Weekend Reading Isn't Worried About It's Discounted Goods

A Thad of an Underperformer

Men's hoops travels down to the Value City ABC Warehouse Used Drugstore PBR Emporium to play Ohio State Saturday night at 6 on ESPN. Matta's teams always look frightening in the regular season and wilt down the stretch. It's hard to get all riled up about opponents who don't win when it counts. Specifically in March.

Upon Further Review: Matta's Record in the Tourney at OSU is 10-5. Two of those years he won 34 games or more.  10-5 is respectable, four of those years they won the Big Ten. I'd expect better than 10-5 when you win the Big Ten four times.

Look into my eyes. We will in it all this year!!! Courtesy of DanOnTheStreet

Rexrode suggests OSU is becoming an MSU basketball nemesis. Jay Bilas has OSU by four.
Super recruit Gary Harris has been named a McDonald's All-American. I thought Gary Harris was from Gary Indiana, but he isn't. He's from Indianapolis. Still.

Comixed.com

I don't know squat about OSU. They have that Sullinger kid I heard. I hope we win, but that's all I can confidently predict. Wild guess: MSU by 43. Optimistically and guaranteed wrong sits ok with me.

Michigan Hockey Preview

Do you wish for an MSU blog that does great hockey coverage? Luckily, such a new blog exists. The Munn Minute has an excellent preview of the weekend series against UM. Standing room only tickets are still available for tonight's game at Munn. If you DO like hockey and DON'T mind standing to support the resurgent MSU hockey program do that. You want to get all pissed and break things in anticpation? Vannini's got your youtube adrenaline drop over on Green Thoughts.

Enemy Previews

Go Blue Michigan Wolverine has a two part preview of tonight's game without all of the obnoxious condescension of the one over at The Blog Yost Built. I'm sure MGoBlog will have a preview of quality up later today as well.

But srsly you guys The Munn Minute. Read it and know MSU Hockey better.

Acshual College Football Talk

Wooooo! We're reversing a rule we just put into place a couple years ago! The NCAA committee has recommended that kickoffs move back from the 30 to the 35 yard-line. The NCAA just moved the line back to the 30 a couple years back when they realized less touchbacks meant MOAR excitement! They also did not realize or care that it would mean MOAR injury!

The NFL, which often tweaks its rules to influence more scoring, adopted this change in March for the sake of safety. In conjunction with moving the kickoff line, the rule also prevents coverers from getting more than a 5-yard running start before the kick. Under the previous rule, would-be tacklers could mount a 15-yard head of steam before the kick.

The bulk of the proposed rule changes are related to curtailing injury. Which is always a great thing.

The Rivals Top 250 was released earlier this week and six players from Michigan made the cut. Offensive Outback Bowl review Monday or Tuesday.

The Rivalry: Why MSU/UM Fans Can't Have Their Cake and Eat It Too

I've felt since 2008 or so that UM Basketball and MSU football have some things in common. Both are being led by coaches that have a plan. Both programs have restored their good name from the muck of mediocrity and to be honest I like both coaches. Both programs have knocked off their hated rivals too many times in a row for it to be an accident anymore. Both programs have risen and have returned to a status that is no longer embarassing but is in fact something to proud of from a university sports perspective.

So that's why it completely chaps my ass to hear some MSU fans dismissing UM's basketball team out of hand. Your UM Brother-In-Law does the same thing to MSU when MSU delivers the beatings on the gridiron. Neither set of fans can have it both ways, either a rivalry is important or it isn't.

If I wanted to whine about how MSU is having a down year, I'd be perfectly in my rights to. MSU returns 1.5 starters in Appling and Green from the 2010-2011 cancer-ridden squad of "me first". As close to a diseased team as Izzo has had in his time at MSU. We could talk about how only five of the guys on the team even averaged more than 5 minutes a game last year. So even with all that UM managed to squeak out a one point win, despite leading the whole game, despite some of the worst late game clock management I can recall from Tom in a long time. All of those things are true.

That's not what happened here though. What happened is that the team who played a better game won. They won. That sucks. I hate it when they win. I hate it even more when we lose because of some pretty iffy gamesmanship at the end. UM fans, feel free to gloat with them braggin' rights, you earned them, until February 5th anyway. But the next time I hear a UM fan talking business about how MSU basketball is going down and how the tide has turned and I ask them about football and get the "Richrod mumble, mumble, mumble" answer, I'm done being nice about it.

Either your team won or they didn't and now the braggin' rights are yours or they aren't with no qualifications. I think this is something on which real MSU/UM fans with respect for their rivals can agree.

MSU - Michigan: Saturday Night Takeaway

Well, I honestly had no idea what to expect going into this game. The game could have turned on so many points. If Mattison gets the blitz home, if Denard can Denard us, if Cousins shows up as 18 of 22 for 240 and 2 TD's or if Cousins shows up as 11 of 29 for a TD and 3 picks, if our O-Line is crap, if they can't stop the run. Nothing about either team seemed definite enough to base a real solid prediction, but, we tried anyway, because that's what you do when you have a football blog.

The Good

- Our defense is outstanding. They have made sixteen sacks in the first two games of the Big Ten season. MSU still has to face a real solid passing quarterback yet, but this defense has IT. Whatever the hell IT is.

- No sacks surrendered by our Offensive Line. This seems like it's one part adjusting the playbook for quick passes, one part that our Offensive Line is improving. The Offensive Line deserves a shout-out for this. Yes, they need work, but jeez they've stepped up to the challenge so far.

- Sadler may not have the booming leg or the Hagerup coffin corner thing down, but damn if he isn't efficient and he is already playing heady football. The Craig Jarrett Supertoe will come.

- Edwin Baker was found in East Lansing today. Apparently, he had been suiting up for MSU all along? His rushing total of 167 was more than his last four games put together. He did a great job busting the outside runs.

