Next! The Florida Atlantic Owls

This summer my daughter was invited to be a flower girl at a wedding in Key West. Not having any idea what kind of place Key West was and being an avid admirer of it's fine pies we agreed and set out on our vacation. One of the last Keys before Key West is I believe Big Pine Key. When you drive through Big Pine Key, there are signs everywhere indicating the island is a deer refuge and if you hit a deer you will be executed by the Florida Highway Patrol. Being from Michigan this struck me as particularly odd that you would be concerned about making sure you don't hit deer. Here in Michigan, we cancel school on Opening Day to make sure we get as many as possible.



You want a deer, I can get you a deer by three o'clock today.

So when Wilford Brimley Howard Schnellenberger was participating in the discussions to start the Florida Atlantic football program I find myself wondering why he decided to go with Owls. It would be like picking the FAU Bambi Herd instead of something a little more obviously indigenous to Florida like Spiders(they beat Duke), Gators, Hurricanes, Heat. I guess most of the apt descriptions of Florida were taken, Swamp Folk was left, but they got sued by the makers of the Waterboy before they even got under way.

This weekend marks the third and I believe final scheduled meeting between MSU and FAU. The first meeting was a 17-0 monsoon in 2008 where Javon Ringer slogged through about 7 inches of rain. Last season we beat them 30-17 in a closer than expected contest that reminded me a little too much of the Youngstown State game. It was a home game for them in technicality only, played at Ford Field because the construction of the FAU stadium ran behind schedule. This year they're coming up I believe to conclude our 2 for 1 with them.

This is Schnellenberger's final season with FAU and then he'll be retiring to some warmer, sunnier part of the world? His accomplishments with FAU deserve respect, taking FAU from no football program at all in 2000 to a 1-AA school in 2001-2005 and a Sun Belt Conference member(Florida's equivalent of the MAC) from 2006-present. Since joining the Sun Belt, they've been invited to two bowl games and won both.

All of that said, last year on the Mad Dog show I recall him saying something to the effect of: "Well, we're going to come up there, play our best football, get our paycheck and go home." I'm sure he said it more eloquently than that, but I remember the mention of getting a paycheck coming up. He knows his place and because of that he's been able to drive FAU from nothing to something, and after this year he's going to turn that something over to someone else to become a bigger something. That's very cool.

Obligatory Wilford Brimley/Howard Schnellenburger Photo Drop



The Quick and Skinny
2011 Record: 0-1
2010 Record: 4-8
Base Defense: 3-4
Base Offense: Multiple look(Pro Style)

Storyline: Well FAU went into the Swamp and they were swamped by the Gators. They lost 41-3 while Chris Rainey scored 3 different times in running, receiving and returning a blocked punt for a touchdown. FAU managed 137 yards of offense and managed a field goal after getting the ball on Florida's 38 after an interception.

According to Athlon, you know who's a worse 1-A team than FAU. No one. Athlon has them ranked dead last. Schnellenburger had a hospital trip on the way to the Swamp so maybe the team was just taken out of it's game, but the prognostications preseason + abhorrently poor play against Florida lead me to believe this should pretty much be the game I was thinking for YSU.

Position Breakdowns:

Quarterback

Graham Wilbert: I'd think this name was fake it's so silly. Prior to last week his career stats were 1/5 for 41 yards and a pick. After last week's 14/26 yards showing for 107 yards and no picks.

David Kooi is another FAU quarterback and could see the field should Graham Wilbert struggle too mightily.

Running Back

Alfred Morris is the team's starting running back and rushed 14 times for 16 yards. Again, not exactly Emmitt Smith. Damian Fortner played last Saturday and averaged 1.9 per carry. Without watching the game I'm wondering if Florida keyed to stop the run and make the new kid throw a lot.

Wide Receiver/Tight End

Remember the dudes that popped off for 174 of FAU's 215 receiving yards last year. Lester Jean and their TE Housler, they're both gone and pretty much so is everyone else. Honestly they might have Reggie Wayne and Calvin Johnson at Wide Receiver, you still have to have someone to get the ball to them. It does seem like FAU likes to throw to their TEs a lot so hopefully our linebackers will get some practice in pass coverage.

