio State territory.

“We worked that drill last week, and coach said I was moving too fast, so I had to slow down,” Turner recalled Tuesday. “The opportunity came, and it was like practice came to the game.”

Already trailing 10-0, Turner’s pick set the Spartans up for their only score in an eventual 38-7 loss to the Buckeyes. It came four plays after a Jack Velling fumble, allowing Aidan Chiles and the offense to atone with a 12-yard touchdown pass on the next play.

And it showed how much Turner, a Wisconsin transfer from Farmington Hills who opted to play his final season of eligibility at MSU, has made an impact on a linebacker group that has struggled mightily over the past few years against opposing passing attacks.

Turner had a game-high nine tackles against the Buckeyes and has led the Spartans in both of their Big Ten games this season. He also had two of MSU’s three QB hurries Saturday. For the season, the 6-foot-1, 231-pound sixth-year senior leads MSU with 38 tackles and is tied with defensive end Khris Bogle for the team lead with three sacks.

“I thought (Turner) was a good player last year. I think I see him getting better each week,” defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, who was at Minnesota a year ago, said Tuesday. “I think he's become a guy that we can kind of count on to make plays. He's a guy that is able to rush a quarterback in blitz situations. He's shown up more in coverage, obviously making the interception last game. So I've been pleased with him, and he's a fun guy to coach."

The Spartans (3-2, 1-1 Big Ten) again will get tested with middle and underneath passes Friday night when they face No. 6 Oregon (4-0, 1-0). Kickoff at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon, is 9 p.m. ET on Fox.

Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who began his career at Central Florida and arrived at Oregon in the offseason after two years at Oklahoma, replaced Heisman Trophy finalist and first-round pick Bo Nix. So far, the 6-foot, 200-pound senior is leading the country with a sizzling 81.5% completion percentage (110-for-135) for 1,192 yards. His 298.0 passing yards per game ranks 12th nationally and nine touchdowns. All that comes after Nix broke the NCAA season record at 77.4% a year ago.

“Explosive offensively,” said MSU coach Jonathan Smith, who while at Oregon State split two games against third-year Oregon coach Dan Lanning the past two years. “The quarterback is a good player, accurate with the ball. ... And they got some athletes that he's throwing it to.”

Lanning also on Monday said something similar about the Spartans’ defense.

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“Just athletic players. They're really sound in their scheme,” said Lanning, whose Ducks sent Smith out of Oregon State with a 31-7 loss in November at Autzen. “But they do a good variety of things (and) those guys understand, obviously, what they're supposed to do. And then they have talent.”

A big part of that has been the addition of Turner to a group that returned fifth-year senior Cal Haladay and 2023 Freshman All-American Jordan Hall but had limited depth in part due to the two-linebacker scheme former defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton operated with and recruited to the previous four years.

While Hazelton’s defense often played soft and got torched over the middle, Rossi’s three-linebacker scheme has the Spartans swarming to the ball. Turner – voted a captain by his teammates – often leads the charge, going from sideline to sideline and making tackles and plays like the interception in the flat. It is an area he knew he had to work on coming into his final season of eligibility.

“Everybody always said I was terrible in space, that I was just a box back,” Turner said, pointing to critics labeling him as a downhill tackler against the run. “I didn't like that. I feel like I can cover the whole field. … I used to dip my hip when I wanted to make it a big hit, and often leads to me missing hip tackles. So I worked on that. And then when it comes to the zones (covering passes), it's just having patient feet, balanced footwork, so I can break either way in the direction of the ball that it's being thrown.”

Like the pick against the Buckeyes, a play where he showed the ability to run after making the interception and nearly scored a touchdown. One that might have given MSU even more momentum than the TD a play later or further deflated Ohio State’s offense.

Yet not scoring didn’t matter nor was something Turner wanted to dwell on, not with another chance to make a big play in a big game coming up Friday.

“It was still bitter. I wouldn't say sweet,” he said. “When I'm out there, I always try to do my best so we can have the best chance to win. And it's just sucks that we didn't come out with the ‘dub.’ …

“I don't like playing 'if' games – if this happened, this isn't going to happen. But we saw how it could have played out in film. Now, we just got to make sure it doesn't happen again in games.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jordan Turner gets Michigan State football's defense playing quicker