“You know, sometimes you get your little brother excited when you’re playing basketball and stuff, let him get the lead, and then you just come back and take it back.” -Mike Hart
Yeah Mikey, I know what you mean.
If there was one game, one team to beat to get the season back on track, this was that game, this was that team. The stage couldn’t have been set any better. Michigan State was the favorite before the season, and strangely (almost prophetically) was the favorite going into the game, despite having lost three straight games (certainly to the chagrin of all those Wolvies out there).
Michigan fans, originally expecting to be the team with the worse record going into this game, seized their opportunity. They yapped about a rivalry game that isn’t a rivalry game (hey, there’s no other reason to play for a trophy as ugly as the Paul Bunyon trophy unless it’s a rivalry game). They yapped about their explosive offense. About their outside shot at a Big Ten title (ha, yeah right. Penn State? Ohio State, Iowa? Have you heard of them?). About getting all swept up in Star Wars references and some guy who doesn’t wear shoelaces. Or tie them, or something.
They were a top 25 team. They were back! I mean sure, a winless Eastern Michigan team competed with them for the first half, and sure, Indiana threw up 33 points against Michigan. But dude, they were back!!! Certainly the lowly Spartys couldn’t keep up with them, right? Right?
Puh-lease. Those who were paying attention knew the defense was a sieve. The schedule thus far was weak. The Wolverines were waiting to get exposed.
It didn’t take long to see how this game was going to go. After an early interception that merely lead to a Michigan field goal, MSU went on a drive that lasted over ten minutes, went for 17 plays, saw 50 penalty yards, and in the end, resulted in a touchdown. The Michigan defense had a complete inability to get off the field. On a 2nd-and-15, 2nd-and-16, 2nd-and-25, the Michigan defense couldn’t stop MSU.
The Spartans dominated this game. They held the best rushing offense in the conference to 28 yards. They controlled the ball for nearly 40 minutes of the game. The Wolverines will congratulate themselves for coming up short (indeed, they already have). They’ll talk about how they played 5 minutes of good football, and scored 14 points and Forcied overtime and would have won if Tater-tot was 100% healthy even though in the end they lost. Remember that. They were dominated for 55 minutes and they lost.
Larry Caper walks off the field at Spartan Stadium after an overtime touchdown to defeat Michigan, 26-20. (Photo: Detroit Free Press)
Offense
Michigan State finally got the rushing game going. Granted, it wasn’t great. But it was significantly better than it has been. Certainly getting the healthy offensive line, including the return of Joels Foreman and Nitchman, was a huge help. Glenn Winston, who showed an ability to hit the holes against Wisconsin, took the majority of the carries against the Wolverines and ended up with 47 yards and a TD. Kirk Cousins, however, was the team’s leading rusher (yes, Kirk Cousins) with 75 net rushing yards. Larry Caper ended up with 39 yards on 13 carries (but 23 yards of his total mattered a little bit more than the rest).
Cousins was 15-21 throwing the ball, with two interceptions and just 152 yards passing. Still, there is a story here that isn’t captured by the stat line. Cousins continued to show tremendous heart, converted numerous critical plays on Saturday and even showed his ability to run the football. He has stayed in the pocket for the most part this season, hesitant to run with the ball. But against Michigan he recognized when he had space to run the football, and showed no fear in tucking it and going for the run. He damn near scored a touchdown but was stopped just short on the second drive of the game, and rattled off a 41-yard jaunt late in the fourth quarter on the drive that resulted in the unsuccessful 4th-and-3.
For all the talk about the problems of utilizing two quarterbacks (and I certainly was one to speak out against it), it actually seemed to work on Saturday. Kirk Cousins seemed to injure his ankle on the 7-yard run that nearly resulted in a touchdown in the first quarter. Through the game it continued to bother Cousins, and in the second half Keith Nichol saw significant playing time. Dantonio experimented with bringing him in during the middle of a series for the first time this season, and it seemed to work very well. In the same way that Michigan uses Denard Robinson to add a wrinkle to the offense, MSU was able to add Nichol into drives for an element to throw off the opposing defense. Nichol still saw drives that were all his own, and as Dantonio mentioned in the post-game, he provided some experience that we would have had he not played in the previous four games.
In the Sunday night press conference, Dantonio was asked for about the millionth time about the quarterback situation. This time, though, his answer was a bit different. When asked if, after 5 games as the starter, Kirk Cousins was “the guy,” Dantonio responded that Cousins is “our first-team guy right now.” Does it mean that Nichol won’t see playing time? Of course not. But Cousins is the starter. He’ll get most of the snaps. Nichol will come in when appropriate. Nichol talked to Cousins before the Michigan game:
“I went up to (Cousins) before the game and said, ‘This is going to take both of us, I don’t care who is in there,’ ” Nichol said.
“You do your thing and I’m going to do mine and we’re going to come out with a win.”
“I mean, we’re together. This competition is over, we’re a tandem, we’re a team.”
If it works like it did on Saturday, I’m fine with it.
It was a dark day for the Forcier.
Defense
Lots of credit to the defense who clearly stepped it up big time against Michigan. This was the defense we thought we were going to be getting when we went into this season. The defensive line did a great job getting pressure to Tater-tot, forcing him out of the pocket to make plays on the move. The defense sacked Forcier 3 times for 33 yards, and had 10 tackles for loss for 55 yards.
They shut down one of the most explosive offenses in the conference, although the inability to stop Michigan in the last five minutes is till concerning. We tackled significantly better than we have in any other game this season, wrapping up players instead of just throwing bodies into legs and hoping the opposing player goes down. But we cannot continue to allow teams to stay in the game, especially when we have out foot on their throats. It happened against Central Michigan, it happened (to a lesser extent) against Notre Dame, and it happened on Saturday against Michigan. We won the game, now we need to close the game out sooner.
Still More to Accomplish
Before I wrap things up, I want to make one point. And I realize that’s going to make some MSU fans angry, but this really has to change.
We need to stop acting as if beating Michigan is the standard of a successful college football season. It’s not. It’s hard to understand that right now, because we still have a long way to go. But hear me out.
Back in the early 90′s, before we were a legitimate basketball powerhouse, beating Michigan was a relatively big deal. They had a good team (despite the fact they were cheating), they were (seemingly) winning national championships, and MSU was not the dominant basketball team in the state. But we had big goals, and after winning a second national title, and going to five Final Fours and winning four Big Ten titles since 1999, beating Michigan is an after-thought. Frankly, when it comes to basketball, beating Michigan is pretty far down on the list of accomplishments Spartan fans care about during the season.
The football team has not had the success recently that the basketball team has had. But we still need to keep our goals in perspective. A victory over Michigan is nice, but a Big Ten title would be better. A BCS bowl would be better yet. If we accomplish our goals, if we win a Big Ten title and go to a BCS bowl, beating Michigan will be just another win on the schedule (albeit a somewhat sweeter victory).
So let’s stop giving Michigan so much credit. Let’s face it, they haven’t been the standard for success in college football for over a decade.
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