Notre Dame: The Devil's Five Key Things

We're taking the five key things series started last week and weaving it in with the Devil's Advocate series we did last year. Co-Authoring this segment will be my partner in crime Ty from the Lions in Winter. Check out his blogified Ndamukong madness here.

It's that time again, time to go over a few key things before our game this weekend. In case you have been living under a Spartan Sports rock, we are playing our rivals this weekend, Notre Dame. The game where we played Notre Dame in Fall of 1998 was my true awakening as a Spartan Football fan. I liked them before that, but it was on like Donkey Kong after that.

It was the first weekend I spent the whole weekend in my dorm, and I was watching the game. As we scored our first touchdown I realized most of my floor was watching it and as we scored a second and a third people all started piling into the kid's room who had the biggest TV and by halftime with the score 42-3 we were all watching as one drunken happy family.

This week's five burning questions.

1.) Will our defensive line be able to get penetration on an Offensive Line that is not comprised of high schoolers and ne'er do wells?

A principal concern of mine throughout the off-season has been the lauding of how great our Defensive Line has been. Well, who they are playing against has been a principal concern of mine too. Like it's easy to look great rushing the pass when you're playing against a backup or third string Offensive Tackle in McGaha and a converted Defensive Tackle in Dan France during Spring ball.

In the fall, we got little in the way of pass rush against Youngstown State because they were letting go of their passes so quick. FAU's Offensive Line was a train wreck so hideous it can only be represented by a picture.



And you will know us by the trail of dead...

So this is the first REAL test of how much our Defensive Line has improved. I expect to see a performance much closer to YSU than FAU. As much as I've picked on Brian Kelly in the past few days. His Offensive line will be prepared to play and I expect our front four to need some help generating pressure.

 

Ty: I think the defensive line’s well aware of their reputation, and I think they want to uphold it. Maybe it’s false hope, but I think we haven’t seen these guys’ top gear yet. The level of talent on the other side of the field is an order of magnitude better, but the stakes are an order of magnitude higher. I think the D-line shows us much more in this game than they have to date—but I also think Narduzzi will keep an uncapped bottle of linebacker hot sauce in hand, just in case.


2.) Will Captain Kirk avenge the 2009 Kobayashi Maru at Notre Dame?

This depends more on the defense than the offense unfortunately for Captain Kirk. In 2009, the offense moved in fits and starts because of the quarterback platooning. That said, we scored 30 in 2009 and 34 in 2010(I'll refrain the Little Giants drop for the first time this week.)

If we can drop 35 on them again, I do not think they have the tools to keep up in a shootout like that though. So I guess my answer to the question is really more was it ever really a Kobayashi Maru to begin with? If your offense scores 30 points, it did it's job.

Yeah, ND can score, but if it becomes a track meet I like our quarterback and receivers to outlast theirs. The Spartans have more targets, and Rees is more prone to turn it over than Cousins. SILLY PREDICTION: the game turns on a third-quarter Rees interception.

3.) Who's gonna throw their beef around more BJ Cunningham or Michael Floyd?

Well, Floyd outweighs Cunningham by 10 lbs, has 100 receiving yards more and an extra touchdown already in a two game season. Of course the Tommy Rees decision making tree for who to throw the ball to reads like this. *

1.) Michael Floyd.
2.) Michael Floyd.
3.) Throw it away.
4.) Michael Floyd.

In case you haven't heard BJ Cunningham became the all-time reception leader at Michigan State last week. Last year we held Michael Floyd to 81 yards by giving up Theo Riddick and containing Kyle Rudolph. This year, the replacement for Rudolph is nowhere near as good yet.

In short, I think we concede yardage to Riddick to lockdown Floyd and BJ Cunningham continues his career as MSU's most reliable target. Cunningham wins this duel.

* - As I reread this article one more time, I thought this was too close to the FLOYDFLOYDFLOYDFLOYD of MGoBlog to not provide a link. So link provided. Doesn't change the fact that Rees has no idea what option two is.

I’m a big Floyd fan.