- Keshawn Martin got 3 catches for 31 yards and had some killer blocks in this game. I don't remember him ever being a run blocker of any import, but apparently, he can get the job done when it's time.

- Congrats to Keshawn Martin and Trenton Robinson. These two players will never know the sting of a loss to Michigan. Congrats to the rest of the redshirt senior class.

- I thought that Brady Hoke and his players comments were classy. In a game where we had a lot of thug-ish type penalties, Hoke and his players were complimentary of MSU, each other and gracious in defeat.

The Bad

- Seriously, WTF with the penalties? I understand they're might be a tiny element of intimidation with all of the roughness and I want to see big hits too, but if we were playing a team that was successful in captalizing on those sorts of errors, we'd have lost big. We're VERY lucky those penalties didn't come back to haunt us.

- It was very windy today, so obviously that's the reason we had two open-field fumbles and no interceptions. Baker had one and I think Martin had the other, I had a bad line of sight on that one. To assume Martin had an end around though is generally considered acceptable practice. I have no idea what that was about though.

The Ugly

- Kirk Cousins, 13/24 for 120 and 2 TDs with no picks. That's ugly.

The Takeaway

Our defense is talented, young and kind of stupid. I really hope we can hang onto Narduzzi after this year although, I'm mildly skeptical at this point. This defense is stupid good and Duzzer is gonna get some phone calls. Young and talented will help us vs. Wisky. Stupid will kill us. As obvious as the sun will come up tomorrow something has to be done about those penalties.

Michigan's defense was improved and will continue to improve. I think they will be a bit in flux for the next couple of seasons their D will continue to improve, their O will probably tail off a bit and then build back up. The D will improve because they will continue to get better players each year in the positions. The O will struggle as they make the transition from spread and shred over to MANBALL. I think in 2-4 years they'll be consistently back to playing pro-style offense and power defense.

While I'm enjoying this run of victory and will certainly have these words thrown back in my face the first time we lose, I look forward to making sure Hoke has his pieces in place and that we have ours. When our rivalry game can be about who played the best game and not who limited mistakes most effectively, those should be games that will fuel the rivalry for years to come.

Finally, HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AN AWESOME WIN!

Michigan: Friday Morning Youtubin'!

Wal-Mart Wolverines, Juggalo Spartans, Privilege, and Class.

Between my office and a major freeway interchange, there is a Wal-Mart. I think it’s the “Super” kind, too. Normally I shop at Meijer, but every once in a blue moon I need to get from my office to the freeway and buy something they don’t sell at gas stations; Super Wal-Mart is there for me.

On one of these excursions, I was waiting in line for the U-Scan when I heard noises behind me that sounded like talking but not like words. I turned and found myself face to face with a person staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.

He was holding a 30-pack of Busch, the kind that comes in the collector camouflage box with blaze orange letters. He had on light-wash blue jeans with epic holes in the knees. On his head was a plain black baseball cap bearing the word “JESUS” in white capital letters. Under his nose was something that might have been alive but was probably a moustache. On his torso was a University of Michigan T-shirt.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I turned around, paid for my merchandise, and left.

This was the legendary “Wal-Mart Wolverine,” encountered in his natural habitat. I was too close to the beast to pull out a camera and take a picture, but like James Audubon I returned with this detailed accounting of the animal for academic enlightenment.

I am a sports fan at the crest of the Web 2.0 wave. My personal passions and professional skills pitch me right into the wheelhouse of the sports blogging demographic. I am thirty years old, white, male, college-educated, and see all things with a critical eye and a burning desire to know. I have a balanced life with wife, children, and white-collar career—but make time for all of my various hobbies and interests, because I’m just a geek like that and all this crazy has to go somewhere. I will sleep when I am dead.

I am incredibly privileged.

I count amongst my privileges that I was able to attend Michigan State University, as did my mother, and her father before her—not to mention my wife, both her sisters, both her parents, my stepmother . . . we are privileged. We don The Only Colors as symbols of our pride in and loyalty to the school that helped us become the people we are, and to which we paid a hell of a lot of money for the privilege.

We love and cheer for our school and its sports teams. When I was in school, I knew many athletes (I was in Case Hall), and it was incredible to see the people I hung out with all week don the armor and the livery and take the field to battle our “enemies.” It’s what’s incredible about college athletics: it’s our students against your students, and may the best team win.

We take that rivalry from the stands to the streets, and take turns jawing with family, friends, coworkers and strangers over whose lyceum reigns supreme. Sometimes it’s all in good fun. Sometimes it gets heated. Sometimes it turns ugly.

Sometimes you’re sitting in your Wolvie boss’s living room with all of his friends watching Michigan State lose 49-3 on his six-foot projection TV and you’re the only MSU fan there and they’re all giving you the business and even though what you really want to say is “Look, dude, you went to U of M Flint” you can’t so you mutter something about basketball season and know that someday the shoe will be on the other foot.

Sometimes that Wal-Mart Wolverine sees your team colors and starts jawing at you and telling you you “suck” and you want to know where in the hell he gets off telling you you suck when he’s never even been to Ann Arbor and his only connection to the football team that beat your football team is the T-shirt he bought here at Wal-Mart two years ago.

This is where we take a step back and talk about class.

The Wal-Mart Wolverine does not have Michigan’s two-deeps memorized. The Wal-Mart Wolverine does not know which crucial recruits M is vying for. The Wal-Mart Wolverine may only be dimly aware that Rich Rodriguez is no longer the coach. The Wal-Mart Wolverine brands himself a Michigan fan because it’s a cheap and easy way to feel like a winner. He feels like a winner when Michigan wins on Saturday, and he feels like a winner during the week when he talks shit to some ponytailed fag wearing an Spartan polo and Tweeting on an iPhone.

Look, I didn’t graduate from State. I worked in the trades on a per-hour, sometimes-cash-only basis until I figured out who I wanted to be when I grew up. I spent a lot of time working side-by-side with guys who had precious little going for them besides a strong back, a permanent tab at their favorite bar, and a Michigan T-shirt.

