Two things come to mind when I think about this game: Weather and defense. Both powerful and both scary.
What started as a beautifully dramatic sunset turned in to heavy, heavy rain and lightning forcing an evacuation of Spartan Stadium and a long, long delay. It was 10:00PM when he second quarter resumed. This is the first time I can recall this happening in East Lansing. It really throws a wrench in game momentum and in a night game, it means I’ll be staying up way past my bedtime. I was at a bar in Raleigh called the Brickyard with crazy karaoke versions of Sinatra, Journey and many, many more booming behind me. Between the delay, the play of the Spartans offense and the karaoke, I consumed about twice my normal intake of Miller Lite. Oh if only I had the BTN at home. Moving on…
If the Spartan Defense had been any tougher they would have needed an EXTREME DEFENSE, PLEASE EXIT THE STADIUM (THIS MEANS YOU WMU!) message on the scoreboard. The Spartan D met and exceeded expectations. And thank God that they did. Michigan State forced four Western Michigan turnovers. AND returned two of them for touchdowns! That second part is the bit we were missing in 2012. I was extremely pleased by the scoring.
How about Jairus Jones with two interceptions including a made-for-ESPN-TopTen lateral to Kurtis Drummond for a 21-yard TD (see photo at top of post). I was glad they didn’t review the tape in regards to Jones’ knew being down before the lateral. Drummond also had an amazing, highlight-worthy one-handed high-flying leap of a pick that was absolutely a thing of beauty. And finally there was Shilique Calhoun’s fumble recovery and 16-yard hustle for another TD. The Defense outscored the Offense two to one.
Besides those high profile turn-overs, MSU simply applied tons of pressure all night. Lot’s of batted-down passes green jersey’s rushing in from all angles. There were some big hits on the WMU QB and running backs. In fact, the Broncos only had 11 yards of rushing on the night. They were able to move the ball in the air reasonably well netting 193 passing yards. We need to button that up a bit. Overall, excellent work Spartan Dawgs!
Now that not-so-good news. The offense looked exactly like last year. Questionable decision making, too many short passes that don’t get the required yardage, and drops. I hate drops. Jeremy Langford looked pretty good in the second half as he picked up 94 yards and the Spartans only offensive TD. The problem doesn’t seem to be a QB issue, this is an Offense issue. I hope Coach Dantonio experiments a bit with his players to find the guys who can get the job done. We have two games to mess around and this shit gets real. 297 yards of offense versus a MAC school is not a good showing. I know we won and I’m happy about that, but we should have clobbered these guys and we simply could not get it done on Offense.
Did you her the crowd chanting for Terry? Hmmm, maybe there is something there?
Special Teams looked okay. Kevin Muma went 2-2 for field goals and 2-3 for PATs (bad snap) so not much too complain about but flubbing a PAT is bad news beyond week #1. Michael Geiger apparently was busted for underage drinking in Toledo last week and is probably in hot-water with the coaches. Come on Mike, stop being stupid and become the awesome damn kicker that we know you can me.
Next week we have South Florida at home and it should be another relative cupcake game for the Spartans. It’s a Noon game on ESPN-2 / ESPN-U. I’m looking for some difference in the Offense. Try some stuff. Bench some guys, play some other guys. Let’s go merit-based starting in week #2. I know we have the talent, we just need the right recipe.
A win is a win and I’ll take it every time. Let’s “chase it” a bit harder until we “catch it”!
Best of luck to all of the B1G clubs this week.
Go B1G!
Go GREEN!!!
Michigan State Spartans Football 