Sometimes you just get beat, and when you do, it’s better to try to figure out why, rather than wasting a lot of time looking for excuses.
Sometimes you lose to a team that everyone expects you to beat, and when you do, you’d better make damn sure not to let it put your entire season in a tailspin, lest the three-letter acronym that haunted Bobby Williams and John L. Smith be resurrected by the critics: SOS (same ol’ Spartans).
In the end, it’s time for us to just circle the wagons. It’s been nice around here and everyone has been saying nice things about us – but now there will be people critical of us so the main thing we have to do is focus. –Mark Dantonio
OK, work with me here. Try to forget, for just a moment, that the Spartans just lost (again) to Central Michigan.
Don’t put this exercise off — if you wait until you get back to the office on Monday, there will be a whole gaggle of unsavory folks (CMU grads, Michigan fans, etc.) who are going to make it their business to ensure that you won’t be able to forget about what happened yesterday anytime soon.
So, again, forget the outcome. Take the emotion out of it. Just think about the way the Spartans played against Central. Think about, and honestly evaluate, what you saw out of the offensive line, the wideouts, the running backs, the quarterbacks, the defensive line, the secondary, and the special teams.
There’s an old college football adage that says that teams improve the most between their first and second games. Given the stark difference in talent between CMU and Montana State, it’s obviously very difficult to get a gauge on how much the Spartans improved over the course of the week. So instead of asking what they did better against the Chips than they did against the Bobcats, ask this question: what did they do well?
The answer is, unfortunately, not much.
Offense
Kirk Cousins played well, completing 13-18 passes for 164 yards and one touchdown. When CMU tied the game at 20 early in the fourth quarter Cousins responded by marching the Spartans 80 yards in six minutes, 51 seconds on a drive that culminated with a seven-yard touchdown pass to B.J. Cunningham.
Unfortunately, the wheels came off for the Spartan defense and special teams units following that drive, and Cousins and the offense never got the ball back.
What I am certain of is that the two-week game of musical chairs at the quarterback position has to stop. It’s time to pick a quarterback, turn the offense over to him, and let him play until his performance on the field warrants a change.
The Spartans scored points on two of the three drives directed by Cousins in the first quarter (although, in fairness, the field goal came on a four play, five yard “drive” that started on the CMU 32 yard line), and two of the three drives he directed in the second half. Keith Nichol played the second quarter; his first two drives were three-and-out. His third drive resulted in a nice 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Charlie Gantt. His final drive gained 19 yards in six plays and resulted in a punt.
For now, I think, Cousins has earned the starting job. That’s not to say that Nichol won’t eventually earn his own shot, but rotating quarterbacks for the sake of rotating quarterbacks is rarely productive, and it prevents the offense from hitting a groove. The second quarter yesterday is a great example — those two three-and-outs came at a point in the game when the Spartans could have continued to put heat on Central. Instead, the Chip defense was able to catch its breath and gain some confidence.
Might the same thing have happened if Cousins played the second quarter? Sure. But the point is, why disrupt the flow of your offense? If you see that the defense is giving you something that favors the guy holding the clipboard, then put him in. If not, stick with the guy who is putting points on the board.
We have always said that we play on being a balanced team and we have to be able to establish the run as we go through the course of the game. There are little things that we can fix and try to make better and make some of those shorter runs into longer runs. — Don Treadwell
Three tailbacks carried the ball for MSU yesterday, led by Caulton Ray with 53 yards on 16 carries. Larry Caper gained 33 yards on 6 carries. Glenn Winston gained three yards on three carries, and Edwin Baker was absent from the rotation.
That’s 89 yards on 25 carries for a per-carry average of 3.56 yards for the tailbacks on the day. That’s not Michigan State football.
It’s arguable that Caper looked a bit more explosive than Ray, but linebackers and safeties were on top of both so quickly due to a lack of push from the offensive line that it’s difficult to say who might emerge as the Spartans top rusher.
The offensive line’s struggles continued. Senior center Joel Nitchman didn’t play, and junior guard J’Michael Deane was dinged up in the first half. A thin unit was even thinner on Saturday, and while they were once again competent in pass protection, they’re just not showing the ability to moving the opposing defense off the line of scrimmage.
The MSU o-line averages 294 pounds per man; the CMU defensive line averages 264. Despite that, the o-line failed to create significant holes for the tailbacks. This is going to be an ongoing concern, and I’m going to obsess about it until I have a reason not to, so be prepared.
Defense
Dan LeFevour lit up the Michigan State defense for 328 yards and 3 touchdowns, completing 33 of 46 attempts. A week ago against Arizona he was limited to 108 yards passing; yesterday one receiver, Bryan Anderson, accounted for 120 yards receiving all on his own. Antonio Brown added ten catches for 71 yards, and eight other Chips caught passes, including LeFevour, who hauled in a 24 yard pass from Brown on a trick play in the first half.
The Spartan secondary, until further notice, is not as good as advertised coming out of fall camp. Not even close.
LeFevour was sacked three times and threw one interception, but it seems as if the only time the Spartans generate any kind of heat on opposing qb’s is in blitz packages. The defensive line just isn’t able to break through on its own.
The Chips passing attack was able to nickel-and-dime the Spartan defense all day, working underneath the coverage for four yards, seven yards, five yards, eight yards over and over, ad nauseum. There was no real rushing threat to speak of — CMU ran the ball for 86 yards on 29 attempts — and yet, the MSU defense could not account for the short passing game.
Linebacker Greg Jones, per usual, led the Spartans with 15 tackles. Trenton Robinson, Marcus Hyde and Brandon Denson all had nine tackles, and Chris L. Rucker had eight. All four of those guys are defensive backs, and the reason they had so many tackles is that the Spartan D as a whole could not keep the ball out of CMU’s receivers’ hands.
Also notable is that the Spartan defense surrendered four first downs to the Chips via penalties, including a fifteen yard personal foul for a late hit by Hyde on LeFevour that turned a third-and-eight into a first-and-ten on CMU’s drive to tie the game at 20.
On the day MSU committed eight infractions for 81 lost yards, including the offsides penalty on Andrew Aguila’s missed 47-yard field goal with 8 seconds left, after the Chips recovered a perfect onside kick while trailing 27-26.
Aguila got a second chance from 42 yards, and nailed it.
Lightning strikes thrice.
We are going to find out what kind of football team we have now and leadership is going to be huge. — Kirk Cousins
I’m sure that some folks were muttering “Same ol’ Spartans” on their way out of the stadium. I think it’s too early for that. There are ten games left, and this is the first time that a Mark Dantonio-coached Spartan team has really tripped up unexpectedly during his three-year tenure. A win next Saturday in South Bend will go a long way toward soothing jagged nerves.
But nothing seems as certain for the Spartans as it did a few weeks ago, does it?
Game Balls: Are you serious?
Injury Watch: Nitchman and Deane
Grades: Offense – B-; Defense – D; Special Teams – C
Misc.: A solid game wrap from Joe Rexrode, Howie Beardsley rightly points out that the Chips simply outplayed the Spartans, Drew Sharp asks three pretty reasonable questions about MSU in the wake of the loss, and CMU alum Terry Foster revels in the Chip victory.
Next Up: Notre Dame (1-1), coming off a thrilling, heartbreaking 38-34 loss to Michigan.