Offensive Line

Their OL averages like 280 lbs and that's less than 3/4ths of our Defensive Line. You cannot play power football against our defense with an offensive line weighing 280 lbs. It just doesn't work. They do have 3 seniors on the line and two juniors, but it seems like the skill position talent isn't there. Even if they have the ability, you can't block for people who can't make the needed moves.



Cause it's getting a bit dry right now

Defensive Line

Well as stated before FAU runs a 3-4. One of their three goes 245 lbs, which is about 50 lbs lighter than you'd like to see a DE in a 3-4. Their nose tackle Jarvis Givens figures to be the strength of this DL. The defense surrendered 197 yards rushing to Florida last week. A three man front should work out nicely for our OL still trying to find it's feet at the Tackle positions.

Linebacker

The LB corps is lead by Yourhighness Morgan. Really. That's his name. Those recruitniks reading might remember he picked FAU over MSU. So despite that amazing name, he has shown himself to choose poorly. Perhaps he is not a fan of winning, in which case he has picked the correct school. Of the four linebackers there are no seniors, two juniors and two sophmores. The decision to go to a 3-4 was so that the linebackers could spend more time in pass coverage, if we're testing the TEs against these guys I'd expect to see us have to work at it a bit. Toney Moore one of their ILBs had a pick last week in garbage time.

Secondary

They're short and light. 5'10 and 170 is the average across the secondary. Nichol and Cunningham outweigh their average secondary player by 50 lbs. If we decide to run the football on these guys it should be a cakewalk. They did get two picks last week against starting QB Brantley though, so we shouldn't write these guys off in the passing game. Still it shouldn't be enough to really make us sweat this one.

Overall Assessment: This team looks like it's built to stop a spread and a Sun Belt Spread at that. While it's a terrific accomplishment to have built this program from scratch, I think it might be better for our Floridian Feathered Friends that Mr. Brimley hand this program off after this year. This team appears to be terrible on offense and keyed on defense to be worst at the thing we do best. Couple that with an improved effort by our team and I expect to see this game be the whuppin' we thought YSU would be. We'll dig into that tomorrow more in 5 Key Things.

Remember to eat your damn oatmeal.

This Isn't Football It's a GD Arms Race

While in college and briefly after, I worked at a Domino's Pizza as a driver/assistant manager. It amuses me to no end these days that I was VERY marginally under Dave Brandon's employ for about 2 years of my life. At any rate, the local shop was owned by a guy we used to call Teammates. He earned this name because he would constantly say things like "Who's got that phone, team?!?" or "Alright Teammates, let's sell some breadsticks!". He was a huge Notre Dame fan and stuck to his guns about how Notre Dame was a wild horse that would never be tamed into joining the Big Ten. Still, ever the small businessman, he'd never let something like independence stand in the way of making a buck. The following is how I suspect a conversation between me and him about conference realignment would work.

Me: So did you hear that Texas A&M is set to join the SEC?

Teammates: No, but that is excellent work, teammate! With the SEC at 13 teams they will jump to at least 14 teams and maybe even 16!

Me: So how would you feel about a Big Ten with Notre Dame in it?

Teammates: Oh, that would be TERRIBLE and it will never happen, Charlie Weis wouldn't allow it.

Me: *raises eyebrow* I don't think Charlie Weis gets to make that... nevermind. Well see the thing is that if Notre Dame doesn't join now they do run the risk of being frozen out for good this time. They aren't exactly mowing down the top 10 teams of the country and having their fifth string center make the All-American team anymore. If the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-10 and ACC go to 16 teams and the Dame gets frozen out it could get even harder for ND to make a BCS game.

Teammates: Why did Texas A&M leave the Big 12? Wouldn't it have been easier if they had just stayed in the Big 12?

Me: Well, ESPN in a move that isn't even sort of a conflict of interest paid Texas 300 million dollars over 15 years to start the Longwhorn network. But that functionally kills any interest in a Big 12 network(Editors Note: Was there any to begin with?) So A&M decided to head where the money was better and no one takes their footb...

Teammates: WHO'S GOT THAT PHONE TEAM!

Me: No one takes their football more seriously than the SEC is what I was going to say.

Teammates: So A&M went after more money for their family! That's a great thing! Upsell those breadsticks! Nothing but profit!

Me: The last re-alignment was this spring with Nebraska joining the Big 10 and Colorado and Utah to the Pac-10. The Colorado thing made sense since I always thought they were in the Pac 10 anyway, Utah was a reach IMO. Nebraska was a good compromise for the Big 10, it's not going full-bore to 16 teams and added a quality opponent in football and every sport but basketball. Ownership of a basketball is illegal and punishable by death in Nebraska.