So it is with the Juggalo Spartan. I cringed at Brian’s description of the State fans in Ann Arbor last year:

That was Saturday: financial mathematicians screaming at Juggalos, and the Juggalos winning. The State meathead directly behind me literally said "bitch! fuck you!" whenever MSU tackled Denard Robinson for less than five yards. On Friday, Tim came back to his apartment to find a trail of blood leading to a passed-out State meathead who'd broken in. The same guys who clumsily spray-painted a bedsheet in 2008 to declare their glorious victory over the worst Michigan team in 50 years reprised their genius. As I walked home every glassy-eyed Stiffler that passed me upped the amplitude of my anger/depression cocktail. Jesus, they were everywhere. They came to Ann Arbor cocky and stupid and left cocky and stupid. Enduring it was brutal. In their eyes, that was probably the point.

I brand myself with that the same Michigan State fandom that those a-holes do, and it kills me—kills me—to hear that people who call themselves Spartan fans would say and do those terrible things. But Brian hit something else on the head: those probable-Juggalos “almost certainly didn't even go to the game because they couldn't afford it.” They’re poor. They’re definitely ignorant, and probably stupid. They didn’t go to State, or likely any college. They didn’t earn their fandom with tuition and classes like he did his and I did mine.

So first, let’s call a spade a spade: the phenomenon of Wal-Mart Wolverines and Juggalo Spartans is a whole lot more about the struggle of class against class than between Michigan and Michigan State. They didn’t go to the big fancy school in the town where they grew up—but by cheering for the rival they get to lord it over those who did. They don’t represent their fan bases any more than the twisted Alabama fan who poisoned the oaks at Toomer’s Corner knows Violent J from Jay-Z.

Let’s let the common person who just wants a weekend escape have their escape without demanding to see their qualifications, and let’s hate the thugs and vandals on either side for their thuggery and vandalism, not their alignment. I’m not going to spray paint somebody’s car with “STATE” misspelled any more than Brian’s going to kill a 30-pack of Busch during the next UFR.

Second, let’s remember how awesome this rivalry is. My grandfather sat in the Spartan Stadium stands and hated Michigan—just as my mother did and as I do. We have the Internet now; we have computers that fit in our pockets and talk to the Internet everywhere, and we can interact with each other at any time of day or night all year ‘round. We can steep ourselves in the tradition and the vitriol and the misery and the triumph and all day every day for as much as we can stand. That’s a privilege; let’s treat it as such.

I stand with my Wolverine-loving iFriends as fans of Big Ten college football, and I want our annual battle to be played for the highest possible stakes every single year. I want our rivalry to be a marquee contest that draws national attention, and has national implications. I want to hate and taunt and mock and deride and seethe at each other with the respect, dignity, and yes—class—that befits ladies and gentlemen of privilege and higher education.

Also, I hope we kick their ass.

Game Preview: Michigan

The Michigan Wolverines need little introduction. They are our hated rivals, the single team us and Ohio State could mutually agree to both smear out of the big 10 race every year. They would tell you this isn't a rivalry, but would reluctantly admit that Michigan State is the team they hate losing to most. As usual, Heck does an immaculate job summing up the hate from the Michigan State side. So, it's the Michigan game, on Saturday root for Greg Mattison to blitz his way off the field and maybe a drunken phone call to John Harbaugh seeing if maybe they could meet up for a cup of coffee sometime, you know, just to give back the stuff they still have of each other's?

This marks the third year in a row we're going to be playing Michigan's September Heisman Winner. This is the third year in a row we're playing an undefeated Michigan team that's going to beat us until we can't stand. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 Michigan's combined record coming into this game has been 15-0. We have been the Lloyd Carr to the JLS Wolverines the past couple of years and I'm good if we can pull this off a third year in a row.

Michigan's Passing Attack vs MSU's Pass Defense

Last year UM moved the ball on MSU until it got into the redzone and then D-Rob was more likely to complete a pass to us than he was to his own guys. This will be true again. D-Rob was such a good QB last year because Magee got D-Rob's receivers FILTHY open.

Denard is the best running back playing QB since Michael Vick. I seem to recall reading that MSU's defense has given up nine plays over 20 yards this season. Further, Denard has a real propensity for throwing moonballs, not manballs. So you have a strength of MSU's juxtaposed with a strong weakness of UM's. Denard is going to throw some picks, provided he throws at all.

Advantage: MSU

Michigan's Rushing Attack vs MSU's Rush Defense

Denard is the rushing attack too. Frankly, Denard's the whole damned offense. MSU has shown itself prepared to stop a rushing QB in Braxton Miller, but honestly, he's like Diet Caffeine Free Denard. The YPC is up across the board for their running backs, but at the end of the day stop Denard, stop the Wolverines.

MSU has been stingy against the run this year allowing an average of 64 yards per game and 74.5 against OSU and ND. I do not realistically expect us to surrender only 64 rushing yards against Michigan, but I do think we could keep them under 150. We only gave up 35 rushing yards to OSU and I think we're adequately prepared to stop a rushing QB.

Advantage: MSU

MSU's Passing Attack vs Michigan's Pass Defense

Michigan has the 39th ranked pass defense and has been real solid in the red zone. We've been moving the ball effectively, but kinda crappy in the redzone, 100th in the nation or worse. Mattison seems to run a high risk, high reward type defense with lots and lots of blitzing. So that makes this call a bit difficult. If Michigan can get the blitz home, MSU is in some trouble. If MSU can stop the blitz, Cousins could have a field day. Further complicating matters is that Cousins still has a brain fart when he's pressing. So, the key for MSU will be short, safe throws for 5-7 yards.

Advantage: Push. I think there are too many unknowns for me to call this with any confidence. Either side could massively outperform the other.

