God I am an awful blogger. I am in my full Kenny Powers get up, drinking some witches brew and trying to find a little bit of time to get some three things in. So let's get into it.
1. Running game:
MSU needs to be able to run the rock. Like I said earlier, 125 yards on the ground would pretty much wrap this game up for MSU (unless Nebraska churns up a lot more...). Right now, MSU is just rolling with the hot hand. It does seem to change game to game. However, I would like to see Edwin Baker pick up what he had going in the UM game. I think our offensive line looks better with Edwin running the ball as opposed to Bell. This has more to do with a power back vs. someone who can burn the edges more. Along with that, Jared Crick and Thaddeus Randle are out for the year. Randle's injury makes the defensive line very thin for Nebraska. MSU needs to take advantage of that.
2. Stopping the run game:
MSU needs to slow this game down. Martinez and Burkhead are both prime time players. Taylor runs the option very well and when his passing game is on, the Nebraska offense can be unstoppable. If MSU out rushes Nebraska, this game is over in favor of the green guys. Martinez isn't the same kind of quarterback as Denard is, this year. If RR was still in Ann Arbor, the offenses would be nearly identical. However, Nebraska tends to run a full option game a lot more. This will be a slightly different look than the previous weeks. I think it was very important for MSU to face the teams they did the last two games. Mashing those two teams together would give a good look at what Nebraska is looking to run. (Does that make any sense?)
3. Control the crowd:
This is kind of a random way to win a game but college sports, more than any other level of sports can be swayed by the crowd. If MSU plays Wisconsin at 330, instead of at 8...I think MSU looses that. Beer tends to make one rowdy. Nebraska fans are going to be amped up for this game. Both MSU and Nebraska are playing for a straight away to the B1G title game. With that, the 11 am start time is going to help the Spartans. If we can score on the first possession quiet the crowd and dominate the ball for the duration of the game. MSU will walk out of Lincoln with a victory.
Prediction: 31-21 MSU. Look for MSU to control the clock. This game will be determined a lot on both our defensive backs and our ability to get at Martinez. If our DBs are getting torched, my prediction is going to look ridiculous.
It's pretty crazy how much home field matters in college football. I need to give more credence to the home field advantage when making any sort of prediction on these games.
ReplyDeleteI'll have some more thoughts on this, but man the B1G has a lot of evenly matched teams. You could ask 5 different people and get 5 different responses on who the 5 best teams in the conference are and all of those could make reasonable choices. That seems much different than normal years.
Agree on home field, especially as I watch the rest of the games today. Winning on the road is definitely what separates good teams from excellent teams.
ReplyDeleteDon't see a lot of excellent teams in the B1G this year. Thus I will be thinking lots of home teams will be winning.
Don't feel good about going into Iowa for MSU. Good news for us, everyone else in the Legends division has a couple tough road games ahead of them as well.