Wait what? Oh, MICHAEL Floyd. Yeah, the kid can ball. I expect him to do some damage, even with constant attention from the MSU secondary and Rees’s decision tree that doesn’t branch. I’m not sure I like Cunningham in a pure statistical duel because, again, Cousins has more targets and is better at finding them.

4.) Brian Kelly: Can a person cause their own head to pop?



Stay tuned to find out after this 2.5 hour NBC Commercial Break

You know, one of these two coaches literally had a heart attack after Little Giants. How was it not this guy?

5.) Do the Fighting Irish begin their season 0-3?

I said it yesterday, I think the Irish have the talent to play ball and even beat us. They have too far to have come since last Saturday to pull it off this Saturday. They COULD beat us, but they have to avoid beating themselves first. They're not ready to do that yet.

MSU 28 ND 17

While watching Notre Dame play Michigan, I couldn’t help but feel that MSU is better than both of them. In fact, it felt exactly like watching last season’s Michigan – Notre Dame game: the drama, the crowd, the hype, the pressure, the huge plays, the terrible football. The level of play was definitely better this season than last, though, and that makes me nervous. The Dame looks better in 2011 than they did in 2010, and I’m not yet positive the same is true of Michigan State. As close as last season’s game was, it’ll have to be for the Spartans to come out on top.

MSU 34 ND 30

P.S. Hate The Dame.

Notre Dame: Friday Morning Youtubin'!

God, I miss Keith Jackson







It's the first home game of the Charlie Weis era and is it time for the return to glory?LOL

Next!: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish

In this world there are three things I love more than all other things. My family, the Philly at Backyard BBQ and the sad panda look of the fans of our vanquished rivals. I don't always feel that way about Notre Dame fans. Despite how hard I was on Notre Dame's program with the Uncle Rico comparisons I've always found their fans to be a likable sort of people. If you really wanted to go all JK Rowling on the whole thing, Notre Dame is like Hufflepuff, certainly a rival, but at the end of the day not the enemy of all things sacred and good. When Voldemort is comin' to town you can count on them to get your back.



I'm not sayin', oh screw it, I am sayin'

So that's what makes it particularly hard to watch the latest in the string of Saviors of Notre Dame football. The fans of Notre Dame deserve better than Brian Kelly or at least the Brian Kelly I've seen on TV the past two weeks. In just a year they've gone from Brian Kelly lobbying for only 8 minutes of commercial breaks between snaps to Brian Kelly being incapable of sending in a play call with enough time for the QB to do anything other than run the play as given. Dayne Crist and Tommy Rees, Notre Dame Quarterbacks both have not gotten stupider since last year. I have to assume they've stayed the same at reading defenses if not gotten better. So what gives?

Here's a list of what Brian Kelly is not:
- The President of Senegal.
- The Savior of Notre Dame football
- An oompa-loompa
- Unstoppable

Previewing a team like Notre Dame scares the crap out of me, and by scares the crap out of me I mean is difficult to do. There will be a minimum of two games in progress under the view of touchdown Jesus, Notre Dame vs. Michigan State, Notre Dame vs Notre Dame and perhaps even Rees vs Kelly. Kelly won Saturday night's match up of Rees vs. Kelly at the sacrifice of winning the match up of Notre Dame vs. Michigan.

That was the most excitingly terrible game I have ever seen. Neither team could give that game away to the other. A commenter on Twitter said: I know when Michigan plays Notre Dame, you wish both teams could lose. Both teams tried and failed. How do you make a prediction on a team that has yet to play a game where they don't spend more time beating themselves than trying to beat you? Well, who even knows if we'll be close to right, but let's give it the old college try.

Notre Dame Pass Defense against Michigan State Passing Attack

Notre Dame's defense gave up 338 yards to Denard Robinson on Saturday but he only completed 11 passes. Additionally, Michigan never had an offensive drive that went more than five plays. This suggests that Notre Dame might be susceptible to the big play. Further, Cousins is more accurate than any quarterback they've played so far this year and in this regard you can only consider the Irish Pass Defense untested. The Irish held BJ Daniels to 128 yards passing, but it rained like God was starting the great flood in South Bend and USF was just trying to salt away the lead on the ground after that. Plus BJ Daniels is like Denard Robinson lite.

