The clamoring of our readership for a post has been heard echoing through the mountains and the foothills. I now make my triumphant return to lobbing occasional pot shots at lil bro and unwavering faith in Michigan being the best program in all of college football.
Hey guys, I have come to a recent conclusion that breaks my heart and will be massively insightful yet disappointing news: the B1G is awful at football. It has traveled beyond Big East level shittiness now where I wouldn't even be confident if this bowl season was a Mountain West vs Big Ten challenge. It doesn't help that two of the best teams in the league are ineligible for a bowl game. Slide everyone down a peg or two and things would look slightly less abysmal. We can all agree that MSU would have handled their MAC opponent in the Motor City Bowl appearance they truly earned this season.
As things stand, Sparty did pull off the victory over a Big 12 team in what may be the only B1G victory this bowl season. Here's a quick rundown of the remaining B1G schedule.
Wisconsin vs Stanford in the Rose Bowl
The Grandaddy of em all is aptly named for it's decrepit B1G representative which is the sickly version of the Wisconsin juggernaut that couldn't win this game the previous two seasons anyway. The nice thing, Wisconsin will have a chance against a Stanford team who seems to just want to be Wisconsin when they grow up. Let's not forget that Wisconsin is no longer being led by their prick of a coach Beilema. I don't know if this helps or hurts the Badgers. Hopefully this limb doesn't snap off too violently...Wisconsin 20 - 17
Purdue vs Oklahoma State in the Heart of Dallas Bowl
Purdue made it to a bowl game? #HALOL Oklahoma State 41-14
Northwestern vs Mississippi in the Gator Bowl
Hey, the Wildcats beat Vandy, maybe they can take down another bottom tier SEC squad. Probably not though. The REAL MSU 31-28
Nebraska vs Georgia in the Capital One Bowl
Is there a team more disappointed in its bowl appearance than the Cornhuskers? As a team that represented the Legends division in the B1G championship game it's odd that I don't think Nebraska has much of a prayer against a Georgia team I think is criminally overrated themselves. Georgia 35-20
Michigan vs South Carolina in the Outback Bowl
Confidence is not flowing freely though I am simply excited to watch Denard play his final game and see how Gardner plays. If Devin leads Michigan to a victory my optimism for 2013 will surely spin out of control as I'll be predicting his Heisman winning campaign and a B1G championship for the Wolverines. South Carolina 22-17
Thus concludes the worst Big Ten football season in my memory. 2-5 is actually a decent record for these teams. Big Ten conference basketball season begins this week and the Wolverines are the #2 team in the country. Basketball school!?!?
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Bowling for Chicken Wings
Back again. Back both for the blog and for the bowls. This game is kind of a big deal. 7-6 vs. 6-7. No one wants to be below .500 at one point over on The Only Colors (before the Nebraska game had ended) that 6-5 would be no different than 7-4. Well, with that, there is a huge difference between being above .500 or below. Recruits want to play for a winning team, it looks better for future bowl games, and it puts you in a more positive light on national media spots. I dont want to listen to Herbstreet talk about how we blew it this year. I would rather hear about redemption, or salvation, or whatever winning this game would mean.
What will have happened through the bowl practices to put MSU in a position to win? The first thing is that the passing game needs to come together. With all the extra reps, hopefully any issues that were prevalent through the season (drops, miss communication) are sorted out. Along with that, the offense line should have tightened up. That will help execute in the pocket. More time to drop back = more time for the receivers to get open.
A second point will be what kind of change will Bell have made to benefit him? He tweeted that he plans to play at his lightest since his freshman year. Will this be a good a thing? It seems like he is best when he can absorb blows and get yards after contact. The TCU defense will be attacking the line to try to drop Bell in the back field. Hopefully the lightened load means more speed and more shift. My biggest complaint about Bell this year is that he would miss cuts up the field to try to get the edge. He would either get that edge or get dropped on the sideline. But those cuts he was missing looked like he could break a long one. I would have to assume that a lighter Bell can make those cuts, and accelerate through the hole.
Now what about the defense? Johnny Adams has turf toe, Lawrence Thomas is playing on the defensive line, and Gholston needs to play like his preseason hype. The defense should be well prepared for TCU as they run a similar offense to Northwestern and Nebraska. Their backup quarterback has struggled this year when he had to come in mid season. The extra practices should eliminate that. MSU got burned defensively by Nebraska but was able to limit Northwestern. What will show up for this game?
With Maxwell coming in looking to silent his critics, (especially those on message boards) he comes in and tosses 2 touchdowns and no turnovers. Bell has a solid game but the lighter load will leave him getting tackled on hits he used to turn for 3 yard gains. Call this one 24-17 MSU
What will have happened through the bowl practices to put MSU in a position to win? The first thing is that the passing game needs to come together. With all the extra reps, hopefully any issues that were prevalent through the season (drops, miss communication) are sorted out. Along with that, the offense line should have tightened up. That will help execute in the pocket. More time to drop back = more time for the receivers to get open.
