Because I’m such a glutton for punishment, I re-watched the
funeral
Michigan State football game between the Washington Huskies and our beloved Spartans.
It wasn’t fun, there weren’t a whole lot of silver linings and I know the old saying goes “I never lose, I either win or learn,” and if that’s the case, the team is getting a Ph.D. with the amount of stuff they can learn from after being helpless in literally all three phases of the game.
The Washington defense looked like the 2001 Baltimore Ravens without even trying thanks to our offensive line, quarterback, and offensive coordinator. Their offense made Patrick Mahomes look like Christian Ponder, and our special teams can’t count to 11. I understand that Washington is way more talented than the Spartans, but what happened with MSU wasn’t a lack of talent; it was a lack of focus, lack of intensity, and what seemed to be a distraction hanging over the heads of every single player, coach and waterboy.
What happened to this program isn’t fair, but I’ll be damned if that’s an excuse to play poorly for the rest of the season. Anyway, here’s three takes from re-watching the game.
1. Washington’s offense is that good and MSU’s pass defense is still bad
Tallying 713 total offensive yards doesn’t happen by accident — 536 passing yards isn’t because Washington is lucky.
Washington’s offense is elite, probably the best in the entire country. Michael Penix Jr. is a serious Heisman candidate and even had the numbers for it last year. They could have as many as four offensive players get drafted in the first two rounds in Penix, wide receivers Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan and offensive tackle Troy Fautanu.
Even when Spartan defenders had great coverage, the receiver talent gap is so great, that the 50/50 balls turn into 99/1 momentum killers. But the fact that Penix had more passing yards in three quarters than he did against Boise State and Tulsa brings up some serious questions about not just the talent on Michigan State, but the person coordinating it.
A lot of us said, “Hey, it can’t be worse than last year,” and we all got it wrong. So wrong. There were times where defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton had the perfect defense called, and the offense just made a spectacular play or the defender forgot how to tackle.
No wrapping up, leaving their feet instead of driving through the tackle; these are the foundations and fundamentals of tackling, and I just don’t get how they look this bad.
2. I can’t defend Jay Johnson anymore but his players did him no favors
Michigan State was never, is not now, and probably will never be an offensive juggernaut in the way the old Oregon teams were or teams like Florida State or Washington are like now, but for an offense to look like this in their fourth year is inexplicable.
The one play that sticks out happened early in the game. The Spartans were facing a third-and-3 when Brandon Baldwin committed a false start penalty (more on this later), turning the third-and-3 into a third-and-8. The play the offense executed was a 7-yard curl to Maliq Carr which would have been flawless if it was still third-and-3. Noah Kim had no pressure when he released the ball so either he’s getting trigger happy or he ran the play that was called that seemed to not change after the penalty took them back.
Neither of these options are not OK.
I swear, every drive has a play or sequence that just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not an offensive mastermind by any means, but a toss sweep to the short side of the field is some Dave Warner-type garbage and has never and will never work with speed of college players. At the very least, have some motion to the opposite side to get the linebackers to just think about the play going to the wide side.
Now, he did have some creative play calls to get Nathan Carter the ball, like a nice screen and right on cue, it was the execution the made the play fail. There’s no rhythm, little pre-snap motion to keep the defense on their toes, and slow starts caused by asking Kim to make tough throws outside or have Katin Houser roll out to the left as a right-handed quarterback on his first throw of the game.
The coordinators are not helping the players and the players are not helping the coordinators and it made for an embarrassing performance.
3. The Michigan State football program is teetering
By teetering, I mean that this season is headed in one of two directions. Will this team pull a 2016 and just lay down by any team with a pulse? Or will they pull a 2017 when they got blown out by Notre Dame under the lights at home (sound familiar) only to rally and finish the season 7-2 and end the season ranked in the top 25?
Sure, there was a glimmer of hope that the news around Mel Tucker would galvanize the players and there would be a Disney-esque ending, but the reality is that Washington is a team that is vying for a national championship and probably the best team they’ll see all year. With the slight exception of Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan (all have looked average at best through three games), there are no sure losses in the Big Ten schedule.
Maryland has faced no one and still had to dig out of 14-point deficits in each of their last two games. Iowa doesn’t look nearly as sharp early, and Minnesota and Nebraska are back to having offenses that match the 2019 Michigan State Spartans without the defense to bail them out.
All the noise should be out of the program now and it’s back to business as usual. All contingency plans are in place and all eyes are on Maryland at home where the homecoming crowd will be amped up and starved for a victory. Expect boos (and booze) to be heavy if this team starts out slow again.
While I expect the entire coaching staff to be gutted at years’ end, they need to show to a Group of Five school that they can get these players to focus and that they deserve to be on a coaching staff, just not at a top 20 revenue school.