Tuesday Thoughts

Work has been soul-crushingly busy leading up to the Holidays and is over for the year tomorrow. My wife suggested that I do something that I enjoy in the middle of the day today to avoid leaving a trail of end users in my jail-bound wake.


The Defense of Isaiah Lewis


It looks like Dantonio spent a deal of time in today's presser defending Isaiah Lewis' play in the Big Ten Title Game. Despite my twitter barf in the minutes immediately following the game, there's really no defense needed. He had two bad plays in the most critical moments of the game. The one below, eh, he might have been blocked into the punter, but it wasn't obvious. If it should have been called back it's because of the punter's obvious flop, there's no way the refs could have caught the below.



If you'll recall, Lewis was responsible for the interception returned for a touchdown to make the UM game 28-14. Further, he caught Wilson's moonball in the fourth quarter of the MSU-Wisconsin game. These are two I can think of off the top of my head. There are certainly others. No defense needed Lewis nets out as a plus player for MSU by a lot.

Bowl Practices


As with every bowl practice season, there are rumors of position changes. It sounds like Tony Lippett has been practicing at WR this off-season and that will be his position next year. I really hope this is because he is filthy talented at WR and that CB is coming along nicely. The idea of moving our third best corner to WR makes me a bit itchy.

There are rumors that Darien Harris has been playing at RB, this was the position he played in HS. I'm not really sure what to make of that. MSU didn't take a running back in 2011, but like, the Bell, Baker, Caper, Hill logjam will still be right in front of Harris in 2012. By 2013, it'll still be Bell and Hill and Tompkins and others should be making some headway by then. Hopefully, this is some college experimentation in a consequence free environment.

Micajah Reynolds is back at DT with the injuries to Pickelman and Strayhorn. Huge dap to him for being able to play whatever position needs help. I do hope they settle him somewhere soon, he'll be a junior next year, the clock is starting to tick.

The Changing Recruiting Landscape

Seriously, go home and make sure your loved ones haven't bolted for OSU.

Well, Urban Meyer makes phone calls and brings kids to OSU. The Pittman thing, was, crappy. The following will sound a bit like denialism, homerism, etc. That's fine. This is a Michigan State blog, so I write it that way.

Here's the first couple sentences of Pittman's recruiting article from SpartanMag.

"Michigan State landed what can be deemed a surprise verbal commitment from Canton (Ohio) McKinley four-star defensive end Se'Von Pittman on Sunday afternoon. "

More:

When did it hit you that Michigan State was the right choice for you?

Pittman: If you would've asked me this question yesterday, I wouldn't have had no type of answer for you. But just sitting there with my parents (on Sunday) and we just talked about my top five and colleges that best fit me, and my mom kept telling me that she felt Michigan State was and she gave me some reasons and stuff like that, and I agreed. So we made the decision I should commit a couple hours before I committed. 

The following is a timeline for the majority of MSU summer commits.

• Kid comes to campus (1 to n) number of times and shows off why he deserves a scholly to Mark Dantonio and staff
• Mark Dantonio calls kid at some future date and says "Hai there, come on up to MSU, we need to have a talk" Knowing full well what this call will be about the recruit schedules a time, brings parents and comes up.
• Kid is given offer and told to go home before committing.
• Mark Dantonio follows-up with visit/phone call/handwritten letter/smoke signal/telegraph/box of chocolates.
• Kid commits usually soon, one week or less.

I'm not going to graph this, no one wants to see a single bar of me being right on this. It's pretty solid if you follow MSU football recruiting at all. There were several things about this commit that seemed a bit fishy. One, the whole we just talked about it on Father's Day and now I'm committed to MSU thing seems and seemed weird to me. Two, the whole snagging an Ohio kid with a real Ohio State offer thing seemed fishy. OSU would have needed to be down for a couple years for me to feel like we weren't stealing one. Finally, he and Adolphus Washington for months talked about playing together despite Washington showing no real interest in MSU. The writing was on the wall a bit before Meyer became the Mayor of C-bus. Afterwards, Meyer is the Unicron of good midwestern recruits.

Which brings me to my next point. Meyer should absolutely fight to get every Ohio kid he wants that is not going to school at OSU next year. Recruiting committed players to or from schools with coaching changes has always made sense to me. When a new coach enters the equation, they haven't had their shot yet. Still, anyone who coached in the SEC isn't above commit poaching and I think he better be careful he's not TOO successful at it in the 2013 class. If a half dozen schools put elbow grease into negative recruiting it will add up at some point.

Our Struggling Pretty Average Offensive Line

I have to say, the most improved position group from Youngstown State to Wisconsin Part Deux: The Cheese Filled Nightmare was the Offensive Line. The pass protection of our offensive line at year end was a plus and the run blocking improved quite a bit and was probably average. MSU's depth at Offensive Tackle is still frighteningly thin. Interior line has better depth, but loses Foreman next year. MSU returns four starters next year though and this group should pick up right where it left off. 

Enjoy the hot MACtion of the bowl games, film breakdown coming soon.

Yes, But Who Watches The Watchmen?

