After the Chaos – The Irish Retake the Dome

Well, congratulations to Notre Dame for snapping a six game home losing streak to the Spartans. But don’t you think there are at least a handful of Irish fans who, after the excitement of the victory wore off, realized that this means they also get to keep Charlie Weis. Which, you know, I’m sure a lot of Notre Dame fans would really rather not have Charlie Weis around for another couple of very average seasons.

This post-game is a really tough one to write. And it’s not because of the disappointment, but because we learned a lot about the Michigan State football team and coaching staff in that game, and I think most of what we learned is pretty positive. Of course, not everything was positive, I still think the defensive backs need to play tighter and the defense as a whole needs to execute tackles better. But there were a lot of positives.

First off, I think a lot of people looked at the Central Michigan loss and just said “they’re a MAC school, and if you’re in the Big Ten you should beat every MAC school all the time.” But I think Central Michigan is a very good football team, and we probably won’t realize how good they are until they go bowling or until the end of the season when we look at their final record, because they just don’t play many more really tough teams that we will be able to look at and say “yeah, CMU is really good.” But losing to CMU wasn’t even close to losing to, well let’s just say losing to Toledo where Toledo ends up going 3-9 at the end of the season.

The point is, a lot of people who don’t realize how good Central Michigan really is, looked at that game and said wow, Michigan State really isn’t who we thought they were. So they look at the Notre Dame game and they call it a must-win, and if you lose then the season is over.

Well guess what, Michigan State lost. The Spartans went up against a quarterback who threw for 300 yards and completed 71% of his throws, and we had a chance to win or take the game into overtime with a minute left to go in the game but Cousins threw a bad pick and we lost. So if you look at that and say “well, that’s it, season’s over” then you probably are not looking very closely at the game.

If I am Wisconsin right now, I doubt that I’m thinking that the Spartans are going to be a pushover. I’m probably not saying “man, I thought those Spartans were good, but now they just look like a soft team that will be an easy win on Saturday.”

The fact of the matter is that a lot of people questioned whether or not the coaching staff would be able to get this team ready to face a talented Notre Dame team. They assumed that Michigan State was going to go into full meltdown mode. Instead, Michigan State competed for the entire game, even after a very shaky start. Yes, there were mistakes. Yes, you can question the play calling at the end of the game. But if you are an opposing team that has to face the Spartans in the near future, you’re probably not viewing it as an easy game, and that speaks volumes to me.

More Than the Interception

Kirk Cousins’ final throw of the game, an interception into the hands of Irish linebacker Kyle McCarthy with :57 to go in the game, is one of those plays that Spartan fans won’t forget. What likely will be forgotten, though, are two plays that are equally responsible for the outcome of the game (and no, I’m not talking about the missed throw from Cousins to Caper on the play previous to the interception that would have put the Spartans ahead 37-33 with under a minute to go).

The first play is the blocked extra point after MSU scored a touchdown in the third quarter to bring the game to 23-26. Michigan State didn’t have a blocked extra point all season last year. But if that extra point doesn’t get blocked, then after Cousins completes a 16 yard pass to B.J. Cunningham on that last drive, we are running the football a couple of times and lining up to kick the game winning field goal. But instead we were down by three, compelled to take a couple of shots to the end zone before lining up to try a game tying field goal.

The second play that’s likely to be forgotten is the incomplete pass thrown by Clausen intended for Tate. I’m having trouble finding the exact point in the fourth quarter but I think it’s about 9 minutes left in the game, when Clausen heaves up a long pass intended for Golden Tate. It’s clearly a miscommunication, as Tate hooks back on what he apparently thought was a curl, while Clausen throws downfield on what he thought was a deep route. The result is a backpedaling Chris L. Rucker, with no one around him and an descending football that’s more like a punt falling from the sky. But Rucker fails to intercept the ball. If he executes and catches the ball, MSU has the opportunity to go down and score a touchdown to go up 37-26, or kick a field goal to bring the game to 33-26 to lead by a touchdown.