MSU's Rushing Attack vs Michigan's Rush Defense

The BBC backfield has struggled this year behind our woeful Offensive Line of Sorrow. I think the Woeful Offensive Line of Sorrow is turning into a Woeful Offensive Line of Patchworked Occasional Success. However, I don't see the OLine coming together enough over the bye week to turn the rushing attack into a scary juggernaut for this week's game.

Michigan's rush defense is ranked 58th, giving up 141.6 yards per game. Our Rushing Offense is ranked 79th. They're good in defending the red zone and we're not good at scoring in it so it'll be important if we're going to be good at rushing that it happens in their redzone. Bell will be a critical piece of this.

Advantage: UM. I think we have too many holes in our rushing game to be improved with a bye week.

Intangibles:

So we had a bye week before this, which means we had time to drop some wrinkles in the playbook. With a bye week the week before we might come out a bit rusty. MSU has been outscored 49-20 in the first half of the two post bye week games under Dantonio. Still, we have saved some of our best for Michigan the past few years and with an extra week to cook things up, I expect some very interesting stunts and blitzes. Maybe a Keshawn package?

Michigan on the other hand, is playing with house money at this point. I don't think anyone expected Michigan to be 6-0 and in such resounding fashion at this point. So winning this game would be icing on the cake for them I think. State needs to jump out to a quick lead and keep it because UM is a second half team.

Advantage: UM, but slightly.

Overall: Earlier this week, I was a bit bearish on our chances this weekend, but it goes without saying that UM has not played a defense like ours yet. Further, they struggled in the early goings against every team they've played except Minnesota and SDSU. If MSU is going to win, it needs to come out early, get up big, and not get soft in the third and fourth quarters. If this were an away game, I'd worry about that a bit, but I think we'll be properly prepared and the rust will come off quick.I think the rushing game will surprise this week despite UM's perceived advantage in this arena. MSU's weaknesses seem slightly more likely to be overcome to me with the extra practice than UM's weaknesses.

Predicition: MSU 31 UM 28.

MSU: Little Brother No More?

This is a difficult post to write without feeling it'll upset some Spartan fans, but, so be it. I think this is something that needs to be said. This all began for me with a simple question. Is there a way to empirically prove that the MSU fanbase is no longer little brother?

See, it's not the team I worry about with the little brother thing.



The team is coming off of three straight victories against a terrible, bad and so-so Michigan team respective to 2008, 2009 and 2010. Despite Jerel Worthy's choices in arm decoration, the focus of this team is to win the Big Ten again. Not beat Michigan above all other things. Michigan is an important stop en route, but this isn't 2007 with the most over-hyped countdown clock in the history of time, nor is it 2009 where we kept 2/3rds of our defensive playbook scuttled away while going 2-2 including a loss to Central so Tater could show up in EL and be completely lost. This game will be approached by our coaching staff with a little extra verve, but this is not Michigan State Football's Super Bowl anymore.

So I posted a twitter poll and a poll on spartanmag with the question, would you as an MSU fan rather Beat Michigan or Go to a Bowl Game? Results can be found on MLive here through twitter responder Patrick Walters or on the Underground Bunker here. So, I woke up in the morning and decided I asked the wrong question. The value of a bowl is variable, i.e. the Pizza Pizza Bowl != Rose Bowl. So I decided to re-ask the question as "Would you rather Beat Michigan or Play in the B1G Title Game?". This fixes the value of the game and provides a choice for the top agenda item of the team. As of the time of this writing it's currently 45 percent for Beating Michigan, 43 percent for playing for the Big Ten title and 8 percent voting for Perot. On MLive, it's 65% for Beat Michigan and 35 for win a bowl game. On SpartanMag it's 83 percent for Beat Michigan and 11 percent for Win a Bowl Game, with the remainder doing the Tenacious D "Can't Decide, Brain Aneurysm".

Even this question and sampling are a bit flawed. For starter's the two outcomes of the question are not mutually exclusive, rather a victory over Michigan likely will put the Winner in the catbird's seat to play in the B1G Title Game in 2011. Second, frankly this blog draws a lot less water than either MLive or Spartanmag.com. So our sample size is pretty small. However, I don't think that either of these points is enough to rob the question of it's validity. The question is: Is beating Michigan the number one priority of Michigan State football fans?

Rivalries are not about what happens on the field, they're about what happens with the fanbases, media and season outcomes off the field. Go back and look at the infamous MGoBlog Juggalo Post. The real complaining is about fans, not our team. Think about every Ohio State fan you've ever met. Every single one. They're all dickheads and probably wife beaters. My wife spent a few years in the marching band and they stopped going to Columbus because they kept getting hit with batteries. Michigan-OSU rose to prominence because the coaches hated each other and the winner won the Big 10 every year. None of that has to do with the actual game outside of the fact it provides the fodder on which the rivalry is based.

Beating Michigan is a critical piece of the puzzle particularly if Brady Hoke brings Michigan back. We'll be competing with them for the right to go to the Big Ten title game, but if we ever want to empirically prove we're no longer "Little Brother" as fans, the idea of putting ourselves in a position to win the Big Ten has to be the foremost goal of the program and the measuring stick of success for the fans each year.

If we lose Saturday, we're not again relegated to the role of little brother as fans or as a team for that matter. The team has a chance to still accomplish it's goal of winning the Big Ten. Bielema is a meathead and I think he'll lose in EL next weekend (I'm not backing down on this one for reasons I'll go into next week). The Huskers just lost Jared Crick for the season and are looking beatable. While MSU's schedule isn't favorable, it isn't impossible either. The fans get relegated to the role of little brother if we go to the Citrus Bowl, win and come home all Sad Panda about how we suck because we didn't beat Michigan.

