OT- Gholston vs Georgia
Last night BTN was replaying the Georgia - MSU Outback bowl from last year. I had not seen the game, and admitedly, did not watch the whole game last night. However, as I've read MGoBlog for the last few years, I began to watch the game differently, and began to focus on the play of one player, as I've done multiple times in Brian's great Michigan breakdown and grading of Michigan players.
Last night I focused on Gholston, as I had heard that he had an outstanding game, and as a top defenseman we will be going against next year, it seemed relevent. Anyway, here are my observations;
- Georgia seemed to run away from Gholston a lot, either up the middle or towards the opposite sideline
- Ghoslton appears to be a high risk high reward type of guy (ala Jake Ryan in the early part of the 2011)using speed to explode up field, but often losing edge contain for cutbacks
- Non of this may matter as Ace and Brian pointed out that Gholston was kept in check by our next great OT in Lewan
- Non Gholston tidbit, I think Michigan will do much better against the interior. Jerel Wrthy is unstopable when he jumped the snap, and he did that a lot against us last year
Anyway, since it is the offseason, and it appears the BTN will show a lot of footbal now that baseball is over, I was wondering if anyone else now watches games like this after reading MGoBlog for a while. Also, anyone who wants to correct my assessment feel free.
Jerel Worthy was unstoppable on the D Line. Even though State fans claim that Rashad White will be ok, it will be a hge loss on the defensive line.
I agree, but we also suffered a tremendous loss on our interior oline.
I didn't realize Lewan dominated him that badly. Tommy didn't get anything to work with haha
Just further proof that the whole "racist name-baiting" story was stupid. Lewan was owning him, so Tom got angry and played dirty
Exact same though running through my mind. Gholston seemed to give up on half of the snaps because he knew Lewan was just going to stand him up. Easy to see Gholston being the one to play dirty first.
Totally agree that the name-baiting story is garbage but it's harder to argue that there were a lot of holds. THAT is probably what made him boil over imo.
"You guys" ? "us" ??
Hey, I agree that holding happens on the line during every game regardless of teams. I never disputed that I just said that Gholston lost his cool.
Yes. Because....you know, you are a Michigan State fan
blah blah, you're not the first to claim this and post absolutely zero to back it up. Wanna know why you have nothing? It's not true.
No wonder dude was pissed!
Interesting vid. Taylor makes him look like a skinny twig with no power.
I remember thinking that up the middle pressure was going to be the issue before the game was played, and then I was forced to watch that unfold as I wondered if I were in hell.
"our next great OT in Lewan" should read "our previously-proven great OT in Lewan"
This year should be a whole lot different. With the emergence of Fitz it should take some pressure off of Denard and the passing game. As always if he can minimize turnovers this game should lean in our favor. No doubt State has a great D coming back, but Worthy is a bigger loss than they think and Gholston isn't the mythical god that they proclaim him to be. He got the best of Lewan in the video that someone posted maybe one time and the play was ran to the other side of the field. We shut down Bell for the most part last year IIRC and it always seemed to me at least IMO that Baker was the one who was giving us problems. This year will be interesting and if we win the denial in EL will be tremendous. I love how the 4-0 stuff gets thrown in our face, but they quickly forget that before they were "4-0", Michigan won the previous six.
/End rant
He was dominant at times, looked very good. Maybe the O-Lineman he was going against were terrible. Also, they A-gap blitzed all game and even the Sparty OL couldn't pick it up. Am very confused by this.
I also watched the Wiscy spring game, and observed that their linebackers are stiff, causasian, and tough as hell. Though overall I think they take a big step back this year.
As far as Wisky LBs, I don't think that is a change from what we saw last year. State was able to absolutely kill them with Martin coming out of the slot being matched up against either of their LBs and then Oregon did them even worse. I also agree they'll take a huge step back because Russell Wilson was really, really, good and took that offense from very good to probably top 5 in the country.
If Toussaint can get himself involved catching passes out of the backfield, he could be an absolute dagger 2-3 times per game. Then opposing teams see that on film and have to worry about him, and the LB's start watching and hanging tight (or the CB's stay lower in the flats). This helps open up curls and post routes.
This would seem to help the passing game that doesn't have proven TE's. All of this much easier said than done.
Didn't someone say that MSU drafts their spring teams? If that was the case then I wouldn't assume they had their typical O line out there. A bunch of guys who don't usually work together would cause confusion for any O unit.
My favorite play was at 0:45 - Lewan stands him up, stays with the block, gets head-slapped and his helmet flies away. (edit - w/r/t the video posted above).
probably a second team all-conference player. However, I'm not seeing the top 10 pick people(a lot of which are michigan fans) are refering to. He looks very, very stout in the run game, and he's hard to move.
But I'm not seeing the explosion in the pass rush though. And that's a requirement to be such a high pick. Reminds me a lot of Nick Perry. Where you're just searching for that explosion and not finding it anywhere. A lot of their sacks come from high motor plays (which is fine but it also doesn't make you a top ten pick). And if you watch the Taylor vs. Gholston tape, you are seeing where that lack of explosion against an nfl-cabiler left tackle is so tough to overcome.
While your analysis is probably right, keep in mind that last year was Gholston's first year starting as a DE. Many reports out of camp from the coaches were commenting that his technique has been greatly improved.
Worthy garnered double teams last year which freed up Gholston for more one on one coverage. I believe this year Gholston will be attracting the double teams, which will free up Marcus Rush (the other starting DE) or any of the LBs on the A-gap blitzes. Overall, I see Gholston's technique and fundamentals as a DE improving but his numbers probably going down because of the extra attention he will receive.
Still a little worried about the interior of the line as that was somewhat of a weak spot (in terms of depth) last year and with the departure of Worthy and the transfer of Ramando, depth further takes a hit.
My $0.02
Careful, apparently it is flamebait to speculate why something was subpar for MSU.
No, but it sure IS flamebait to complain about it. Also, it's off-topic
I think Gholston is just some kind of competative hothead, not an evil malicious piece of garbage. We've all done really stupid things before while we were angry. He played that game angry.
Jerel Worthy may have been unstoppable on the D-Line, and whoever is replacing him may not be as good as he was, but at the end of the day, it is not a stretch to say that MSU's defensive unit next year, as a whole, will be better than it was last year.
It might be a bit of a tradeoff. Fitz might have more running room up the middle without Worthy plugging up the hole, but MSU's back 4 will be better, making passing situations that much more difficult.
I wouldn't necessarily say he sucks. Sure he was at his best when he could jump the snap but he was still a pretty good football player when he got a normal start.