When I started watching football in 1996, I was of the thread that all you needed to be successful in any game was a quarterback. Give me a quarterback that is high and mighty, noble in his reads and I shall deliver you a championship. While this is very occasionally true, more often than not a QB requires some assistance. Apologies to any Northwestern QB reading this, you are sewn of the skin of Satan and never got any help at all. As my knowledge of football changed, I don't want to say progressed, that would imply I know more than I did in 1996 that grew to include WRs, RBs and eventually OL.

Here's why your Left Tackle is one of the most important dudes on the field. Here's why:
As previously discussed in the Assume The Position: Quarterbacks series if that happens to Kirk Cousins, that will spell DOOM for this season.

The Right Tackle position is less important regarding the health of your quarterback, but it is imperative for running the football. Running right is what the big ten does best, isn't it? A good right tackle is like a fullback on steroids. Note: It is not actually a fullback on steroids. A good Right Tackle can John Henry their way down the field felling punier creatures of 230 while swigging a can of red bull.

So finally I come to the point, in the most successful run of MSU football since I started watching, how in the hell are we starting a two-star Redshirt Senior with two starts prior to this year and a Redshirt Freshman at Left and Right Tackle respectively? Did Mark Dantonio forget to recruit guys at this critical position?



Forgot? He didn't forget. Mark Dantonio gets angry about forgetfulness.

Let's take a look at what happened with our OT recruits in the 2007 - 2011 classes.

2007

Jared McGaha - The only OT recruit of the class. Currently starting for the Spartans although we'll see about next week. In pretty much any other situation he'd be a depth chart guy, though due to the thinness of the position right now he's starting. It's hard to get after a guy being asked to play above his ceiling, to say nothing of the fact that he played RG until last year.

2008

John Deyo - A two star kid with offers from CMU, EMU and MSU. He seemed like a kid with boom or bust potential. Obviously things have worked out less than ideally in terms of his development. He has seen the field in a special teams role and occasionally in mop-up duty.

Zach Heuter - A referral from the outgoing UM staff under Carr. Would have been wasted under Rich Rod. A pure Right Tackle if there ever was one. He took a medical DQ earlier this year after spending like 3.5 hours healthy during his three seasons at MSU.

Anthony Woods - NFL body, Special Ed mind. Left MSU after his freshman year due to a combination of grades and disciplinary stuff. Apparently he disappeared into the ether since even the googles cannot determine where or why he left.

2009

David Barrent - Flipped his commitment from Iowa to MSU and seems to be the only logical piece in a mysteriously deep-seated hatred of MSU by Iowa football fans. David Barrent took a medical DQ this spring after dealing with a back thing since he got here. This one hurt. David Barrent was supposed to be our NFL Left Tackle playing where Dan France is this season.

Henry Conway - Rumors have been persistent since Conway came to campus that Adonis chiseled a statue of Henry Conway in his living room. Then he done fractured a vertabrae a couple years back. He saw mop-up time on Friday, but I really doubt he's a starter this year.

2010

Skyler Burkland - Current starter. I'd guess four year starter at RT. He looked the part on Friday, but the part for a Redshirt Freshman is still some fairly frequent mistakes. Look for massive improvement from him this season and beyond.

Michael Dennis - Dennis is/was and may always be a project kid. At 6'7 and 260 he'll either put on the 40-50 lbs needed to be a dominant LT or he won't. If he's gonna see the field much, it'd be next year or the year following.

2011

Fou Fonoti - Was a JC transfer and expected to compete for the starting LT spot. He looked a bit undersized still on Friday night. He's another guy who might enter the conversation as the season progresses, but I wouldn't expect much out of him soon.

So of the 9 offensive tackle recruits of the Dantonio era six were recruited from 2007-2009. One is a starter, three are no longer with the program(two medical DQs), one has a spine that has been cracked open and one despite all that appears to have no shot at seeing the field.

The guys recruited in 2010 and 2011 are Burkland, Dennis and Fonoti. Fonoti could see significant time this year, as I said before Burkland I think will be a four year starter.

Bonus Observation!

The football gods have not been great to the non-OT positions either. From 2007, Arthur Ray struggled with the aftermath of his cancer, Chase Dumphord arrived on campus and was homesick in about 2 days. From the 2008 class Ethan Ruhland has had a difficult time cracking into the two-deeps(he hasn't been able to find a home either, bouncing between center and left guard). Nate Klatt a four star center has been passed by both Blake Treadwell and Travis Jackson. Look at his 2012 future to be at guard. Micajah Reynolds has been bounces between the OL and DL like Carmen Sandiego eludes me yet again.

Bonus Observation Part 2!

Dan France was recruited as a DT but Rivals had indicated his biggest upside might be at OT. This was prior to his arrival at MSU and not something they posted last week. Unfortunately, I don't think this is the situation you wanted that to come to fruition.

Conclusion: MSU's Position Group God of Destruction without question belongs to the OTs specifically for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. McGaha is in part the starter because he's pretty much the only intact survivor of those three years. Help is on the way with Burkland, France and Fonoti but I don't think it will arrive in time to make a significant positive impact for the 2011 season. The good news is that the recruits of the 2010 class look to be wins across the board and France if he pans out has two more seasons after this one. Even if OT is a train wreck in 2011, it SHOULD improve going forward.

Unless Shiva gets angry again.