Cousins has been his usual efficient self completing 79 percent of his passes for 3 touchdowns and no picks. He's looked comfortable and in command of the offense as you'd expect. BJ Cunningham is going to be the best wide receiver in South Bend on Saturday, yep, I said that. We should have Bennie Fowler back and always watch out for Keshawn.

Advantage: MSU
Key Matchup: Kirk Cousins vs the missing communication armbands of the ND Secondary.

Notre Dame Rushing Defense vs Michigan State Rushing

In case you haven't heard our running backs are good. Real good. Like "killed a man in Reno, just to watch him die" good. I bring them up because Notre Dame will have to gameplan around our rushing attack good. In an interview with Dan Roushar, our offensive coordinator, he indicated that MSU has kept things pretty vanilla in the run game so far. I don't know if that means as much to the run game as it does to the passing game, but more wrinkles available is always a good thing.

I suspect we'll continue our rotation of Baker and Bell with Caper on 3rd down. Hill could make an appearance as the game goes on. There's something magical about having a 5'6" guy running through a line of people a foot taller than him. You can't find him sometimes.

Notre Dame is tooling itself up to stop the run by playing with lots of beef on it's defense. If they have success early on, look for State to start using the pass to set up the run. They surrendered 126 rushing yards to USF in the aforementioned rain bowl but only like 10 yards to rushers not named Denard Robinson in the Michigan game. That's probably part Notre Dame's Defense and part that Michigan was playing from behind the whole game.

Advantage: MSU(but not by as much as before)
Key Matchup: The MSU Monster Trio vs Notre Dame beefcakey manchildren linebackers.

Notre Dame Passing Attack vs MSU Pass Defense

Tommy Rees stepped in to relieve Dayne Crist halfway through the USF game and is suffering the same sort of turnover problems that Crist did. He's got a pretty respectable 69.9 percent completion percentage for 611 yards and 5 touchdowns on the season. He unfortunately has 4 interceptions and 1 lost fumble to his credit at this point. I'd pick on him for half his passing yards being to Michael Floyd, but the same is true of Cousins to Cunningham. Speaking of Michael Floyd, he is definitely among the top two receivers in the stadium on Saturday. Michigan State will need to keep a bead on him at all times.Notre Dame has been effective at moving the ball all season and not being able to close in the redzone. If those problems aren't cured on Saturday, look out.

Michigan State on the other hand has yet to face a quarterback as good as Tommy Rees. Further, they've shown in the Youngstown State game if you want to try and complete passes for four yards, we'll give that to you all day long. Still I like the cut of the jib of our defensive line and think that Worthy will show up to wreak havoc on the ND interior line Saturday. Dennard and Adams will have to do some of their best work to keep tabs on Michael Floyd. They will need help from Lewis and Robinson over the top on deep routes.

If Notre Dame can avoid beating itself:
Advantage: Wash
Key Matchup: Notre Dame not beating itself.

If Notre Dame has Notre Dame fail:
Advantage: MSU
Key Matchup: MSU Defensive Line forcing poor decisions that result in Turnover Walks of Shame.

Notre Dame Rushing Attack vs MSU Rush Defense

I think the combination of Wood and Gray is not as solid a rushing attack as Allen and Wood was last year. The tandem of backs has combined for an average of 160 rushing yards a game against two of the worst defenses they will play this year. In short, I'd say Notre Dame's rushing game is the quality of a middle tier Big 10 opponent, they'll have some success running, but I'd say it'll be capped at 100 yards give or take 25 yards.

Of course there is to consider the Spartans looked devastating in their lopsided victory of FAU by ceding only 22 rushing yards. While it may have only been FAU, they looked like a machine into which you feed men and out comes only bones. Still, this will be higher quality competition than MSU has faced thus far.

Advantage: Wash
Key Matchup: MSU's young linebackers forcing Wood and Gray into the ground.