This weekend, I hope we stomp all over Michigan, but it's mostly because I want us to be playing for the right to go to the Rose Bowl in December. That's my Super Bowl now. The MSU football team is no longer Little Brother. They've won three years in a row and have set their sights on the Rose Bowl and Michigan is a slightly larger than normal piece of that. After the results of several polls have come in to measure this question, can it be said that MSU fans have moved past little Brother status? I think not, but I didn't say it, you guys did.

Rivalry Week: Michigan Facts and Inferences

I don't like going Meta, but feel it's necessary here. Due to an overwhelming flood of things at work and this weekend being my first ever half-marathon the blog is going to get about a third as much attention as I'd like this week. My sincere apologies, being slovenly was much less effort than trying to take care of myself.

It's rivalry week and time to address our friends down the road. Much will be made of what this game means. Was Jesus just a prophet for Denard? Is Brady Hoke the long-awaited successor to Bo? Does Michigan State even have a chance against U of M? If MSU loses are we destined to become a second-rate doormat all over again? If we win is U of M on it's way to Richrodding it's way through the season again? I think this is all a bunch of knee-jerk crap honestly, so let's stick to some facts and maybe some mild opinion and go from there.

Fact: Michigan has outscored it's opponents in the second half 114-21.

If you are not winning at halftime, it's unlikely you will beat these Wolverines. A key to success for the good guys will be being up early and making Denard play from behind. Frankly, this statistic is just stunning. Outscoring your opponent 5-1 in the second half over six games is no fluke.

Fact: Michigan State has outscored it's opponents in the first half 89-27.

While this involves us being up 58-0 on FAU and Central respectively, I do think it points to us being more of a first half team. Interesting to note, at halftime we've blanked three of our opponents at the half. So again, better be up at the half or else.

Fact: Michigan and Michigan State have scoring defenses in the top 10 nationally.

Normally this would be extremely impressive, but the Big Ten has half the top 10 scoring defenses nationally, so it's only kind of impressive. The turnaround is more impressive in the case of Michigan who finished somewhere around 2,000,000th in total scoring defense last year.

Fact: Michigan has the leading rusher in the Big Ten at QB.

We haven't yet played a QB in this mold in 2011. We of course played Robinson last year and shut him down very nicely, but until he is stopped we cannot write him off as a threat. A key to the game will be limiting him to taking only a few yards here or there and making him throw the ball.

Fact: Michigan State Football has improved under Mark Dantonio.

I bring this one up in case we lose and fans start jumping off ledges. MSU is better than they've been since Biggie Munn and aren't you lucky because they've been pretty so-so for a long time? Mark Dantonio's current record is 37-20 and 21-12 in the Big Ten. In order for Mark Dantonio to have a winning percentage equivalent to Duffy Daughtery he'd need to lose his next three games. He'd have to lose five to be as good as St. Nick Saban. On Saturday, win or lose Michigan State football is improving under Dantonio.

Opinion(But Strongly Supported): The Winner of This Game will have the inside track on winning the Legends Division

Neither program rises or falls based off of this game, but I think the winner has the inside track on playing in the inaugural B1G title game. Nebraska is already down a game in the Big Ten season and is unlikely to beat both MSU and Michigan. Iowa looks to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this year. So it is my opinion that the loser does not become a second-tier program, but instead this might become a rivalry of who plays in the division title game.

The Spring of MSU’s Recruiting Autumn, or: Brady Hoke Is Eating Mark Dantonio’s Lunch

Brian from MGoBlog recently wrote two posts: “A Brief History of In-State Recruiting: late Lloyd Carr era”, and its sequel, “Rodriguez and Now.” Both delve into the gritty details—and the dramatic meta-narrative—of the battle between U-M and MSU for Michigan football talent. Shorty thereafter, MGoBlog recruiting maven Tim posted Big Ten recruiting rankings, and . . . well, it backs up the current state of said narrative: Brady Hoke is eating Mark Dantonio’s lunch.

First, a disclaimer: I’m not a recruiting guy. I’m leaning on what I glean from other sites, and from my co-author, Jim (who, like me, has taken the postseason off to pursue other pursuits). Still, I’ve been watching the U-M masses frolic upon Mark Dantonio’s grave, and suddenly a post was bubbling up under my fingers. So, out it comes:

I told Brian during the Hoke intro presser, “You may have gotten your Dantonio, for whatever it’s worth.” Hoke, like Dantonio, was an assistant during the most recent Glory Days of his respective program—and Hoke, like Dantonio, immediately appealed to his base with strong campaign promises: I will install a Good Old Fashioned He-Man offense, I will recruit in-state talent, my teams will out-work the other guy for sixty minutes, and—most importantly—we will beat our rivals.

Dantonio tried, sort of, to hold together the transitional ‘07 recruiting class. But when he went hunting in early 2008, he had lots of ammunition: immediate playing time in a pro-style offense, a BCS National Championship ring, and a big bandolier of we’re going to beat Michigan. His 2008 haul looked unlike anything seen at MSU since the Internet has cared about such things, and 2009 saw an unprecedented tail-kicking of U-M for in-state recruits. Brian describes these years as “Transition,” and “Dominance Type Substance” in his articles:

Michigan State nearly swept the in-state four stars, though some of those were pretty iffy—Jeremy Gainer's offer list read "MSU, Iowa and crap"; Donald Spencer's read "MSU and… MSU." Others could be filed under "just one of those things," like Blake Treadwell being a Spartan coach's son. Others were no longer of interest to Michigan because of their offensive system.

That said, this year saw four players who Michigan wanted and seriously could have used go to Michigan State, more than the previous six years combined. Only one—Norman—was a Ren/SE kid. Michigan's instate recruits were three Cass Tech kids and Inkster's Cam Gordon; with the exception of Michigan getting the #1 kid in the state this looks like a complete reversal of The Natural Way Of Things.

We Spartans proudly proclaimed it all over the Internet: The Natural Way of Things had been reversed, and the upper hand was ours! Unfortunately, that didn’t really hold for the 2010 class, and 2011 is shaping up to be a tail-kicking of us, by them. What happened?

