The Sponsor:

It’s Nick Hopwood, our MGoFinancial Planner from Peak Wealth Management. He's got a Podcast about it called Finding True Wealth. And he also recently put together an online tool you can use to plan your finances. And you probably heard me say that last week but thought "I'm focused on this rivalry game; my financial future can wait until the bye week." Well, it's the bye week.

Legal disclosure in itty bitty font: Calling Nick our official financial planner is not intended as financial advice; Nick is an advertiser who financially supports MGoBlog. MGoBlog is not responsible for any advice or other communication provided to an investor by any financial advisor, and makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of any particular financial advisor and/or investment for a specific investor.

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The Question:

Brian: Does anyone know how to make a twitter bot? Because a rutger twitter bot would really make this a thing.

David: Man, it must be the bye week.

Brian: We're making fetch happen david.

David: @brian I had to urban dictionary that.

BiSB: Fetch?

David: Yeah.

Brian: HAS NO ONE SEEN MEAN GIRLS

David: I tried to watch it 3 years ago and fell asleep

BiSB: /giphy She doesn't even go here

Smoothitron: Confession: one of my first big gifs was the Mean Girls with the M QBs but I haven't actually seen it either.

David: +1!

Smoothitron: Like with most cultural touchstones I just read the WP article. The list of things I have not seen would shock and horrify you.

Brian: ANYWAY since it's the bye week we have some time to contemplate deep philosophical questions like WHY HASN'T ANYONE SEEN MEAN GIRLS and this from the mathlete:

TWO: What happens next, where does the rivalry go from here now that Michigan is competent and capable?

I will cede the floor to folks who have not already made their desires to burn MSU to the ground and salt the earth plain.

------------------------------------------

The responses:

Smoothitron: It will continue entirely on Twitter, because as a lifelong Indiana resident I have only ever met 1 MSU fan in person. He was a middle school PE teacher and would loudly curse at us when he beat us at badminton.

Brian: Were you in middle school at the time?

Smoothitron: I was. 3rd place finisher in the badminton tourney. My claim to fame since I lost all the spelling bees.

David: I was wondering where all the bees went

Brian: I feel like you have gotten the authentic MSU fan experience through this one guy.

Smoothitron: He was also the D-Line coach at the high school so I have to figure.

He never coached me because I quit football after middle school to focus on the Academic team.

Seth: I unfortunately know many many many Spartans, and all were Michigan fans or neutral until they did not get into Michigan. As long as you do not trigger the Spartan vein they are all very nice people. Once you do, you get facial expressions from Lie to Me and find yourself in a very "oh crap we're talking politics" conversation.

Brian: This is somewhat orthogonal to the desired thrust of conversation.

Has Order Been Restored, folks?

[After THE JUMP: ?]

Seth: I don't know how far I want to take a total ass-whupping given the injury situation. They played their Michigan game against Penn State.

Brian: I don't think Felton Davis or David Beedle is moving the needle in this one.

neither can fix Jordan Reid's blocking

David: I feel like the ball is now with MSU (which is fine with me, given our defense). We've see what Michigan intends to be and how they intend to recruit and hire coaches. What is MSU's response?

Seth: The injuries probably played a role in not having a July drive. If you have to rep the basics to new starters and scrap large parts of your offense that you built around the old ones, you really don't have time to practice scripted formation dances and new plays.

David: We talked about the better S&P+ team tends to win this game, and M made personnel changes to become the higher ranked team.

Ace: Man, as soon as DPJ caught that touchdown, I wasn’t remotely worried about the outcome. That feels like a sea change. They needed a trick play to score from the four after a fumble.

David: YES, Exactly!!

Ace: Also they talked a spectacular amount of shit before, during, and after the game, and backed it all up.

Brian: So one thing that I think happened is that MSU had a remarkable run of talent identification. From 2012 to 2016, MSU had 19 draft picks. Three of those were first-rounders, and two were second-rounders.

This was a big uptick and came exactly when Dantonio's first non-transition class had run out of eligibility. The previous five years of MSU draft: 10 picks, no first rounders, two second-rounders. Now MSU appears to be back to the salt mines. The past two years they've had just three picks, and Malik McDowell was one of them. McDowell was a net negative for that program.

I don't think MSU has many draft prospects this year, either. Scott is a headcase whose career has gone backwards. Maybe Davis, maybe one guy in their back seven, maybe Willekes. They just don't have the talent level they used to.

Ace: Raequon, but that I needed to pull one more name kinda proves the point.