Special Teams

Notre Dame's Kicker is 1/2 on the Season, Conroy is 2/4 on the Season.
Notre Dame's Punter has an average of about 36, Sadler is averaging 37.8 on the Season.
Advantage: Wash
Key Matchup: Getting one team to stop copying the other team's average special teams play.

Intangibles





Coaching

Right now, Mark Dantonio has his sea legs at MSU, Brian Kelly does not.

Final Prediction

It's not that Notre Dame CAN'T win this game, it's that I think they have too far to come in too short a time. I'd rather be playing them now than in six weeks from now. I think ND's pass defense has not shown me that they can stop Cousins nor that their defense is well-suited to stop our rushing attack. They make too many mistakes at critical times on offense for me to be real scared about offense. Although, expect this to be a game where if you watch it with someone who gets pissy about a team moving the ball between the 20s, that you will be hearing a lot of complaints. Final score in the 5 Key Things Post tomorrow.

The Devil's Five Key Things: FAU Revisited

MSU Smash Rating: 8. 10 points for the fact this is as badly as a team can be beaten, minus 2 for the fact that if FAU wins a game this year I'll be very surprised. How about our defense? They gave up 48 total offensive yards including only 26 passing yards for their lowest total since the 1984 Cherry Bowl. This was simply put as whoopy as whoopy whoopiness gets. The team looked to be playing on par with their mid-season 2010 selves right now.

I'd say this team is bound for another New Year's day bowl except that's true of half the Big 10 now, so I don't know if it's really all that special. Even the damn backup kicker was kicking field goals.

1.)Left tackle by committee, what could go wrong?

Against FAU nothing went wrong at Left Tackle or anywhere else for that matter. I didn't notice France's play, I also do not recall him receiving any penalties so I'm left to assume he played well. That said I was juggling kids most of the game and couldn't really zero in on dudes as well as I liked. There was a respite near the beginning of the second half where both kids wanted to be in the concourse so I did get to watch some reps of Fonoti at tackle. He looked late to his blocks and during the one run play that went his way he was not able to block his guy out of the picture.

France is obviously not Bryan Bulaga or Jake Long, but if he goes down that side of the line definitely gets weaker.

2.)FAU's Superior Pass Defense

"Last week FAU picked off John Brantley and the Florida Gator Swamp Folk three times. Without watching the game, it's hard to know if this came from superior defensive scheme or the installation of Jabba the Charlie's new offense. Maybe both? Regardless, three picks is plenty-pickin'-good on a team like Florida."

How in the blue hell did Florida throw three picks on these guys? I think there's a good chance that the installation of Jabba the Charlie's offense has something to do with it. There was simply put, nothing to their pass defense yesterday, Cousins was outstanding, Maxwell was 6 of 9 for 63 yards including probably the most impressive incompletion I've seen in a long time with his 50 yard SCRAMBLEBOMB to B.J. Cunningham which he of course caught too, just two yards out of bounds. *

Maybe our passing game is that much better than Florida's. Maybe FAU had a bad day in pass defense. Maybe both. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Charlie was doing more with less in Gainesville. That said, our Quarterback's are for real.

Peter Badovinac did get to play significant minutes in the fourth quarter. I had suspected third string duties would fall to Nichol in a temporary situation or Cook if a long term situation arose, I still think that's true, but good to see Badovinac get some minutes yesterday.

* I dropped my cell phone this morning and BJ Cunningham ran into my house and caught it before it hit the ground. He's really amazing.

3.)Can I get an Amen? I mean a sack.

Well yesterday we got three sacks. 2.5 of them were credited to Defensive Lineman. Yesterday I felt like we definitely opened the defensive playbook a bit more, probably to get the guys ready for Notre Dame. There was definitely more blitzing, less vanilla coverages. So the front four had a bit more help than in the first game, but I don't think we've seen the bulk of their fancy playbook.

I felt like our D-Line played a lot more like the unit we kept expecting to see coming into the season. Gholston is starting to develop the mental ability to compliment his freakish physical gifts. Worthy is starting to nail his snap count timing again. All in all the unit looked much improved.

