Iowa: The Takeaway

Well another road game and another historical monkey off our backs. MSU walked away with their first Iowa victory at Kinnick since 1561. With that, I move to 0-4 at picking road games for this year. So we'll be losing at Northwestern(my official prediction!) in a couple of weeks. The thing that surprised me about this win was how comfortable it was. Yes, Iowa made a run in the second half, but it never closed within thirteen. A two possession game is pretty comfortable as far as I'm concerned.

So we have a couple of outstanding monkeys under Dantonio now and then I think we're good on monkey control. One, we need to win a bowl game. Two, we need to beat Nebraska at all as twitter follower MSUAlum2002 pointed out. The first is "more concerning" than the second, although, neither is worrisome yet.

How good was Kirk Cousins day yesterday? His passer rating was 160.5 and the only B10 game he had a higher one against was Wisconsin. It was his third best away game ever after 2010 Michigan and 2010 Penn State.

Why was our road offense so improved this week? Honestly, I saw plays I haven't seen this year yet. I saw several draw plays including Bell's 35 yard touchdown run. Also, I think the formation where the 3 WR lined up in a shallow diagonal to the right of the line and Cousins rolled right was new. Further, I think using Bell as the starter with Baker as the change of pace back worked perfectly. Bell got yardage early so Roushar didn't abandon the run too early and then the pressure was off Baker when he came into the game. I believe Michigan State is undefeated when LeVeon Bell gets 15 carries.

How did we hold Iowa's Offense down so well? Well, simply put, Vanderbeek isn't as good a Quarterback as he was in Varsity Blues, knowing full well a win put them in the catbird's seat to win the Rotel Division he opted for the simple life.



So MSU turned their attentions to stopping Iowa's run game and made Vanderbeek win the game on his arm. This was MSU's defensive gameplan against Iowa in 2009 and I assume that it was also the plan in 2010, but we'll never know. I figured Coker would not be tossing up 150 and 2TD's on us as he has been want to do the past four weeks, but I did not anticipate him being held to 57 yards on 21 carries. So when the fourth quarter came and Vanderbeek was playing from behind he started making bad reads and crappy throws.

Why were Iowa fans booing our injured players?

Because they're a bunch of whiners.



Seriously though, I'm not going back to rewatch the game to count up this number, but there were a lot of injuries that magically were fixable in 2-3 plays. At this point there might be a hint of truth to the injury fairy, because this happened at Nebraska too. More likely is that it's November and this defense is tired and dinged up. Genuinely hurt without a doubt yesterday though were Gholston and Dennard, hope they heal up soon.

Is this becoming a rivalry game?

Would you go with a double reverse pass off a reverse (thanks to @Baylan295 for finding that error) Keshawn Martin pass up 31-7 on someone you liked? What about faking a field goal three plays later? What about having Marvin McNutt throw a pass to Iowa's drug lord DJK in 2010 in the fourth quarter up 37-6? Make no mistake about it, there is bad blood brewing between Iowa and MSU. That plus all of the new offensive business from Roushar leads me to believe this was the second most important regular season game to this staff to win. BTW Pop Psychology thought, Iowa doesn't creep back in if we don't run the trickeration.

Bowl Outlook: I don't think we fall any farther than Cap One Bowl now. If we win out, we play for the Big Ten title in Indy and if we lose that game we're likely Cap One Bowl Bound. Our likely Big Ten Title game opponent? Wisconsin.

Spartans, this is about as good as it gets. Enjoy.