Teams trending up and down (UM up/MSU down)

Body paint could solve both objectives.

 

Although I usually lose attraction in the opposite sex after I learn she's a Sparty fan.

If I'm not mistaken, MSU only played three teams that finished in the top 25 - OSU, Oregon, and Baylor.  So yeah, they only lost to the two teams in the championship, but they didn't rack up the quality wins either.   Baylor was their best win by a mile and it took a miracle comeback.

 

 

 

People respect Dantonio generally, but at least part of MSU's relative success has been due to the B1G being very much down.  If PSU and UM are really on the rise, it will be interesting to see if MSU can keep up the succes they've had the last 5 years if traditional powers continue to improve.  

But NO respect to Danphonio

I don't disagree with the premise that MSU is going to be solid under Dantonio.  But at the same time, they played 3 decent teams this year and nearly lost to all of them, getting burned defensively and needing a miracle comeback to beat Baylor.  Yes, they absolutely haven't blown close games to inferior squads recently, and that is a testament to coaching.  But the conference has also been terrible for the past 3-4 years.  You argue that UM has some 4-loss seasons where they should only have 2-loss ones, but the conference 10-15 years ago was so much stronger than it was in the early 10's.  It absolutely doesn't excuse Michigan losing those games, but this idea that MSU has figured out how to win, for lack of a different term, "better" than other teams ignores both small sample size (if we are allowed to ignore 2012 in its 7-6 entirety, then they also lost to very mediocre 8-5 ND by 18 in 2011) and a weakened conference.  I actually expect MSU to be solid in 2016 with that offense, though any continued struggle by the defense isn't a good sign for long-term success.

I also take issue with the argument that Dantonio and Beilein are analogous, mostly I'm not sure just how innovative MSU is.  Their offense can be explosive, but until this year it defintely wasn't a unit that set the world on fire.  Their strength was their defense, but you saw this year elite offenses figure them out pretty well, and unlike in basketball I'm not sure how many more wrinkles you can throw into a scheme that relies extremely heavily on elite defensive backfield play.  I'm probably over-simplifying it, but I watched enough MSU games these past couple of years to come away with an appreciation for their defense but also seeing just how precarious they are on that razor's edge.  Beilein isn't a god, but the fact he is running out teams with multiple walk-ons and keeping pace with top-10 units seems due to immense creativity and nuance in the gameplan; MSU against the OSU/Oregon/Baylor sets is basically keep running what they do and hope the offense doesn't figure it out.

What I respect about what they have done (and did better than Carr did with way more talent) is the past 2 years they have not dropped a single game to an inferior opponent.

While I somewhat agree with this, I do think it's important to point out that during Carr's tenure, especially after the turn of the century, he had to annually deal with an Ohio State that was good, a Wisconsin that was good, an Iowa that was good, a Penn State that was good. MSU and Dantonio haven't had to face a conference that balanced during their run, which is why lots of folks are skeptical as to how good they really are. MSU's conference schedule the past 5 years typically only had one killer match-up (either Wisconsin or OSU) and 7 other games against Indiana, disorganized Michigan, gutted Penn State, etc. MSU getting torched by quality competition isn't helping their case either.