Monday, October 22, 2012

The State of State

Right now, I cannot even pretend to have anything to be happy about for the Spartans.  OK...OK, I can be happy about the defense.  We have the best defense in the B1G.  We hold the Michigan offense without a touchdown, and lose though.  This makes me very sad.  So where are our Spartans right now?

Well, to cover the obvious stuff, MSU is 4-4 overall and 1-3 in the conference.  Winning out would put MSU at 8-4 and 5-3 in the conference.  After the first half of the season ended, I projected this is where we would end up. 

Right now, the offense is playing like a team that's uneven.  At times our running game looks good, at time our passing game looks good, at times our blocking looks good.  Rarely do they all synch up together.  I will contribute a lot of this to the injured offensive line.  The lack of continuity has made it hard to develop a pattern and trust in the trenches.  I has been great at developing younger players though.  So look out 2013!  The line play dictates a lot of what you can do in the run game, Bell has managed a solid season with some highlight reel plays.  He seems to get three yards every time he touches the ball.  The problem is, he has not been gashing defenses for HUGE chunks of yards.  This could be a product of being used too much.  After injuring his knee against UM, Bell called to come out, he did not, got the ball for the next carry, and promptly stumbled after the handoff.  We need Caper to get the ball sometimes.  Lastly for offense, once the receivers starting dropping the ball nothing good could  happen.  Now that they are catching the ball and making athletic plays doing it, we might finally see some points scored.

A lot has been said about the defense and their inability to close out games.  But when you hold teams to 12, 19, 16, you need to win those games.  I don't care if you gave up one last drive at the end, you stopped plenty more before that.  The worst thing I can see from this is that defense gives up its edge.  MSU can rely on it's defense for only so long.  I cannot find a lot of words for our defense, they have done a great job all year.  A few more turnovers would be nice, but I will take so few touchdowns allowed. 

Right now, MSU has a huge game looming against Wisconsin.  This is the game where blocking, running and passing need to link up and show some muscle.  After that we have Nebraska at home (which I will be at).  Go 2-0 over these games and get to the bye (off?) week.  To me, MSU is still a bowl team, it would be a real shame to not make one.  So that is where MSU is right now, a lot of unbalanced performances from the offense, solid play from the defense, and a deflated blogger. 

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