EAST LANSING >> Six losses in seven games. Four losses of 20 points or more. The numbers don’t lie: this recent chapter of Michigan State football has been ugly.

It’s no source of pride for the Spartans that the past seven games have been so listless. As much as Michigan State’s coaching staff has preached process over results all season, a complete lack of the latter shakes faith in the rebuild to some extent. The coaches get it, even if they still believe in what’s to come.

“I’m not going to be up here asking for patience. We’re not patient people,” Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith said. “We do have a perspective. We want to get some things established. Immediate results haven’t come, but I’m confident in the process we’re taking.”

And yet, there is still a chance for immediate results. The Spartans still have an outside chance to end up where they wanted to be, anyway. If Michigan State wins these next two games, the team earns a trip to a bowl game. Without dreaming about somehow making the College Football Playoff, a bowl game was about as big a goal as made realistic by the state of the program. Even if there have been some bumps, bruises and scrapes along the way, it’s still possible.

“Momentum of the program, the extra work you get, right? I think it’s a big deal,” Smith said Monday. “We got some guys on this team who’ve been around here a long time, and for them to be able to go on a positive note is a really big deal.”

A big deal for the present, but also the future in a lot of varied ways. Smith hit the biggest one in his answer: practice time. A bowl game gives his staff more time to coach up their group in preparation for that bowl. All that time makes for the best possible version of the current roster, but it also consequently helps develop the roster more for next season and beyond.

There’s also the recruiting angle to all this. If Smith’s first year is a baseline, making a bowl game right away sets a standard for recruits to see they’ll get opportunities to play in big games. It’s a metric of success to consistently play in some sort of postseason ball, regardless of intensity, both now and in the future.

Make no bones about it: that future is where the real hope lies. Not a bowl game. Not winning more than losing. None of that. This season is an introduction and a foundation for the Spartans. It’s all about setting up next year and the years after that.

This realization is apparent among the Spartans. Players have shifted their answers about the present slightly toward the future. Coaches, too.

“What gives me the confidence?” defensive coordinator Joe Rossi said Tuesday, when asked if his team can break through its struggles again this season. “The staff that we have, the head coach that we have. The players, the core group of guys that are here now, and the guys that are coming back. The guys that we’ve got committed. The guys that were currently recruiting.”

It’s impossible for the Spartans to talk about the present without conflating the future, because so much of that future — that really important future — will be influenced by these next two weeks.

In that regard, these next two games — today against Purdue, next Saturday against Rutgers — really are must-win, not just because of the bowl game, but because of what that bowl game empowers.

Michigan State starts off its bowl bid favored against Purdue this week, but next week sees a tougher opponent in surging Rutgers. The path to a bowl is there, but it’s narrow. If the Spartans want to make one, most importantly to reap all the rewards they see in postseason opportunity, then this two-week span has to be a complete reversal of recent play.

As ugly as this past stretch has been, and as much as it has endured, Michigan State has the chance to put all that behind and still achieve its goals.

“We want some immediate results, no question,” Smith said. “And that’s been shorter than we’d like. But we still got two opportunities to put the final kind of chapters on this first season.”

If all goes according to plan, there’ll be an epilogue. And a sequel, too.