Reduce Reuse Recycle Recap

Finally a win.  A win that MSU closed out.  That was nice to see.  I thought the MSU offense played well enough.  Obviously, it was not a great offensive show, but they were able to move the ball at times before ultimately doing something boneheaded.  Joe Rexode touches on that with his Monday Mail Bag.

 -I watched a good portion of the PSU/OSU game.  PSU played a solid game, but seemed to abandon the run game.  I think that ultimately did them in.  Not sure if Belton was injured or what.  Braxton was impressive in tearing apart a very good PSU defense.  That just might show how good the MSU defense actually is more than any other stat.

-From there, it was time to watch the um/Nebraska game.  I got to tell Pat about Denard's injury over the phone, that was about the most gratifying thing I have got to do this football season. Without Robinson, um was punchless.  The game wasn't really interesting outside of a few drives and seeing what um could do without Denard.  um fans will be pleased to know that Robinson will be the starter this weekend.

-To close out the game, Maxwell made one great pass after another and Bell was able to bounce around for 4-6 yard gains.  I think that our receivers may have finally turned a corner.  There was no Burbridge in this game, but that's OK.  Fowler is the man, and he showed it at times in this game.  Also, Lippet showed why I have been so high on him, from his sky high grab to his juke to the one yard line.  Personally, I really enjoyed seeing Thomas get some open field to run in.  A fumble certainly wasn't pleasant, but man, I would not want to tackle him.  The defense was really stout in this game as well.  MSU was able to hold Wisconsin to 19 yards rushing (net) and 190 yards total.  Gholston finally had a game that MSU has needed all year with 4.5 tackles for loss and a sack.  Along with that, one hit knocked Wisconsin quarterback Joel Stave out of for the season with a broken clavicle.

This play below, I remember seeing and screaming at the T.V.  It did not get called.

(mary langenfeld, uspresswire. via twitter of chris vannini)

I still don't think that the Wisconsin defense is that great.  One play in particular stuck out in my head on a pass deflection to a mostly wide open Bell.  Other than that, I think MSU mostly killed their own drives.  Don't get me wrong, they are a good defense, but the B1G features a handful of better defense's.

Next week MSU has Nebraska at home.  A game I will be at.  Maybe I can get some pictures from the game and any sort of EL related activities I do on here.  Sound good?

Week 5 Re-Cap

Well another week has gone by.  And there are some truths this week out of college football.  Truth one, Michigan had a bye week. Truth two, I wish the NHL wasn't locked out. 

-I watched the Penn State game at a Penn State bar here.  The Penn State defense looks solid enough.  They had no problem locking down Nathan Scheelhaase. Mike Mauti is the best defender in the B1G. He is a game changing line backer, able to stop the run, track down scrambling quarterbacks, and cover receivers.  Along with that, Allen Robinson is the type of receiver every B1G team wishes they had.  He can get up and grab the ball in the air - once he has it, Robinson has no problem making defenders miss in the open.  I have watched a lot of Penn State this year they look solid. 

-For the Wisconsin/Nebraska game, I was not really sure what to make of that.  Montee Ball had 90 yards and 3 touchdowns but it took 32 carries to achieve that.  The defense as a whole for Wisconsin looked really poor.  Does that mean that the Nebraska offense is really potent?  They are no slouches that's for sure.  Martinez out rushed Ball and Burkhead had 86 yards on only 18 carries.

-Finally, MSU vs. OSU.  There were some positives to take away from this game.  The first is that the defense played really, they got some takeaways from a very good team.  They were hold Ohio State to long spurts with little offense.  The passing game made some strides as well.  Lippett did not look totally lost, Maxwell did not turn the ball over and Kings could be developing into a stud receiver. Of course there were some real negatives as well.  The running game was non existent.  With that, the offensive line looks really weak as well.  Travis Jackson broke his leg and will miss the remaining of the season.   Coupled with the fact that Fou Fonoti is also gone for what should be most or all of the year and suddenly the offensive line is our weakest part of the team. With the pass game making some strides, they also continued to drop really easy passes.  Fowler is not getting it done, the drops appear to be in his head.

I was a bit disappointed that we lost this game.  There was no reason to lose it. As my preview pinted out, we just need to score points. 16 wont win you a lot of games.  Of course there was also the Miller fumble that looked like a sure fumble recovery to touchdown. Instead of getting 7 points, we settled for 3.  What a game changer that was.

I know a lot of people think my previous post was over reacting but when you take our season so far, you can't really count any game at this point as a sure win.  Even if our two losses were against ranked teams.  More on that tomorrow.

 

Recap and Quick Hits: Week 3

Well that was far and away from a win.  Had it been played later it would have been a Sunday bloody Sunday.  Rudy is still a douche bag.

-I watched the majority of OSU with the sound off.  Braxton Miller is no doubt a stud.  He made some Cal defenders look foolish.  But man is that OSU defense underwhelming.

-Penn State put a whooping on Navy. Good for them, this was was pretty much necessary.  I am not one of those people that wants PSU to tank every game - that's how I feel about Notre Dame.  Robinson was making a lot of plays and looks like a legit threat for PSU. If they have anyone else on offense something good could start happening.

-Michigan ended the game against Umass about 10 minutes into it.  Funchess with a touchdown and then Denard with a touchdown and then again and again and again. Michigan made this game look easy, for exactly that reason.  It was easy.  Umass is new to FBS and they will have a few growing pains.

