Dantonio vs Pat White
Denard and the current UM offense is most often compared with Pat White's WVU days, for obvious reasons. When Mark Dantonio was as Cinci, he coached against WVU twice and Pat White had typical Pat White games both times.
2005 passed for 100 yards, 1td, rushed for 111 yards in a 38-0 wvu win - http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/boxscores/2005-11-09-cincinnati.html
2006 passed for 98 yards, 1td, rushed for 93 yards 2 td in a 42-24 wvu win - http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/boxscores/2006-11-11-west-virginia…
Not claiming that this means Denard does the same thing, just some facts, some history, something to gnaw on this morning.
October 8th, 2010 at 8:47 AM ^
So that means a 500/500 game, right?
October 8th, 2010 at 8:49 AM ^
No offense. But I only care about what Denard does to Dantonio.
October 8th, 2010 at 8:58 AM ^
To the OP's defense, I think he was comparing dual-threat, RR-style QB's against Dantonio's team in the past.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:01 AM ^
Dee Hart > Dantonio's Heart.
/I'm making that sign
//doesn't give a shit
October 8th, 2010 at 9:35 AM ^
Seriously, this is fantastic. Every student needs to take some small responsibility for snarky signs upon themselves, IME.
My small contributions were Touchdown Jesus Touched Me and Huskies Lick Their Balls (for Brabbsfest.) Admittedly, the latter one does not score so high in the 'snarky' or 'clever' categories.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:12 AM ^
On the M Live forum the other day, the Spartans were harping about how Dantonio sucessfully "held" Pat White to 38 and 42 points with Cinci talent, and that he therefore "knows the schemes to stop Denard".
It was quite an eye-opening analysis.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:22 AM ^
That is indeed quite the analysis.
Wonder what that means they think they'll "hold" Denard to?
October 8th, 2010 at 9:25 AM ^
Yeah, like the analysis of MSU fans the other day on the radio saying that MSU will win because Denard will get hurt by Greg Jones. Such a deep and thorough analysis.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:27 AM ^
Considering Cinci talent took them to a BCS bowl last year, I'd say they will be wishing they had some of that on Saturday.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:42 AM ^
I love that logic. Because of course WVU was loaded with 5* players and Cincy rolled out walk-ons at every position. The fact remains that MSU's defense is decent but has never been particularly adept at stopping spread offenses that are running effectively. I fully expect UM to put up 38-40 points, but unlike those WVU teams under RR, I'm not sure the defense will be able to keep MSU off the field either.
October 8th, 2010 at 10:08 AM ^
...I hope our defense can play as well tomorrow. Otherwise, watch out.
October 8th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^
What does that have to do with the MSU game?
October 8th, 2010 at 10:32 AM ^
I like where you're going with this:
Quickly looked up where those teams sat defensively at the end of the year by points per game.
In 2005: Cincy ranked 90th, WVU ranked 10th (so the 3-3-5 can work?): http://g.sg.sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/stats/byteam?cat1=defense&cat2=Total…
In 2006: Cincy ranked 33rd, WVU ranked 47th: http://g.sg.sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/stats/byteam?cat1=defense&cat2=Total…
So far in 2010: Mich St ranked 36th, Michigan 73rd (ouch): http://g.sg.sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/stats/byteam?cat1=defense&cat2=Total…
Of course, this isn't a Mathlete level of quantitative comparisons.
I do like that there is some comparison of RR's offense running like it should against a Dantonio defense (the last two years just don't count much in my opinion).
October 8th, 2010 at 3:44 PM ^
At what point will it become conventional wisdom that Denard is a better player than Pat White? He's on pace to completely destroy all of White's numbers, and still, White is held up as the gold standard for running QBs. (He had one 200/200 game - in his career.) Even now there are still analysts who will be like, "Now, I don't want to say he's another Pat White, but..." It's getting annoying.
At any rate, if Dantonio couldn't figure out a way to slow White down, he could be in for trouble tomorrow.