A second point will be what kind of change will Bell have made to benefit him? He tweeted that he plans to play at his lightest since his freshman year. Will this be a good a thing? It seems like he is best when he can absorb blows and get yards after contact. The TCU defense will be attacking the line to try to drop Bell in the back field. Hopefully the lightened load means more speed and more shift. My biggest complaint about Bell this year is that he would miss cuts up the field to try to get the edge. He would either get that edge or get dropped on the sideline. But those cuts he was missing looked like he could break a long one. I would have to assume that a lighter Bell can make those cuts, and accelerate through the hole.
Now what about the defense? Johnny Adams has turf toe, Lawrence Thomas is playing on the defensive line, and Gholston needs to play like his preseason hype. The defense should be well prepared for TCU as they run a similar offense to Northwestern and Nebraska. Their backup quarterback has struggled this year when he had to come in mid season. The extra practices should eliminate that. MSU got burned defensively by Nebraska but was able to limit Northwestern. What will show up for this game?
With Maxwell coming in looking to silent his critics, (especially those on message boards) he comes in and tosses 2 touchdowns and no turnovers. Bell has a solid game but the lighter load will leave him getting tackled on hits he used to turn for 3 yard gains. Call this one 24-17 MSU
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Non conference
Means non writing. Bottom line we should smoke a mediocre bowling green team. See you for Texas. And some football posts.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
A Week Seems Like A Year
As you know a lot has happened in the B1G and for MSU over the last week. Pat is still AWOL and there are no signs of his return, at least until he gets back to California. Maryland and Rutgers to the B1G (ugh) MSU eeked one out past Minnesota (yay). michigan lost to OSU (meh). Coupled with that have been some basketball games. Where MSU has won some close ones, lost a sloppy one and cruised to a victory.
This MSU basketball team is the tale of two teams. A team with a backup point guard and a team without. MSU looks a lot better when Trice is playing. Trice is a career (approximately) 48% three point shooter. Last year he shot just over 40% and this year is shooting 56% (though his total shots this year are hardly enough to predict season results). But this is what Trice can bring to the MSU team, a three point threat (and a breather for Appling) Should Trice keep up his current pace of 1.6 threes made per game. That would likely land him in the top ten in the B1G. That seems like a stat he is more likely to upkeep versus the 56% made. For comparison sake, Trice made .93 threes per game. Even if he were to land somewhere in the middle of .93 and 1.6 that would be an extra dimension that seems to be missing (hopefully Byrd can get going, get some confidence).
Tonight MSU basketball plays Arkansas Pine Bluff in what should be a sleeper of a game. No sense in writing a write up for this game. Especially since I will be at work missing most of the game.
Coming up next on the blog, is MSU Football entering a Wide Receiver apex? Was this really a down year for the B1G? Will Pat ever blog again, or is he resting on his past accomplishments, like a typical michigan fan?
This MSU basketball team is the tale of two teams. A team with a backup point guard and a team without. MSU looks a lot better when Trice is playing. Trice is a career (approximately) 48% three point shooter. Last year he shot just over 40% and this year is shooting 56% (though his total shots this year are hardly enough to predict season results). But this is what Trice can bring to the MSU team, a three point threat (and a breather for Appling) Should Trice keep up his current pace of 1.6 threes made per game. That would likely land him in the top ten in the B1G. That seems like a stat he is more likely to upkeep versus the 56% made. For comparison sake, Trice made .93 threes per game. Even if he were to land somewhere in the middle of .93 and 1.6 that would be an extra dimension that seems to be missing (hopefully Byrd can get going, get some confidence).
(make more of these please)
The Spartan Football team was able to make a bowl game!!!! WHOOO HOOOOO. Pat and I both had the Spartans pegged for 9-3. We were just a bit off - a call or a field goal away from being there though. I guess that's sports. The defense was every bit as advertised - in some aspects better and some aspects worse. What was shockingly poor was the offense. Line injuries, I feel, really hampered the development of the passing game. I am 100% not in the Spartan camp that thinks we should have been playing Connor Cook. Those people are loony. Where do go from here though? Well, we go to a bowl game. The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl against TCU. Seems winnable. More on that later. What I would like to talk about is next year. Or as Mark Dantonio said at the team banquet "You will be the ones. And you know what I mean by that" (thank you Joe Rexrode twitter). So what is meant by that? Winning football games, duh! MSU is looking to bounce back from a meh 6-6 season. I would love an 8-4 year next year. Looking ahead, the schedule is more favorable for MSU (the problem with that is that the only good home game is against UM). With road games at Notre Dame and Nebraska.
Tonight MSU basketball plays Arkansas Pine Bluff in what should be a sleeper of a game. No sense in writing a write up for this game. Especially since I will be at work missing most of the game.
Coming up next on the blog, is MSU Football entering a Wide Receiver apex? Was this really a down year for the B1G? Will Pat ever blog again, or is he resting on his past accomplishments, like a typical michigan fan?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)