The Mid-Season Review

With four games in the books, it's time to step back for a minute and see just what we've learned so far this season. The non-conference schedule is tough, not because it is actually tough as in you work really hard at it. It's tough because four games in, it's hard to tell how good you are or aren't.



This guy never works hard at it.

Four games in we've played a 1-AA team that made us look kind of crappy in the first half, an FAU team that looked kind of like the crappiest team I've ever seen us play, we played crappy at Notre Dame and then polished off the non-conference season by showing the world how crappy CMU is this year. So we can we surmise from all this? Pretty much crap, but we'll give it the old college try.

Donald Rumsfeld once got made fun of for saying: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." I think this might be an apt way to approach dissecting our team's performance so far.

Known Knowns

- Our Offensive Line is going to struggle this year. We've been crushed for years by injuries at the Offensive Tackle position and it's finally caught up with us. They might at some point in the Big 10 season congeal to not be a weak spot for our team, but I think that's the best case scenario.

- Our defense is going to be solid this year. Michigan State is currently tied for eighth in the NCAA scoring defense giving up only 11 ppg. This defense will keep us in some tough games later on this season. They might have only played one good team and three bags of crap, but so have most teams at this point.

- Our rushing offense has underperformed so far this year. We're currently ranked 65th in rushing yardage. A point that came up on the Friday game preview is that the last game we lost where we outrushed our opponent was Minnesota in 2009. Our offense depends on us being able to run the football.

- Our Special Teams are not as Special as last year. Michigan State is still giving up 25 yards a kick return, good for 107th in the nation. Mike Sadler is averaging 39.67 yards a punt (although he had a great game Saturday) which would put him around 57th nationally. We're 69th in punt return coverage. Conroy and Nick Hill have been bright spots. The rest isn't bad, it's a little below average. Last year was outstanding and wonderful and all that Special Teams could be. Last year relatively speaking, was Beamerball.

- BJ Cunningham is a man among boys. He's ranked in the top 20 in all NCAA reception yardage type statistics. He moves the sticks, he gets first downs and then sets up the running backs to punch it in from 3 yards out. We knew he'd be good and he's still been a pleasant surprise.

Known Unknowns

- It concerns me mildly that I have yet to see our defense do it's magic on a mobile quarterback. With Denard "Mr. September Heisman" Robinson and Taylor "I quit the team while having a temper tantrum and then came back" Martinez still on the schedule this is a hole in our defense's sparkling resume.

- It goes almost without saying that we have yet to see how this Offensive Line holds up against a Big Ten defensive line. Ohio State scares me a bit because they traditionally have a very good defense and a good POWER defense at that. We have not had the success to impose our will just running the ball as we like, so a team like OSU might just outPOWER us. Further, a defense like Michigan gives me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. If Mattison can get that blitz home, it's going to give us problems. If not, we'll be fine.

- In order to lighten the load in the passing game, a true second target needs to emerge in the passing game. Nichol seems to be good on the slant routes or a quick curl, but I think we're missing a true second receiver to take the heat off B.J. in the passing game. This will matter more against teams with more disciplined defenses than we have seen so far.

- Will Kirk Cousins continue to have DERP moments at key times in games? I really debated about whether to include this point because I think Cousins has been the steadiest hand we've had at QB since I've been watching MSU football. So picking on him about his occasional DERP moments seems unfair, but, this is supposed to be an MSU football blog and not a "Kirk Cousins boy-crush" blog so, anyway, I digress. When Cousins is pressing from behind he occasionally does things that boggle the mind at critical times. It's not just a Notre Dame thing, it's taking coverage sacks on 3rd and 8 like he did against YSU, or throwing an ill-advised pick on 3rd and 2 against CMU. With a murderer's row of October games coming up, will he be able to risk losing a 3rd down to win the game?

Unknown Unknowns

Obviously this section will be short because if we had any idea what they would be they would tend to be in the category above.

Covered in this category would be the things like Micajah Reynolds showing strong at LT during the CMU game. Skyler Burkland being lost for the year, etc. Not really much to see here.

Overall Thoughts

Coming into the season, I thought this would be a 9-3 or 8-4 type team and I see nothing that changes any of that. I think that comparatively speaking we're a little behind where we were at this point last year. Our offense seems to move a bit more in fits and starts, our rushing attack is not as reliable, our special teams are not quite as crisp. Plus there's the October schedule. I think this year will go on to prove one thing though, Mark Dantonio in spite of the Angry Offensive Line Hating God and in spite of one of the nastiest schedules I've MSU ever play has prepared this team to be an 8-4 or 9-3 type team. That's a breath of fresh air around these parts and I'm excited.