Teammates: Do NOT give anyone the Wednesday Special! Give them the F6 Special, that's full price for everything, tell them you're giving them the F6 Special and they will think they're getting a deal!!!!! hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Me: For Big Ten expansion to make sense as a fan, they absolutely have to bring in Notre Dame. ND already plays 3 Big Ten teams this year and typically plays 3-4 Big Ten teams. You guys should get in now, the one undeniably good thing about 4 16 team super conferences is that those teams will play a minimum of 9 conference games, I could even see it getting bumped to 10. No one is going to want to play an independent ND when/if it means losing a valuable tune-up game.

Teammates: But they have a TV contract! That would mean the loss of many millions of dollars. Where's the incentive? Where's the profit?

Me: The Notre Dame TV contract for football is worth about 9 million dollars a year. The TV share for being a Big Ten school is approximately 22 million a year. The obvious exclusion being that if ND makes a BCS game they get to keep all 17 million bucks instead of splitting it amongst the conference members. That's happened 3 times since the BCS started in 98-99. That works out to 51 million over 13 seasons or 3.9 mill a year. If football is averaging bringing in 12.9 Mill a year I don't think that ND basketball and other various sports are bringing in 9 million bucks a year, so we can offer you more money!

Teammates: MOAR MONEY! I LOVE MOAR MONEY! MONEY MAKES MY HEART SING IN A WAY THAT ONLY PROZAC AND BLOW CAN! What else are you asking for?

Me: Well obviously you'd have to join the Big Ten and we're gonna have to invite some other teams, one more at least, probably three so we have two divisions of eight. Missouri is a likely candidate, they tried to get into the Big Ten a few months ago during conference re-alignment, we might ask Oklahoma, but they aren't a part of the American Association of Universities. Nebraska was but couldn't hold it's corn liquor. Rutgers and Pitt are two other schools that fit the bill academically and are decent enough football schools, although Greg Schiano, how do you feel now about deciding to be the lifetime HC of Rutgers after that 11-1 season?

Teammates:That's a lot more schools and a lot more competition! What if people find out Notre Dame isn't an independent superpower anymore?!?!?!? What if Notre Dame says no this time? Also, having a cell phone will allow you to take as many as one more delivery runs per hour!

Me: This is 2011, who doesn't have a cell phone? Also, if ND says no this time and the move is definitely to 16 team super conferences then they are a bunch of ignorant dicks and deserve to get left out in the cold. Finally, if the Big Ten fails to land ND or another Big Fish, I think the Big Ten should really just stay at 12 teams even if it means being the only "Big Boy" with 12 teams. A four team addition of Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and Missouri just doesn't sound that appealing to me. In any given year two of those four schools might not win the MAC. No ND == Big Ten Expansion Fail.

Teammates: How dare you call Charlie Weis an ignorant dick?!?!?

Me: He..uh..

Teammates:Who's got that phone team?!?!??!

Me: I'll get that phone teammates!

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

Last year after pitching a perfect game against Wisconsin and a damn fine game against Michigan in the absence of Mark Dantonio, Don Treadwell was offered and accepted a position at the University of Miami(Not Lil' Luke Incorporated). Dantonio continued his family approach and bumped Roushar up to Offensive Coordinator. This isn't Roushar's first rodeo in the OC role, nor his second or third, in fact it's his fifth turn in the role.

The History:

2004 - Illinois
1998-2002 - Northern Illinois
1994 - Ball State
1989-1992 - Butler

Luckily, the power of the internets reaches securely back to 2004. Let's take a look at that 2004 Illinois Offense and see how they did.

Scoring Offense 9th of 11.
Passing Offense 7th of 11.
Rushing Offense 6th of 11.
Total Offense 6th of 11.

Percentage of Plays Passing: 46.6%
Percentage of Plays Rushing: 53.4%


2010 MSU Percentages

Percentage of Plays Passing: 45.7%
Percentage of Plays Rushing: 54.3%

Our hero Kirk Cousins said it best:

"I’m not sure me or anybody else on our offense will be able to tell a big difference," Cousins said. "The system, the philosophy, really comes from (head) coach (Mark) Dantonio, and while there are some subtle changes, a few different formations and plays, we’re still going to try and run the ball first and be able to throw when we want -- or have to throw."