-Lastly, MSU played a real snore fest against ND. The final score was 20-3 but it felt like even less than that happened.  MSU played a good game defensively.  The touchdown in the first quarter to Goodman was a complete mismatch.* (that was not pass interference either, shit call by the refs).  Notre Dame managed only 300 total yards 122 rushing and 178 passing.  This is a highly skilled offensive team.  They are very dynamic with Wood in the back field and Golson's ability to run added a wrinkle that MSU did not seem prepared for.  The Spartan interior line has no push which created a lot of passing and running lanes for the Irish offense. Along with that, the Spartan offensive line has no push which created a lot of rushed passes and tackles for loss.  Both of these are issues need to be fixed immediately.  Along with that, the wide receivers looked terrible again.  Dropped passes plaged the receivers all game long.  I have to assume that Arnett might be getting more burn going forward.  Lippett dropped the ball and at times looked outmatched. Fowler dropped a touchdown pass on a leaping play; Larry Caper had a dropped screen pass as well.  I will say that Mumphrey looked good, he was the only player on offense making any plays.  Sims also had a quietly effective game.   If anything, this game created a lot more question marks.  A lot of MSU bloggers are mentioning how this happened last year and the team was able to win 11 games.  This is a much different team.  The talent different on offense is really showing.  Currently MSU is ranked 13th in total defense, at 250 yards per game that is also tops in the B1G.  But no matter how good your defense is, you need to score points.  After this game, I am not sure what to expect on offense.

 

(Until next year)

Michigan State DT's

I will start off with this story via black shoe diaries Thank the heavens Pat and I are not OSU fans.  The second image in the comments is classic.

So here we are.  MSU lost an all american defensive tackle in Jerel Worthy and someone who was getting a lot of draft interest before a knee injury in Kevin Pickleman.  So where are we now?  Your pre season starters are Anthony Rashad White at NT and Tyler Hoover at DT.  For the MSU spring game, these two guys were each a senior captain.  Tyler missed most of last year with a broken rib (he only played in the first game). Along with not much time played at the position last year; Hoover used to be a DE.  I guess the thinking is that Hoover's speed will  be a good counter for White's girth. 

 White is a massive man at 6-2 320.  MSU fans may remember him best for blocking the Georgia FG in triple OT at last years bowl game.  That is pretty much the bulk of his highlights.  White has appeared in numerous games but has played behind Worthy to this point.  The scoop on White is that the potential is there, he just needs to keep consistency up.  Obviously with that size, he can plug holes in the middle.  White will line up at the three technique which is between the guard and tackle.

--With these two, Hoover and White, there should be a lot of switching between positions during games and depending on match-ups.  I know the staff wants Hoover to play at the three technique--

The third man on the list and probably the one to keep an eye on the most is James Kittredge.  Kitt is a transfer out of Vanderbilt and this is his first year with the Spartans.  Kitt will have three years of eligibility remaining for the Spartans.  Out of high school, Kitt was a 4 star DT recruit, Vandy flipped him to the offensive line, and that may have lead to him wanting to leave.  Here at MSU Kitt will be all DT all the time.  People are very excited about this guy.  Kitt was the first DT taken at the MSU spring game draft.  With only a spring game and a season on the offensive line, there is not a lot to say about Kitt.  However, MSU needs him to be a guy that is always playing at a high level.  We cannot afford him to have off plays when he is in the game.

From there, MSU has Brandon Clemons (taken number 2 in the spring game draft), Damon Knox and Mark Scarpinto. All three of these guys are red shirt freshmen.  Knox was twice named scout team player of the week last year. Most of the praise coming to these three that I have read has been directed toward Clemons.  Though with this triad, the future is bright.


PREDICTION

I predict that Kitt will earn a lot of playing time while White and Hoover are both solid at the line.  None of these guys are All American caliber.  However, the starters are very seasoned and should know what to expect here in the B1G.  I do not see a lot of big  numbers, but there should be opportunities there because of our DE's (read here on Friday). White should play most to all of the games and should hit 40 tackles. I would say the biggest strength of the MSU DT position is that it is deep.  There is a good mix  of young and old talent.

Passing of a Giant.

This Joe Rexrode piece sums up how I feel. 

"It's an incredibly sad ending to a wonderful life. And if you're going to read one thing on Paterno today, please read this David Jones piece.

    There will never be a completely satisfactory explanation for the things that have come to light in the past couple months. But you'll never convince me that Paterno was anything but a good human being. Some people can't handle those two ideas together. It's called a tragedy."
Here is the link, with links to other stories.

An addendum from Pat:

Unfortunately for JoePa and all that defend him, one grievous mistake is more than enough to define a person's life.

I find it abhorrent that Paterno is made to be a hero.  The true victims in this case were pissed on by Paterno, overlooked, hidden and buried to protect interests that were undoubtedly shared by JoePa.  A direct correlation is easily made between Paterno's inaction and misjudgement (phrases which give JoePa the benefit of the doubt) and subsequent abuses.  Death should not allow his eulogy to overlook massive faults.

To me, I'll always remember Joe Paterno as a hypocrite, a man who attempted to make others better and held people to a moral standard he himself could not achieve.  These are the worst of them, the frauds and liars.

For all his many achievements, his failure was greater.