Minnesota Recap

There's going to be a lot of handwringing about yesterday's game and typically I'm as handwringy as anyone else. Not on this blog today though. The Minnesota team that showed up in East Lansing yesterday would be a 5-3 or 6-2 team. Do not feel bad about winning. We won. An ugly win kicks the crap out of a moral victory and actual loss. Gnash your teeth if you must, it was ugly and not a lot of fun, but a win is a win. We're 7-2. No use in whining about that.

The Defense had a bad day. So what? How many times have they saved the Offense's backside this season? They're entitled to a bad day as much as anyone on that team. However, to say that Minnesota's success was only because our defense played poorly is simply not true. Go back and watch in the fourth quarter, I can't remember if it was the last drive or the second to last drive, but Gray completed a 3rd and 22. That throw was perfect. If he throws it shorter, our guys tackle him before the receiver gets to the sticks, if he throws it longer or more to the left or right, the safety(Drummond I think) has time to get to the receiver before the ball gets there. That's the hole in that scheme and Gray found it, good on him.

I wrote up in the Game Preview that Cousins would have an absurdly efficient Cousins day, and he did. No Sad Panda there. Bell ran well. No Sad Panda there either.

I don't know what the hell is going on with Baker and the butterfingers, but he's in danger of continuing to see diminishing playing time in a season where he stated the goal of 2000 yards. Somewhere in the being of Edwin Baker I believe there is an NFL talented running back, what that piece of him has gone, I'm not sure.

You know who else had a bad day? The fans. They were late to the game, quiet as a library throughout and did not get engaged when we were losing to a 2-6 Minnesota team. The fans are entitled to an off day too, but it reminded me of the CMU 2009 game real hard.

Finally, the continued grumbling of Roushar continues. If you want to point at our crappy road production on Offense, fine. We got 31 yesterday, that should always be enough to win a football game. If it isn't, it's not because we didn't score enough points. The man has committed some errors this year, but this was not one of them.

Finally for real this time you guys, ok? MSU will lose to Iowa next weekend if it plays like that again. So while we should not be sad about how yesterday went, it hopefully will serve as a warning to prevent the same sort of flat play next weekend. Now that we're back in the driver's seat in our division(Squee!) this game becomes even more important.

Mark Dantonio improves to 10-3 in November.(Squee!)