Seth: Cody White will be a draft pick and could have helped them in this game.

Ace: Can he extend the width of the field?

Brian: Yes, Williams is a talent. White... ehhhhh. Looks like a 6th rounder to me. I don't know if you can sustain the mid-Dantonio talent pipeline where you have two NFL corners and build your defense around that over the long term.

Ace: I like White, thought he was their most consistently impactful receiver, and agree that he’d go late in the NFL draft if at all. And nobody was catching those Lewerke throws.

Tacopants, maybe.

Brian: Especially once people cotton on to what you're doing. We've seen this with Beilein where suddenly people aren't letting you swoop in on GRIII scot free. RIP Luke Kennard and Devin Booker.

Ace: Other teams have been catching on to MSU strategically for a while, too. Baylor started this years ago.

***Congrats to Baylor and MSU ending up in the same thought and having it not be about a coverup.***

David: After the Belleville pair, MSU's 3rd highest rated 2019 recruit is number 414, nationally.

Brian: Yeah, that's the other thing: they were ahead of the curve with their quarters D under Narduzzi and then everyone copied it and then vertical spread teams downloaded it.

Ace: It doesn’t just appear to be “they lost Narduzzi,” either. He hasn’t exactly killed it with his Pitt defenses.

Seth: When Klatt was showing the QB right/left views I noted Davis was always bracketed and Lewerke had to go to Tacopants. But this isn't about the skill position players, it's about a left tackle like Conklin, and 2nd round safeties who can play a 9-man front AND cover deep, and the slow depreciation of Allens and Bulloughs, and NFL quarterbacks versus one with wobbly accuracy whose best attribute is deceptively good speed.

all the live long day

Ace: The O-line is an absolute mess and even with the injuries their hit rate there seems alarmingly low. Jordan Reid was an All-American and he was getting worked out there.

Brian: It's sort of annoying that MSU had all their bad luck two years ago and all their good luck last year. Otherwise people are staring at three straight 5-7, 6-6, 7-5-ish years and the pattern is obvious.

Ace: Also Michigan is 3-0 in those three years against them, which would’ve saved some grief.

Brian: Sheeeeeit, Dantonio's lucky not to be 0-4 against Harbaugh.

David: Maybe its better in the long run...not everyone is convinced of the Fools Gold, yet.

Ace: Frames Janklin still needs some convincing.

Brian: 21 points of turnover luck will win you some games.

Seth: That was a thing in this game. Other than some offsetting personal fouls that were probably more "sending a message", the ghosts were not on Sparty's side. Michigan got two deflection receptions and just one PI on Ambry Thomas despite the normal level of rubbin'. The weather showed, but kept itself to a 2-for-1 fumble exchange.

Ace: On the other hand, Bill C. says Michigan should’ve won this game by 25 points.

Win probability for MSU: 1%.

Brian: The bounces evened out; Michigan failed to take advantage of their huge yardage W.

David: this sounds very 2016, but what makes them better next year?

Seth: Yeah nothing that MSU did caused Shea to not throw his guy open in the end zone or Wild Thing to kick it with the side of his foot.

The Mathlete: Michigan only had a 4.3 pt field position advantage for the game, below their average for the season

Ace: Their backup punter was possessed by Australian OBJ, QED.

Seth: Ah yes, that moment.

 

You see one-handed catches every week.

But how often do you see a one-hand snap snag by the punter before booming a 60-yard punt? @MSU_Football's Tyler Hunt definitely did it #ForTheBrand: pic.twitter.com/cnU2R4bsec

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 20, 2018

#ForTheBrand

David: With non-blocked, through-the-line kicks...plural.

Ace: That doesn’t even show up in the luck stats, either.

Seth: So beyond this game, Michigan State's heading for a season they'll explain away by injuries and might be better next year. They're institutionally protected from most of the normal program attrition until the house of cards that's keeping everybody in their jobs collapses, at which point Dantonio and Izzo will suddenly announce there are golf courses and grandkids that need attending to. Football talent in the State of Michigan is at an all-time low and might not have hit the floor, so they're reliant on recruiting guys in Ohio that Ohio State doesn't want, and now have to compete with programs like Nebraska who weren't really in that market prior. Long-term MSU's outlook isn't great.

David: I guess...in theory...I'm just nervous about uttering that.

Adam: Near-term there’s Dantonio’s comment a couple weeks ago that their recipe for success is running the ball 40 times a game, which his roster is very much not built for right now.