Offense

On the laundry list of reasons why Coach Dantonio needs to pick a starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins’ pick at the end of the Notre Dame game is numero uno why there needs to be a starter named by the coaching staff (and that’s not saying the staff should go with Keith Nichol). Cousins has earned the job. If he had been named the starter before the Notre Dame game, then even after throwing the pick, at least you can say “he’s our guy and we’re sticking with him.” But because we haven’t named a starter, both Nichol and Cousins have to endure the questions and uncertainty of whether or not that moment will change the outcome of this quarterback competition when, in all fairness, this competition should have been over two games ago.

For 59 minutes yesterday, Kirk Cousins played one heckuva good game. He was 23-35 for 302 yards, completed 65% of his passes and threw a for a touchdown. And one very ill-timed interception, his first of the season. The Only Colors notes Cousins career stats (although I’m pretty sure Cousins had an INT last year as well):

80-113 for 959 yards

70.8% completion%

8.5 yards/attempt

7 touchdown passes

. . . and one interception.

I’m not sure what else this young man needs to do to be named the starter. Perform open heart surgery in a crowded opera house with a ballpoint pen?

Nichol, meanwhile, was 2-4 for 21 yards and a well-orchestrated touchdown drive.

The running game seems to have settled in to what it’s going to be. That is, not much of anything. The offensive line did a somewhat better job of opening holes for the running backs, but still not on anything you would call a consistent basis. Larry Caper lead the running backs with 51 yards on 12 carries for 4.2 YPC. Caulton Ray and Glenn Winston added 23 and 14 yards, respectively. In total, Michigan State ran for just 105 yards on 25 rushing plays.

Meanwhile, Mark Dell was a welcome addition to the team this week. After being out against Central Michigan due to an injury, Dell went off for six receptions and 121 yards. Blair White had two receiving TDs and 75 yards. B.J. Cunningham had seven receptions for 74 yards. Dropped balls were an issue to start the game, but improved through the game.

Defense

The bad news is that the defense still showed an inability to execute tackles on Saturday. There were just too many instances of defensive players trying to go for the big hit or just trying to get a body into the legs of the opposing player and not wrapping them up.

The good news? Although it’s not reflected in the stats, it appears as though Michigan State was able to get more pressure from the defensive line that they were able to get against Central Michigan. The pressure stats from Saturday

• 3 pass breakups
• 1 QB hurry
• 2 sacks
• 4 tackles for loss

But those numbers don’t seem to reflect the way that the defensive line was able to get the pocket to collapse and force Clausen to throw sooner than he wanted to.

Defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi came down from the coaches box to field level for the fourth quarter to try to instill some passion into the defense. Who’s to say if it worked or not, I just know that I didn’t really notice a marked difference in the defensive play, but maybe it made a difference to the players.

Looking Forward

A new season starts against Wisconsin. Would we have liked to have won against Central Michigan? Yes. Would we like to have pulled out the victory against Notre Dame? Absolutely. But those games are behind us now. We likely would not have gone to a BCS game unless we won the Big Ten and beat Penn State. So I ask myself, what do we lose by dropping two games in the non-conference?

Maybe not as much as we think. I think we still have a shot at winning seven Big Ten games and going to a New Year’s Day bowl game. Remember Iowa was 3-3 after six games last season and had dropped three straight games. Things were looking bleak in Iowa City, and coach Ferentz was on the hot seat. They would lose just one more game the rest of the season, and played on New Year’s Day.

This is still a good team. As Coach Dantonio has said before, “it’s not over. It will never be over here.”

Update: I erroneously said that Keyshawn Martin missed the interception from Clausen to Golden Tate.  Which makes total sense, because why the hell would a wide receiver be back to pick off a pass on defense?  It was actually Chris L. Rucker that missed the interception.

Related posts:

1. After the Chaos – The Central Michigan Fiasco
2. After the Chaos – Montana State