MSU-Wisconsin Film Review: Round One, Quarter Three

This is part two of the original MSU-Wisconsin Game, Film Review. You can check out part one over here and part two over here. The score is 23-14 MSU and State is rolling.

The Unstoppable Force Meets the Immovable Object
 

Did you expect it to yield anything else?

This quarter was fairly unremarkable. Neither team caught the other napping with some gimmicky crap. Wisconsin quit that line-rolling business they were doing in the first quarter and at the end of the quarter only three points were scored. If you needed to catch a nap, this was the time to do it.

The Roushar(H/T to Chris Vannini)

I honestly cannot recall having seen this formation before, ever. Follower Supernosh said it's called a broken wishbone. I have no reason not to believe him, but this is just goofy.

 Even stranger yet is that when the play starts Linthicum who is the "fullback" here, just stands still.

 He waits for Foreman and France to clear him a three dude wide hole and then he takes off above.

Linthicum is the streak at the center of your screen. Weirdly instead of running for the sticks he moves out into the the flat, or maybe the "flat-north", they end up picking up nine, which is great for 3rd and 8 or less. I don't know what the hell that formation was or if it was just an accident, but it was an interesting play call all the same.

The SpartyCat

 Musberger calls this a Wildcat which IIRC is wrong. This is a direct snap to LeVeon Bell who has the option to hand off to Martin on a Jet Sweep. It would be a wildcat if Bell had Baker next to him and could hand off to either Baker or Martin or keep it himself.

 In any case, Bell keeps it himself. I'm not sure what his key is to tell him to make this decision, but it is what he does.

 One of my complaints when I did picture pages of the ND game and the unbalanced line was not that it didn't work because it was stupid. It didn't work because our OL didn't know who to block and because of that we started running to the weak side. Which kind of negates the point. I bring this up because all three dudes with the red arrow running over their head were blocking one guy out of the play. Bell tries to cut it up the hole. If he had handed off to Keshawn this play might have gone for 7-8 yards, but not much more because the spartan at the top of the screen is Kirk Cousins and he's not gonna run block anyone out of the way for you. Which begs the question, why run to his side at all, but I digress.

A Few Narrative Observations

- None others really. When Bell is in the game our running is better. It's simply not deniable.

- Cousins continues to have an excellent game.