Ace: lmao

It’s cool, guys, they’ve got a plan.

 

Dantonio up. On recent comments, says he makes a goal card and prioritizes what's important in his life. "I'm gonna let God take care of my battles." Take care of family and football program, then Purdue. "And I'll take no other questions on that .... on Purdue."

— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) October 23, 2018

Brian: Dantonio's 62 and probably on the downside of his coaching acumen curve. He hasn't made any significant changes despite the clear issues. He's still got Jim Bollman being a walrus at people.

Ace: Dave Warner is still their other OC, too.

That’s the other part of this: Michigan is just getting fully operational.

They’re just beginning to incorporate the QB’s legs into the gameplan, which is huge against an uber-aggressive defense like State’s, and the next couple QBs project to be at least solidly athletic.

One more keep from Patterson and this is a bigger blowout.

Brian: Coaching staff feels fairly stable for the first time. Warinner and Brown are probably around for the next 5-10 years.

Adam: Plus the rising-star types in Moore and Washington that are keeping the cupboard stocked with talent.

Seth: Meanwhile Dantonio's is in its late Carr stage of promoting from within based on tenure. Mike Tressel is a good LBs coach but he's not a great defensive coordinator, and they brought in Chuck Bullough as their extra guy after they couldn't attract anyone not named Bullough. Don Treadwell, The Youngstown Boy whose head coaching stint led to Miami (NNTM)'s 0-12 season, is back on that staff.

Brian: Treadwell was actually a fairly good OC for them for a period of time, I bet they shuffle the deck chairs to put him back in that spot.

Ace: He was also their OC when they had a run of NFL QBs. Maybe that continues, but…

Seth: Externally that's the narrative. Like I said I know a lot of Spartans and to them Treadwell is Mike DeBord.

The Mathlete: When you can't recruit at the level that Michigan/OSU/PSU are capable of, you have so little margin for error. Dantonio and crew beat the odds for a good stretch (which also coincided with two poor Michigan coaches) and to his credit got maximum value from it. The problem is, you have to keep finding those diamonds in the rough each class, each year, which is essentially impossible, even if you are really good at finding them. With Michigan a highly competent program again, it's really difficult to envision a path to MSU being at a consistently similar level for the next 5 years.

Ace: That’s the crux of the whole thing. Michigan is finally developing their talent (and identifying it better in the first place). Meanwhile, MSU is losing a lot of the diamond-in-the-rough types to Kentucky and such.

Also Michigan isn’t being coached by, um, people we don’t want to talk about anymore.

Brian: Someone say something desperate and negative to ward off bad juju.

David: WeatherBall. At some point, this game might take place in Space or Under the Sea

Seth: "The Natural Order of Things" always included 6-6 MSU teams tripping up a 1969 Michigan season here and there. We will always be their Super Bowl.

Brian: Sure, I mean, they're not going to be a Bobby Williams team any time soon. They'll have a stiff defense and will pop up from time to time as a legit 9-3-ish team.

Ace: Murderwolf may get bored.

slackbot:

Adam: The five-star to five-star connection was certainly the sea change in the game but to me the sea change in the rivalry as it stands is talent development. As long as Michigan is developing guys like Higdon and Paye and Uche and Dwumfour and the five-stars do five-star things...

Ah geez I didn’t follow directions.

The Mathlete: I think that's right. The peak from the last decade going to be tough to maintain (and is probably already gone), but they will be a consistently solid team

Ace: They’ve established themselves as a strong enough program for a long enough time that the name recognition should get them a better next coach than the guys post-Saban and pre-Dantonio.

miss you john l xoxoxo

Brian: However, like Carr Dantonio has almost entirely failed to set up a coaching tree to make the next choice obvious and comfortable. Unless you're cool with a guy who's 24-21 at Pitt with a bunch of bad defenses when he's the defensive maestro.

Ace: I made this before the game last week and forgot to post it.

Seth: They'll take Narduzzi. They still worship him in East Lansing and for Michigan State a guy who'll take out Clemson here and there is more valuable than someone who only wins games he should.

Michigan as currently constituted will have some down years too in the normal course of things. In a year we could be looking back on 2018 as the Rose Bowl team that peaked a year early and sent too many guys to the NFL before the next wave was quite ready.

Brian: I think we think Order Has Been Restored.

Seth: Order was restored in 2015. Harbaugh. /clink.

Brian: It just had a couple of events that obscured it for a bit.

Ace: In conclusion, we don’t apologize for anything.

…anymore.