When I sketched out story ideas for the course of the season, I’ll be honest and tell you that this one was never on my list of Michigan State tales for the season. I never saw the need.

But now here we are, and I’m shocked, quite frankly, to have to write this:

Do we have to worry about Michigan State getting to six wins to be bowl eligible?

I think we do.

Saturday’s home loss to a one-win Northwestern team — as a 10-point favorite, no less — dropped Michigan State’s record to 3-2 overall. There are seven chances left to get three wins, and all seven Saturdays feature Big Ten opponents, starting with this Saturday’s battle with No. 8 Penn State (3:30 p.m. ET; TV: Big Ten Network) in Happy Valley. Penn State is favored by almost two touchdown.

So when we start to do the math, the Spartans have an issue. Ranked No. 11 in the preseason, everyone shuffled around the top four juggernauts in the Big Ten East, and there were many who thought the Spartans were the team to beat in the division. Ohio State got the majority of the love, and so did Penn State and Michigan. But they were there, certainly, in the hunt.

But a slew of injuries and a shocking lack of production from a few areas on this team have the Spartans reeling. It’s not the start they were expecting, with both losses to Arizona State (minus-6) and Northwestern (minus-10) coming as big favorites.

So let’s look ahead now. From what we’ve seen so far from the top four teams in the Big Ten East, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan all have played much better. Ohio State is still unbeaten at 6-0 and ranked No. 3 in the country. Penn State, this week’s opponent for Michigan State, is 4-1 with the only loss a narrow one-point defeat to Ohio State. Michigan is 5-1, with the only loss in the opener to unbeaten Notre Dame, currently ranked No .5 in the country.

Those three look really good. The Spartans do not.

Sparty gets Penn State and Michigan the next two weeks, and Ohio State awaits on No. 10 in East Lansing. One of the reasons why some experts liked the Spartans so much in the preseason was because the Michigan and Michigan State games were at home. That made sense.

But let’s be real now. It’s highly unlikely that the Spartans can beat any of those three teams. So that takes the record to 3-5.

That means they need to find three wins in the other four games to make it to bowl eligibility. And I’m telling you right now that there are no givens there, outside of pathetic Rutgers in the season finale.

The other three games are going to be interesting. Some would say that a healthy Purdue (Oct. 27 in East Lansing) looks better than the Spartans right now. The Boilermakers are throwing the ball all over the place with David Blough at quarterback and Michigan State’s secondary is one of the worst in the country. Say that’s a loss, too.

That leaves getting wins against both Maryland (Nov. 3) and Nebraska (Nov. 17) as absolute musts to get to that six-win level. Both of those games are on the road. Nebraska is a mess right now, but they have a freshman quarterback in Adrian Martinez who’s off to a good start and they’ll get better every week. Michigan State certainly will be favored, but Lincoln in mid-November is always a crap-shoot weather-wise, so that could be an ugly game.

Same with Maryland. If the Terps are good enough to beat Texas, they’re good enough to beat Michigan State. Again, the Spartans will probably be favored against Maryland, but it’s also no guarantee.

Hopefully, the Spartans will continue to get healthier and they will start to play better. Maybe those other four games will all be wins, for all we know. Maybe they even surprise Penn State or Michigan in the next two weeks, even though I sure don’t see that happening.

So we ride it out. The goals have changed now, but the journey will still be entertaining.