MSU O-Line Woes Continue

Submitted by Brhino on

http://detnews.com/article/20110919/SPORTS0202/109190390/MSU--OT-Skyler-Burkland-will-miss-rest-of-season

Michigan State Red-shirt freshman Offensive Tackle Skyler Burkland is out for the season after getting his leg rolled up on and broken in the game against ND.  If you watched the game you'll probably remember cringing in sympathetic pain when they showed the replay.

Let's all take a moment to reaffirm that we are basically good people at heart and we wouldn't wish that kind of injury to happen to anyone, friend or foe.

Done?  Good.  Now let's look at the damage:

Burkland... was replaced by junior-college transfer Fou Fonoti. Fonoti is likely to be the full-time replacement for Burkland, even after he had been pushing Dan France for playing time at left tackle. To help the team's depth issues, Dantonio said defensive tackle Micajah Reynolds will be moved back to offense. Reynolds has been moved back and forth between offense and defense throughout his career, and saw plenty of action on defense against Florida Atlantic.

Ifyou're keeping score at home, that's about three notches on the "Position Switch(es) Indicating Approaching Doom" scale in that paragraph alone.  It's starting to look the MSU game will look like the Western game on steroids - on any given play Cousins will probably either end up throwing a laser to a frustratingly-open reciever, or getting murderized by a Michigan lineman or blitzer.

WolvinLA2

September 19th, 2011 at 5:06 PM ^

Another big problem for them here is their lack of depth on the DL. Outside of Worthy, they're thin on the DL, and now they're moving a guy out of that group. Next year their DTs will look pretty bad, unless that guy moves back again.

m1jjb00

September 19th, 2011 at 8:02 PM ^

I cannot agree with the assessment of the d line. Worthy might be the only all big ten player but msu goes two deep with credible guys depending on what you think of rush and drone at rush end. You have gholston and Hoover at strong end, rashad-white and pickelman at nose and stray horn backing up worthy. It's a solid rotation With Burkland out and seeing France in action the o line might be the worst in the big ten

gopoohgo

September 19th, 2011 at 5:23 PM ^

I wonder if Cousins lives through October with that patchwork line.

Sparty gets John Simon and the bucknuts at the Horshoe October 1st.

Then they get us at home (all right, our D hasn't been setting the world on fire) October 8th.

Then they have the Badgers.

Did Magic Johnson sleep with Delaney's wife or something? Who schedules BigTen openers like that?

WolvinLA2

September 19th, 2011 at 5:34 PM ^

Yeah, OSU's is worse. Their first four big ten games are MSU, Nebraska, Illinois and Wisconsin. I'm not sure if that order is correct, but that's a rough way to start league play, especially with how bad they've looked. The cool part? If OSU loses all four of those, and they lose to PSU (not likely but possible) then us beating them would keep them from being bowl eligible. Man that would be sweet.

Old_Guys_Rule

September 19th, 2011 at 5:37 PM ^

Hooley, the ostracized Columbus radio show co-host (with Spielman) and now of FoxSportsOhio News tweets about Cousins and Ohio's possible perception of MSU:

BHOOLZ Bruce Hooley

Kirk Cousins: good speech-maker, very average QB

 

BHOOLZ Bruce Hooley

Luke Fickell has blocked NBC on Buckeye hotel TVs. Figures if they keep watching MSU vs ND, he'll have overconfidence issue for MSU game

WolverineHistorian

September 19th, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^

Small correction schedule wise.  Sparty has a bye week before playing us...again.  This is the fourth time in recent memory that they have a week off before our game with them.

Kind of pisses me off that they keep getting those schedule breaks.  We have never had a bye week before ND, MSU or OSU.