If you wanted to be completely overwrought about the whole thing, you could say the subtle change is that out of 800 plays we'll end up throwing the ball one more time per game if we used Roushar's 2004 percentages.

Outside of run/pass percentage balance an article from Joe Rexrode of the Lansing State Journal indicates the difference might not be in the plays but the sequencing:

"I think what you try and do is get a high completion percentage," said Roushar, who previously served as offensive coordinator at Illinois, Butler, Ball State and Northern Illinois. "You know, move the football on early downs and keep the chains short. You get into third-and-2s, third-and-3s, very manageable, stay out of the third-and-longs. So we're putting a high premium on completions on early downs when we do throw it, whether it be play-action or three-step (drops) or whatever we're doing. And then at the same time, trying to find those places we can take shots down the field."

Honestly, the offense's play on Friday night would seem to support this. We looked to establish the run, kill them in playaction and run the occasional 5 WR set just to keep people off-balance. I liked in 2007 and 2008 that we ran lots of end arounds and I'm hoping that after the Keshawn Martin end-around on Friday that we see lots of that this year.

While I'm sure you wouldn't find an OC alive who says that his focus is to get us into 2nd and 7, it's interesting to hear him put a premium on getting us into 3rd and 2 by using more passing on first down. Is the new boss the same as the old boss? It's certainly too early to tell empirically. I think a more apt comparison is Coke and Pepsi, they are essentially the same thing, but with just tiny little differences. I think we'll see as the season progresses.

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.

5 Key Things: Youngstown State Revisited

"Youngstown State. This damned well better be a case of MSU SMASH." It wasn't. Point of fact, analogies of old people fighting for a glass of ovaltine with their canes and walkers came to mind. Analogies of going to the dentist so you have healthy teeth for the next six months come to mind. It was pretty much as unsatisfying as a win of the 28-6 variety comes to be. Our offense was somewhere between ineffective and brilliant. Our defense. I'll get to that.

1.) Offensive Line Smash: McGaha looked completely overwhelmed at LT. The rule of thumb applies, if you can't beat YSU at LT, you will not beat OSU. He was yanked in favor of Dan France during the game and I suspect that arrangement will be permanent. France looked raw and had his own issues, but I think given that he is a RS-Soph I'd rather have him in at LT even if McGaha is like 6 percent better. McGaha is a five year program guy and the only offensive tackle recruit from the class of either 2007 or 2008 who's contributed at OT.

2.) Defensive Line Smash: Zero sacks. This is a dink and dunk team, the kind that generates a lot of yardage on us. Counting in the stands I usually didn't get past two seconds when the QB dropped back to pass before he let go. Still zero sacks. This is a difficult thing to decide whether to be disappointed about, we weren't really blitzing and when we were, there was no zone blitz, we weren't flooding a single gap. Still I was really hoping the DL wouldn't need help to generate significant pressure on Youngstown State.

3.) Does Nick Hill Fit the Bill? 2 carries for 7 yards. Both in the last couple of minutes of the game. He might well be as good as advertised, but I don't think good enough to see carries in front of Baker, Bell and Caper.

4.) How badly are we going to miss Greg Jones and Eric Gordon? Max Bullough tied Greg Jones career high for tackles in a game. Allow me to repeat, in his first collegiate start at Mike, Max Bullough matched Greg Jones career high for tackles in a game. This is simply put, better than anyone could have hoped for. It seemed like there was a lot of late and obvious communication about what play the defense should be running. I don't know if this falls to Bullough or not, but it would be good to see those calls made moments sooner so the D has time to read the plays. Jitters would be a fair assessment.

We're going to miss Eric Gordon this year. I didn't see anyone who obviously stepped up in his place. The season and the linebackers are young, let's see what happens.

5.) Can we run for 300 yards? Ouch. 159 yards is still not bad, but we threw a lot more than I was expecting.

Bonus Observations



Laces Out Dan

If that was anything other than a botched snap, I'll eat my hat. Conroy was drilling them pre-game from 50 yards out.