4.)How will our linebackers do in TE pass coverage?

Well amazing. We gave up one first down. So I'm pretty sure everyone was amazing in pass coverage all the time. Watching Notre Dame last night, I'm not sure we have to worry about TE passes like we did last year when they had Kyle Rudolph. Denicos Allen played a more complete game yesterday in my opinion. I think the linebackers are coming along nicely.

5.)Nick Hill: The Next Great Kick Returner?

Well, the crappy thing about shutting someone out is that you only get to return one kick. Nick Hill brought his back for 31 yards and looked great doing it. More data is required.

However, he did get to play some fourth quarter "run right and don't go out of bounds for the love of all that is holy" time. He rushed 14 times for 56 yards in spite of the fact the entire stadium knew he was going to be running right behind our third string line. I watched him run up the backs of his blockers a couple times, it's just a patience thing. He's gonna be fine.

The Good

- Everything.

- Seriously Everything.

- Arthur Ray saw more than a ceremonial snap, he played left guard in the fourth quarter. IMO, this makes him the third string left guard behind Foreman and John Deyo.

- Taiwan Jones looks like a man among children in his mop-up duty. When things start clicking for him look out.

- Not excited for Maxwell's debut as the starter to be against Boise State next year, but they lose Kellen Moore too.

- B.J. Cunningham got the school record for receptions yesterday laying down.

- We gave up one first down, that's...



- This team looks ready for Notre Dame, who will run the same 3-4 type defense next week. I think FAU could be like Notre Dame light. They're like ND without the talent, neither team has the drive to win.

The Bad

- Conroy missed another field goal yesterday off the goalpost. This makes him 2/4 on the season. I know that the first one was a Marino hold issue, but the second one looked to be all him. I don't think this is BAD, I didn't really expect Conroy to go 14 of 15 on the season again, but if there is some kind of kicking fail later this season, the seed of suspicion was planted back here. Probably nothing to worry about too much though.

The Uncertain

- Lawrence Thomas I believe was a healthy scratch yesterday. As a recruit who had a single offer redeemable at any school in the United States I have to suspect that he was hoping to see the field this year. I think if he didn't make it in yesterday, he'll probably get redshirted this year.

Update: Our friend LVS over at The Only Colors pointed out that Thomas was injured for all but the first couple days of fall camp and thus missed the installation of the defense. I had envisioned Thomas maybe seeing the field this year in a Greg Jones circa 2007 type way even with the injury. "What do we do?" "Kill the Quarterback!" "Why do we do it Greg Jones?" "Because quarterbacks need murderin'!". However, missing the defensive install was probably enough to warrant a redshirt.

- In fact, Taiwan Jones is the only 2011 recruit to play to date. I really hope that is a sign of strength in our depth chart and not a commentary on our recruiting class. With the defensive line and secondary due to lose some serious type star power last year I was hoping particularly on D-Line to see someone be good enough to warrant some consideration for the field this year.

- It seemed like our defense played a LOT more aggressively yesterday, I just hope not so much so they're overconfident for next week. ND's season is on the line and they're going to play us tough. Plus, you know, I'm sure Brian Kelly is still really excited about...



The Certain

- Best wishes for Jerry Kill. May you continue on the epoch-long quest to make Minnesota great soon.

- Both Michigan and Notre Dame have some serious holes in their game, but like all rivalry games, I'll celebrate the win after it happens and not take them for granted.

- I have jury duty tomorrow, so no Monday post. Have a good Monday.

Final Predicted Score: MSU 38 FAU 7.
Final Actual Score: MSU 44 FAU 0.

No Longer In Wait, It Has Arrived

January 2nd, 2011. I sat thinking deep dark thoughts about College Football. Alabama's defense had injured both of our starting quarterbacks on their way rolling us 49-7 or 1000 to -3 which would have been more reflective of the actual state of affairs. With four first round draft picks and a conscience pure as the driven snow and no impropriety whatsoever, Alabama destroyed MSU in the bowl game. The memory of a magic 11-1 season was soiled in a flash.