Partly, it’s losing Dan Enos to CMU; he recruited Detroit beautifully. But primarily, I see a lot of Hoke’s 2011 success coming from the same source as Dantonio’s 2008 triumph: easy buy-in. Hoke’s doing and saying all the right things to appeal to Michigan’s (huge) in-state fanbase. Hoke is telling kids they can get in on the ground floor of the New Era of Michigan Awesome, and it’s easy to believe. He’s preaching the same values and fundamentals these kids have heard all their lives, and offering immediate playing time in pro-style schemes. In-state recruits are buying what Hoke’s selling, just like Michigan fans everywhere.

Is this a return to the Natural Way of Things, as experienced by Michigan since Bo? Maybe. But if Hoke is Bo, or even significant fractions thereof, he has yet to show it in the fifty-two years he’s walked the Earth. Brian, since the 2007 coaching search, has been screaming that Hoke’s resume is completely inadequate, and repeatedly stating the truth: that if Hoke “been a Michigan State assistant no one would have ever brought him up:”

I promise you this: if Brady Hoke is actually hired small children should not read the site for a week following because every other word will be swearing. This is in no way a joke.

Of course, the aforementioned introductory presser pressed every right button, with authority. Just as we clung to Dantonio’s granite jaw after years of John L. Smith calling triple-pitch WR passes and slapping himself, Hoke sweating maize and talking blue is anodyne to the Wolverine faithful. Hoke also pulled off an incredible hire, convincing Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Greg Mattison to hold the same position at U-M—as he once did from 1995 to ‘96 . This should help offset the fact that Hoke has never coordinated a defense at the college level.

That’s right; Hoke was a career DL or LB coach,  and he held a DL coaching job at Michigan from 1995 through 2001, before the words “associate head coach” were appended to his job title.  Hmm . . . career defensive line coach, spent most of a decade under the same head coach and defensive system, got promoted to “associate head coach” before landing a head coaching gig, compiled a losing record over several years, and loves to whip players and fans into a team-first adrenaline frenzy with dramatic monologues about toughness and outworking people. Sound familiar, Lions fans?

   

I’m not saying . . . I’m just saying

Honestly, now: I’m not saying Brady Hoke will be the disaster at Michigan that Rod Marinelli was in Detroit. For starters, Hoke’s made much better coordinator hires. Besides the masterstroke of pulling Mattison to run the defense as opposed to, you know, his son-in-law, Hoke brought along his offensive coordinator from SDSU, Al Borges. Marinelli, on the other hand, hired his personal and professional antithesis: Mike Martz. Second, the NFL is a brutal meritocratic road grader: over time, the wheat consistently get separated from the chaff. Marinelli may be able to whip a defensive end into a quarterback-killing frenzy with nothing but talk, but he had no clue how to play the game of chess that unfolds between NFL offensive and defensive coordinators every Sunday. The ultimate result was 0-16.

In college ball, however, perception is reality; reputation can produce results in a feedback loop. The teams that recruit well win; the teams that win recruit well. Hoke is attempting to start that loop by stuffing an empty larder with beefy front seven recruits; with enough hard work and pad level and luck and smoke and mirrors, his hot air will inflate that perception long enough for the results on the field to catch up to his pressers—and the “Natural Way of Things” really will be restored.

However, Hoke’s strategy will be to take one of the best round offenses in the nation and file off the edges until he can stuff it into a square hole—then take one of the worst round defenses in the nation and stuff that into a square hole, too. Just as Marinelli spent three years trying to remake the roster in the image of his system, Hoke will have to throw out what’s working along with what isn’t. If initial results are no better than Marinelli’s—or, to the point, Rodriguez’s—all of the Michigan Men who never extended Rich Rod a second’s grace will fall all over themselves excusing Hoke . . . for a while. Meanwhile, all the fans who simply want Michigan to win again will grow restless, especially when Michigan again loses to Michigan State, Ohio State and three, four, five, or maybe six other teams.

So, fellow Spartans: do not sweat this tidal wave of Hokeamania. Wail not ye on the message boards, nor gnash thy teeth on teh Twitterz. Let Michigan be The Victors of April. Golf clap for their recruiting classes now, as they did not for ours. Should they press their case to you, simply smile and say “Scoreboard.” Sleep well, knowing what the Way of Things shall be come autumn.

Progress by Stagnation

Michigan State football was the beneficiary of a quirk of college football physics: progress through stagnation.  Thanks to Northwestern’s Pyrrhic (Persahic?) victory over Iowa, the Hawkeyes fell out of the Rose Bowl race.  By not playing at all, the Spartans emerged unscathed past another week of Big Ten competition—and unless they pratfall at home against Purdue, should do so again this weekend.  Further, the one team who has a lead on MSU in the Rose Bowl race will have to leap a much higher hurdle: Iowa, whose defeat of MSU and subsequent loss to Northwestern put us all in this mess to begin with.

I’m usually one of those obnoxious people who parses common sports phrases for their actual meaning—so when talking heads on TV talk about receivers “catching the ball at its highest point,” I chuckle at the mental image of a guy launching himself fifteen feet in the air to nab a skinny post at its apogee.  But the other day, I caught The John Kincade Show, and Kincade sussed out one I’d never thought of: “controlling your own destiny.”  It’s completely impossible to “control” your destiny!  If it is truly Michigan State’s destiny to play in the Rose Bowl, if it is written in the stars, then it IS going to happen; we’re all just along for the ride.

What of it, then?  Is it already a fait accompli?  If I could get my hands on Biff’s Sports Almanac, would I see Michigan State in Pasadena this year (A: no, it only ever went up to 2000)?  Honestly, I think the opportunity will be there.  All season long I’ve had a weird itch, an inkling, a hunch that Ohio State would trip up at the end of the season.  My hunch was that it would be Michigan doing the tripping; after all the hullaballoo surrounding the Wolverines this year, wouldn’t that just beat all?  Better yet, it would cinch immediate Coach-For-Life-Until-We-Get-Really-Sick-of-Scoring-Fifty-Points-a-Game-and-Winning-Eight-Games status for Rich Rodriguez.  However, if it’s to be Iowa—who’s been in the business of making and unmaking seasons of destiny this year—then that’s fine with me, too.