I like everyone else with a pair of eyes, felt like the defense played some sloppy football last night. Lots of guys were out of position. The tackling was sloppy. The tackling was frankly appalling at times. Still. They gave up six points and I am the biggest believer that is the only defensive stat that matters. More importantly, I thought they didn't open their playbook at all. Each blitz was straightforward, it was the linebacker coming through their obvious gap. It seemed like there was little or no stunting, the goal of the game was keep the plays in front of you and don't let up yardage and don't open the playbook. Mission accomplished. Still, tons of room for improvement here.

Secondly, I was really hoping that we'd be finished with the Kirk Cousins flailing against good coverage. He played a bulletproof 18 of 22 for 240 and a TD, but it concerns me that with good coverage he still cannot throw the damn ball away. Maybe this is a coaching thing, I have no idea.

I'm looking forward to a more even-keeled effort on both sides of the ball next week against FAU. If not, then we can all start to worry a bit.

Update #1: The Sunshine Piece

In re-reading the article this morning I realized I forgot to include some of the things I was really happy about.

If you haven't heard about it yet, Arthur Ray got the start at Left Guard on Friday night. This was purely ceremonial as I think the cancer has ravaged his leg beyond the durability needed for a Big Ten Season at LG. There's a lot of heartwarming going around here, to Joel Foreman for letting him start, to Coach D for not flipping his scholarship to Medical DQ a long time ago, but most importantly to Arthur Ray. I don't think this could have happened to someone more determined to make good on his scholarship. If he can get a medical redshirt and a sixth year of eligibility, I wouldn't count him out of playing next year. Not because the depth chart favors him, but because I won't bet against a kid who's been through that. The young man has a bright future in front of him.

B.J. Cunningham. I was talking with a friend on Friday morning who has Cunningham in a College Fantasy Football league. He said he started Cunningham on Friday night. I laughed condescendingly because I was thinking you silly bastard, they're going to run for 1400 yards on Friday night and throw twice. Not only did they throw plenty on Friday night, BJ Cunningham had half the catches. He looked like a man among boys.

Skyler Burkland. I think we may have a four year starter at RT folks. He looks like the real deal. We just have to keep him healthy now. We've been absolutely ravaged at OT during the Dantonio tenure.

Blake Treadwell. If Treadwell is the back-up, I cringe to see what Travis Jackson will be. Treadwell plays hard and runs angry. I like the cut of his jib.

3 Stars: Arthur Ray, B.J. Cunningham, Max Bullough

Youngstown State: 5 Key Things

Here at A Beautiful Day For Football we're still finding our feet a bit. This is a series I'd like to do on the Friday before a game.

Youngstown State. This damned well better be a case of MSU SMASH. I'd drop an App State highlight here, but you know until a lifetime of games have been played where MSU doesn't lose to it's 1-AA teams, let's keep the hubris to a dull roar. Still, some value can be gleaned from watching us SMASH.

1.) Offensive Line Smash: We return Joel Foreman and Chris McDonald at the Left and Right Guard positions. We are starting new blood at LT, C and RT. So there are two obvious questions. How's our running between the tackles? I think keeping your guards should help with this a bunch, but we shall see. Then the real and more serious question, how will Jared McGaha protect Kirk Cousins blindside? If he can't save Cousins from the Penguins how will he do against Nebraska?

2.) Defensive Line Smash: Narduzzi has said that a lot of the pass struggles in 2009 could be directly tied to the DLs inability to get pass rush with the front four. Much about our DL has been praised and promoted. I think that praise is just and this line is for real. Still if you take our Gholston, Rush, Worthy, White line and compare it to the Lions VandenBosch, Suh, Williams and Avril. The Leos average D-lineman goes 290. The average Spartan D-Lineman 289. Our defensive line has NFL size. But how does the speed carry over? If the speed is even sort of there. Please look out Big Ten.

3.) Does Nick Hill Fit the Bill? A lot of positive scuttle has come out of fall camp about Nick Hill. With YSU in particular this should be a great place to see Nick Hill get a lot of carries. I'd really like to see a strong effort from him today. And I think we will.

4.) How badly are we going to miss Greg Jones and Eric Gordon? Tonight, probably not a lot. I like many others think that Max Bullough has a chance to be BETTER than Greg Jones when he leaves MSU. For now I would settle for 80 percent as good. Tonight will tell how close we are. It sounds like we'll be platooning linebackers all night and seeing who does best.

5.) Can we run for 300 yards? We damn sure oughtta and I think we will.

Final Score MSU 45 YSU 10.

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.