An obvious *alleged* cheater had won the Heisman and was en route to winning the national title. We all smiled for Cam Newton, who honestly doesn't seem like a bad dude, just you know a cheater, *allegedly*. Auburn went on to win with it's future vacated national championship against Oregon who by the way *allegedly* went out and purchased the services of Lache Seastrunk. So Cheater V. Cheater. Who to root for: Asteroid. Interesting side note: If Auburn and Oregon have to vacate their 2010 wins, wouldn't that make TCU the national champion? Think hard about which rules to selectively ignore NCAA. MSU got dicked out of the Rose Bowl(I'm not implying we'd have won either, but I'd have liked to find out) by OSU's cheating scandal.

It was a dark January and the Lions were on the uptick. I thought about abandoning it all and rooting NFL from here on out and admiring both NCAAF and NFL from a distance. We pay thousands of dollars between season tickets, parking, tailgate supplies. * Every year, we spend 2000 dollars on activities related to Spartan Football and finally I saw last year for the first time, the game is rigged. The SEC is the king, not because of SEC Speed ™ but because of looser admission standards, shoddier self-reporting of violations, oversigning and the improper use of Medical Disqualifications *allegedly*. As the off-season progressed Yahoo aka the NCAA watchdog, reported violations of the major sort at OSU, Miami and Oregon. Notice who's missing there? But I digress.

* - For those of you who read this, the Mrs. has considered putting up the occasional tailgate recipe on here, thoughts?

Then the long hot football drought of summer set in and it began creeping back in. MSU picked up some recruiting wins, news started coming out of camps and I started getting back that itch. As I got tired of summer, I started thinking about how much I enjoy watching Big Ten football while you have a fire going in late fall. Remembering how much I enjoy walking in with the band because it sounds like they're marching in from hell. How you walk across the Red Cedar and you turn to your left and see the Stadium for the first time through the trees. How the tailgate is your own personal cheers and you say hello to your tailgating neighbors all over again. How my wife had contractions for our second baby after Little Giants. How we watched Larry Caper run right to set up a field goal, but instead run right over a Michigan defender on his way to the end zone.

Today is a day where I can relate to being a fan of ANY College Football Team, from USC to Coastal Carolina to Michigan. I know what this day means to me, and what it means to so many other college football fans. We wait and wait and wait and today we're no longer waiting, it has arrived. The deep dark thoughts of the offseason don't matter today(although they have made me a different fan this year). The predicting and tea leaf reading don't matter anymore either, now it's watching our favorite sport unfold in one of our favorite places in the world.

It's A Beautiful Day For Football.

Assume the Position: Special Teams

This is part one of an ambitiously stated seven part series. This series will focus on introducing MSU fans to their position group players. It is not intended to replace the quality analysis that media types can provide, but we give it our best shot. We'll work backwards from the most stable position groups to the more dynamic ones so we can write about the most volatile groups last.

Welcome, for lack of a better place to begin our introductory piece on the 2011 Spartans we shall begin at the beginning Special Teams group. No other group has the potential to flip the momentum of a game on a dime like Special Teams. Yet if they are not among the most consistent units on the field it'll cost you games and in a hurry. This year's Special Teams unit features stability in the kick returns arena and a newcomer at Punter. Without further adieu....

Punter

In 2010, the best quarterback on our team was none other than the pride of New Concord, Ohio, Aaron Bates. He wasn't too shabby a punter either. With a punting average of 45.0 yards Bates finished 14th nationally at the position. Mr. Bates will be replaced by Redshirt Freshman Mike Sadler from Grand Rapids or as my 2 year old calls it, Grand Rabbits. Mr. Sadler had offers from the likes of Alabama, LSU, USC, Northwestern, Purdue and Air Force. Despite Air Force's strong recruiting push, Mike selected MSU over LSU. He was a top 10 punter in 2010 by all three recruiting services(Scout, Rivals and MaxPrep). Mr. Sadler averaged 39.9 yards on 32 kicks in his senior year and converted a 58 yard field goal against Belding(pretty town, I thought anyway). He graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA.