The question: even if the path is clear, can the Spartans walk down it?  Even if the enemy is waylaid for them, can they claim their prize?  Even if all they have to do is walk into Happy Valley and walk out victors, can they pull it off?  Ah, that’s a question for next week.  This week, the task is simple: win by not-losing, for the third week in a row—and let the stars choose whom they will.

The Armor of Expectations

The Day of Judgment arrived on Saturday—and in the white-hot fires of holy war, a new Spartan team was forged.

After taking care of business against the lesser foes, winning miraculously against Notre Dame, and handling Wisconsin, the Spartans were burdened with the heavy weight of expectations.  At 5-0, they had reached a tipping point: beat Michigan, and they would ascend to the ranks of the legitimately undefeated.  Beat Michigan, and they could start down the gilded, downhill slope that is the Spartans’ back half of the schedule.  Beat Michigan, and they would write Chapter Six of what might be the most epic tale of Spartan football ever told.

The armor of expectations is a telling test of strength: if the body is too weak to wear it, it’s a burden, an anchor that clunks and slows and drags.  Many times I have seen the team win early, be girded with the breastplate and gauntlets, and collapse.  But Saturday, the Spartans wore the expectations like the armor they are.  The Spartans were protected by the knowledge they were good enough to win, and strengthened by the confidence that knowledge gave them.  They did not panic when the opponent made early advances, but held firm and took over the game.  They did not stumble and trip like a teenager—they strode calmly and confidently, like men, into Michigan Stadium.  They walked out having defeated “The Victors.”

Let me be clear about this: Michigan is a very good team.  Their offense is legitimately potent; they definitely had chances to score more points than they did.  Further, their defense bottled up the Spartans’ running game for far longer than I thought they would.  Before the season, I thought Michigan was a seven-win team; today I expect them to win eight, or possibly nine games.  They are a very good football team, and it is a fine feather in MSU’s helmet to have beaten them in Ann Arbor.

Second: Denard Robinson is a very good player.  I don’t believe that he’s a great quarterback, nor that he is the most outstanding player in the nation.  But he is very good—and despite myself, I’m geniunely rooting for the kid.  He seems to be humble, classy, a great teammate—and he is undeniably very talented.  If what you, Dear Reader, are trying to take away from this game is that “Denard sucks,” or “Denard choked,” you’re wrong.  Against Michigan State, Denard was exactly what he is and has been: extremely fast, extraordinarily difficult to contain, lethal on a zone read, always a danger to break one long, an inconsistent decision-maker and an inaccurate downfield thrower.

Against Indiana, that gets you 10 of 16 for 277, 3 TDs, no INTs, and 217 yards rushing.  Against Michigan State, that gets you 17 of 29 for 215, 1 TD and 3 INTs, and 86 yards rushing.

The missed wide-open touchdown pass to Stonum is exactly what I’m talking about.  Forget Sammy Baugh’s legendary “swinging tire” he threw through for practice, Robinson had a stationary side-of-a-barn he needed to throw that ball through to score a significant early touchdown, and he couldn’t do it.  Another example?  In the third quarter, the Wolverines were down by two scores, and had 2nd-and-9 from the Spartan 13-yard-line.  Denard rolled to his right, no rush, and saw his outside receiver squat in a hole in the zone, just past the sticks.  With a ten-yard pitch-and-catch, the Wolverines convert, and possibly score.  Instead, Denard fires it into the turf, several feet shy of his target—he one-hopped a critical ten-yard pass.  The next attempt was intercepted in the end zone; instead of bringing it to within one score, the game slipped away.

This is what drives me crazy about Denard, Culpepper, Vick, Tebow, or any of the quarterbacks who’ve worked fans and media up into a blithering lather with athletic highlights.  In order to beat good defenses, quarterbacks have to consistently make good reads, good decisions, and good throws at great speed.  Denard Robinson isn’t currently capable of that—and the jury’s still out on whether he ever will be.

However, he won’t need to beat good defenses very often!  There simply aren’t many of them around—and the schedule is gerry-rigged so that he’ll face as few of them as possible.  Ergo, even if Denard’s never any more than what he is, the Wolverines will win eight or so games every year he’s under center.  That was why I decried the hype surrounding Denard—not because I thought he was a bad player, but that I thought he was a good one.  Denard deserves to be celebrated as a good player—not propped up as a great one, then denigrated when he falls short!  His frame can’t bear the weight of championship expectations just yet. 

No, that weight—and that armor—rests on Sparty’s broad shoulders now.  The battle-hardened, flame-forged Spartans march on to meet their destiny, knowing their mettle is a match for anyone’s.

 

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My Introduction to MSU Football

Hello everyone, my name is Jim and I am addicted to Spartan Sports.

It all started back in Fall of 1998 in my first semester at MSU. I had moved onto campus a few weeks earlier and was going through the slog of the freshmen required courses. I remember the day my addiction began, it was September 12th, 1998. We played the Fightin' Irish and it was the first weekend I was staying on campus.

Now the thing you should know about Bailey Hall in 1998 is that it was full of geeks. The hall had a science and engineering focus to it at the time, the collective knowledge of Star Wars Trivia far outweighed what existed in the fictional Star Wars Universe. I had hardly watched football at all prior to this, and so I turned on the game because I could hear the stadium off in the distance.

This was the day we beat Notre Dame, and we didn't just beat them, we crushed them. The halftime score was 42-3. But even more importantly yet, I started out watching the game in my room and gravitated down the hall to meet my fellow floormates for what eventually turned into a college career of good times with friends featuring oat sodas.

