Cousins on the Road vs. Home

I agree that Cousins will have trouble on the road at the Big House. Not many people, especially the MSM, is looking at this game and seeing that it is the first true road game for MSU. He will be decent against our secondary, but not Chappel like IMO.

Cousins likes to chuck ints in big games.  This year, we have the offense to punish sparty for it. 

On the contrary, we are doing a very good job of keeping control of the ball and not making dumb choices. 

If we convert off of 2 turnovers, that alone may win us the game.

Look pretty good, don't they?

i dont know how much that will amtter..i've been to a few um/msu games and the crowd is about mixed...ann arbor is closer to lansing than detroit anyways

I am sure he is better now as a junior, but I still compare him to a robot. And I don't mean like a robo-cop or Arnold in T2 cool, emotionless killer. I mean more like the awkward, oh it's loud I think I'll throw an INT kind. Cousins gives me even more confidence Denard will win this game, regardless of our D.

Oops double post, doesn't seem i can delete this. Sorry!  Ps-Sparty sucks! 

Kirk is a good QB, and he's been playing very well this year. I don't think he'll be as successful as Chappell was, but he might not have to be. MSU's receivers are maybe not quite as good as IU's overall, but Martin provides a big play threat.

I agree that Cousins has a tendency to get jumpy and make bad throws from the pocket if he gets pressured. (He threw 2 in the first half against Wisconsin.) When they drop back I think our 3 man rush could help out, especially if we can get to him even a little bit. Keeping 8 in coverage will give us a slightly better chance to jump one of his errant/ill-advised throws.

The crowd will have to come up big as well. Any miscommunication will help us immensely. I'll be doing my part.

He seems to have that knack for throwing Brett Favre-esque killer interceptions in the red zone or other inopportune times.

To add to those statistics...

@ NOTRE DAME (Loss)

@ WISCONSIN (Loss)

@ MINNESOTA (Loss)

@ PURDUE (Won - beat a 7 loss Boiler squad by 3 in the final minute thanks to a kickoff return for a score.)

BOWL GAME (Loss) 

Cousins is a decent QB.  But I've seen him make some horrible mistakes on the road.  I really hope that continues this Saturday. 

And I expect the big house to be louder than it's ever been.  At least I hope so.  It's sometimes hard to tell on TV.

All this implies a defense that is good enough to pressure him into mistakes.  The guy is certainly better than he was last year.  He threw 2 picks against Wisconsin last week, I'm holding out some hope that he'll make some mistakes and some bad throws, we'll just have to be there to capitalize.  

I don't think we can sit there depending on him to choke it away big time, especially since he's got a running game that he can rely on that is much better than it was last year.

It should be very interesting to see how he does on the road. I think that if they see him struggle in the first half (which would be very nice to see but very hard to believe) they will put most of their focus on that "great run game" I think that this game will depend on our front lines... both ways D and O. 

So Cousins is 1-4 on the road?

That's not good for them.

My first double post. Sorry for being a clown.

I kinda think the State coaches know this about Cousin that he isn't as comfortable on the road so they are gonna try and really rely on Baker, Bell, and even  a little Caper throughout the game. And by doing this it will really keep the TOP on their side hence keeping Shoelace off the field (their biggest fear.) But I think an early turnover will give us the ball and allow us to score and go up two posessions and that's where Cousins has to start chucking it up and that's where we will really see how much better he is.

I don't think Cousin's numbers matter so much as the fact that this is their first road game.  To make matters worse, their last "intimidating" road game was probably Wisconsin, over a year ago (Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, not so intimidating).  I think we'd all agree that we made some mistakes in our first road test at ND.  I'd expect MSU to have similar problems.  Probably only gives us a slight edge, but that might be all we need.

Question for brewandbluesaturdays: what's the compare? In comparison what was an average home game set of stats against FBS opponents last year. This would give us a likely drop off rate, giving us a sense for how he is likely to do versus his FBS stats so far this year.

Nice bit of analysis.

Thanks!

I don't think you should include the bowl game in the averages, since have of his receivers were suspended and it was Nichol's first time playing at the position.

Cousins is good.  I think the best we can hope for is a decent day, instead of Cheppellbomb hot, and that we can pick him off at least once in the red zone.  And hopefully he doesn't run all over us again this year!

but not immune to turnovers.  We definitely need a couple Saturday. 

But I feel like he throws a lot of his int's in the red zone too.

is important, but will only be an effect based upon our ability to stop/contain their running game.  I expect MSU to try and grind out 1st and 2nd down, leading to managable 3rd down conversions. (Similar to what IU did, but only through short passing).  If Cousins is faced with several 3rd and 5 or less.  I expect a very high conversion rate for them.

This is simply going to come down to the basics of football for our D.  Stop the run (and force MSU into 3rd and long distances) and win the turnover battle.  It will be a direct correlation.  The better we do in those 2 categories, the better our chances are in the game.

He's on the radio show right now. When Rome asked how he'll deal with the michigan crowd. Cousins said, "that's why you come to Michigan state - to play in games like that.". Funny. If you want to play in games like that, you go to Michigan.