2011 Prediction: I have no reason to think that Sadler will not be a great punter by the time he leaves MSU. MSU has put more than their fair share of kickers into the league. That said, we will miss Aaron Bates this year from a leadership perspective. Sadler looks to develop into a heady punter like bates over the years, but he's green and will need time. Back-up punter Kyle Selden is not expected to be a factor at this time.

Placekicking

Coming into 2010 this was a two-way race between Dan Conroy and Kevin Muma. Conroy as a preferred walk-on won the job from Kevin Muma and went 14 of 15 on the year including this miraculous game-tying kick against Notre Dame in our night game last year.



Oh, uh Conroy didn't make the kick? Well, maybe next time.

Conroy's kicking percentage was good for 5th overall. He was 4 of 4 from more than 40 yards with his single miss coming at Northwestern.

2011 Prediction: My big concern with Mr. Conroy would be avoiding the sophomore slump, literally. To finish 5th overall in the NCAA kicking percentage as a freshman sets the bar at damn high for the remainder of his MSU career. To extrapolate that year forward means he would finish 56 of 60 for his career at MSU, that doesn't sound difficult to me, that sounds nearly impossible. Kevin Muma will continue to handle kick-off duties for the forseeable future.

Expect placekicking to remain a strong point for the Spartans, but don't expect 14 of 15 again.

Punt and Kick Return Duties:

Luckily for us, those duties fall to one very talented Keshawn Martin. Martin has scored five different ways in a Spartan uniform(caught, throw and ran a touchdown pass. Returned both a punt and a kick for a touchdown), he's a dropkick and a field goal short of scoring every way a person can on offense. In 2010 he continued to perform at a high-level in this position.

2011 Prediction: Martin will continue to perform at a high-level this year although I suspect if the coaching staff can find an 90 percent as good option at either position they'll take it over Martin. Martin is too important to the offense as the x-factor to take an unnecessary risk in injury. There are a host of young talents who have lots of speed but have had trouble finding the field in other areas to back up Mr. Martin.

Nick Hill has lots of speed but is stuck behind the Baker/Caper/Bell logjam. Jeremy Langford is another speedster without a country, he can't crack the positions at RB or WR right now, IIRC he's not quite quick enough for CB. Tony Lippett has shown outstanding athleticism but looks to be slated for the Chris Gamble role of yore. There are lots of quick, shifty, bursty guys who could play either kick return position in lieu of Martin. But Martin is simply put the most exciting Spartan on the field with apologies to LeVeon Bell. You just do not know what's coming next with him.

As an aside, Martin still had moments last year where he'd do something that made you facepalm, it'd be rad if he could knock that off this year.

Overall Assessment: In 2010, Special Teams was an area of strength for the Spartans. In an old version of NCAAF, if you were an A++ your team's bar broke the end on the team strengths page. I think the Special Teams were that good for MSU last year. This year, an improvement would basically be more of the same, holding steady would be a slight decrease in quality and a huge step backwards would be Special Teams costing us a game or two. I think this particular group is in a position to "hold steady" meaning we lose some specialties in the punting game for this year and hold steady at placekicking and kick returns. The development of Sadler is the expected storyline for this group this year.

Worst Case Scenario: Sadler struggles to replace Bates in terms of kick quality and distance. Conroy struggles mightily with the sophomore slump and Muma can kick a country mile but can't hit the broadside of a barn. Keshawn cedes the kick return duties to a Nick Hill or Jeremy Langford due to injury or we're not receiving many kicks because our D isn't stopping anyone. I don't know, I just don't see a healthy Keshawn ever being "bad" at this.

Best Case Scenario: Sadler is an immediate replacement for Bates in terms of kick quality and being the best QB on the MSU Spartan team. Conroy finds a way to go 15 for 15 or maybe even the elusive 16 for 15. Keshawn cedes the kick return duties to a Nick Hill or Jeremy Langford type and they are as good or better.