My enjoyment of MSU sports is tied deeply to many experiences that highlight my time in college and a few that are highlights in my life. In 1999, my friends and I camped outside of Spartan Stadium for the front few rows of the U of M game. In 2000, I was pulled over for 48 in a 25 and not issued a ticket because we had just won this game. In 2004, we pummeled Wisconsin in a game we had no business winning. In 2005, I propsed to my wife at the MSU-Hawaii rematch. In 2008, my two week old daughter was present for the stop against Shonn Greene and the Hawkeyes. In a week from tomorrow my second daughter will be present for what should be a snoozer against Illinois.

As Ty said, this is my first blog. Bear with me and I will try to make my contributions part of what you enjoy about Spartan Sports.

The Unbearable Hypeness of Denard

Something I’ve always struggled with as a fan of football is when a player’s hype doesn’t match what I see to be his essential ability.  I’ve ranted over at The Lions in Winter about how Daunte Culpepper’s “MVP Caliber” reputation followed him around for years, even when that “MVP Candidate” season led a remarkably talented team to an 8-8 record.  I’ve ranted on The Fireside Chat that Michael Vick’s legendary elusiveness wouldn’t be needed if he could actually execute the offense well.  I’ve gotten in endless quarrels about Kurt Warner’s Hall of Fame viability; to me a player who spent half of his career on the bench (or belonging there) has no business in the Hall.  Believe you me, I’ve moaned and groaned on Twitter and elsewhere about Tim Tebow—the false quarterback prophet, whose role in the NFL will be primarily to sell jerseys.

Likewise, I still say that Barry Sanders never got his due—even as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, people are largely ignorant about just how remarkable he really is.  I am completely mystified by Brett Favre being lucky to crack most people’s top ten all-time quarterback lists—when his name is at the top of the heap in every statistical category—and legendarily, he played with more heart and grit and gusto than any of them.

All of this is bad enough, but with today’s twenty-four hour sports media cycle, and the prevalence of blogs, podcasts, forums, Twitter, etc., once a thought takes root (i.e., “Vick barely beating the Lions means he’s a lock for the Pro Bowl”) it’s repeated over and over and over and expounded upon and analyzed and broken down and debated and parroted and #TT’d and #FF’d and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Such it is with “Shoelace,” the Denard Robinson phenomenon.  It’s not that Denard is not talented; he unquestionably is.  He’s extremely fast, has good vision, and runs in very well in open field.  Unlike last season, he has excellent running lanes thanks to a mightily improved offensive line.  Also, he’s gotten much better at throwing the ball.  In fact, he’d have to have done so, if for no other reason than he couldn’t have gotten any worse: in 34 dropbacks last season, Denard was sacked three times, threw four interceptions, and completed 14 passes for only 188 yards.

Clearly, though, he’s taken a big step forward—and so have his teammates, and so have his coaches.  Denard’s statistical production has been simply incredible: he’s decimated several U of M single-game records, and Denard is on pace to demolish several NCAA FBS records, as well.  However, he’s done this against UConn, Notre Dame, UMass, Bowling Green, and Indiana—and wasn’t uniformly incredible, as many currently believe.  Even with Indiana’s doormat conference status, cracks in the Shoelace facade began to grow.  In the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, the Wolverines had to punt three consecutive times—thanks to a Denard run that came up short, and two poorly-thrown incompletions.

Yes, the drive after that was the game-winning drive, and Denard scored the game winning touchdown.  But this was Indiana; it didn’t need to be nearly as close as it was—and if Denard were truly a Dilithium-based lifeform, he wouldn’t need four bites at Indiana’s apple to get the one touchdown he needed.  It’s exactly that kind of Culpepperian first-quarter awesome, fourth-quarter not-so-awesome that makes people who don’t look past the box score repeat and expound and analyze and break down and debate and hype and parrot and #TT and #FF and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Part of the problem here is the bed that the NCAA, its conferences, and its member institutions have made—the one that we are forced to lie in.  The college rankings (and postseason) have always been awarded based on number of losses: Undefeated = “National Champion”, 1 loss = “Great Bowl”, 2 losses = “Good Bowl”, etc.  The pressure to reduce the number of losses has forced every team into a race for the scheduling bottom.  Teams schedule tomato cans they have absolutely no intention of losing to for three, and sometimes four, nonconference games out of four—and conferences have created unbalanced schedules, bye weeks, and division splits to make sure nobody even kind-of decent faces a strong test more than two or three times a year.

The upshot of this?  Nothing that happens in September really matters.  The whole first month of college football is completely immaterial.  Except for a preseason national title favorite losing to an FCS school (e.g., “The Horror”), there is no single loss that can’t be overcome, and likely no single win that will mean as much as people think it does (e.g., “Boise State beat VT, they are now the prohibitive favorite to win the BCS Championship, unless they lose to Oregon State”).  Let me underscore that: the college football season, as it currently exists, is designed to make sure everybody looks good, especially in September.  If your team doesn’t look great in September, your team is horrible—and even if your team does look great in September, that doesn’t mean it is not horrible.

In the intervening three games between Denard’s coming-out party against Notre Dame and tomorrow’s Big Chill, Michigan has done nothing other than beat teams they were nearly assured of beating—and Denard has done nothing other than continue to break long runs, be really fast and get people to repeat and expound and analyze and break down and debate and hype and parrot and #TT and #FF and OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Unfortunately, while this schedule has given Denard—and Michigan—a great platform for success and exposure, it’s also robbed them of the ability to really legitimately crow about it.  Until Denard looks amazing against multiple better-than-average BCS-conference teams, doubts will continue to be cast upon his achievements.  The NCAA’s schedule dilution ensures that everybody looks at least pretty good for most of the year, and it keeps fans keep buying tickets and coaches employed—but in the process, true greatness is obfuscated.

 

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