How good will MSU be next year?

They'll take a step back just because they're losing so much on defense. Dennard, Allen, Bullough, Lewis, Reynolds are all have expiring eligilibility (and Drummond and Calhoun might decide to get on the train and leave early, though Calhoun would be a stretch maybe). 

I'll admit that I thought the same thing after the 2010 season, when they lost Greg Jones, Eric Gordon, Rucker, and Hyde. Dantonio coached up a bunch of three-star freshmen and sophomores in 2011 and their defense was even better, though. I think this year is more of a loss than 2010, and they'll be less formidable next year.

They lose three starters on the OL, too. 

In sum, you probably have to assume they'll probably be a top-25-caliber team next year just based on Dantonio's track record in getting defenses ready. I don't expect top-10 again, though.

 

How about we worry about us?

How are we going to do in a division that is 10x harder than the Legends?

ohio is ohio, sparty will be on the road, Michigan was supposed to clobber PSU this year, IU

Seniors on MSU's roster:

Denicos Allen
Max Bullough
Henry Conway
Darqueze Dennard
Denzel Drone
Kyler Elsworth
Danny Folino
Fou Fonoti
Bennie Fowler
Dan France
Derek Hoebing
Tyler Hoover
Jairus Jones
Isaiah Lewis
Andrew Maxwell
Steve Moore
Kevin Muma
Micajah Reynolds
Blake Treadwell

There are a few juniors/redshirt sophomores who could try to take the money and run (Shilique Calhoun, Kurtis Drummond, Jeremy Langford, Marcus Rush), too. At this point I expect them to reload defensively, but their offense seems to be a little more mercurial.

What I do care about is our team improving and beating them next year in E.L. We've got enough defense. We just need the offense to show up and keep Devin upright.

QB: Obviously will be fine with Cook coming back and having pretty decent depth at the position.

RB: Will be good. Hill is probably their 4th best back. Langford has another year still.

TE: Same group is back, will actually have some experience at the position. Their TE group didn't really start coming along until the end of the year as far as any sort of receiving threat.

WR: Lots of numbers there. Fowler is a decent player, but I see this group slightly improving from experience. 

OL: Will take a slight step back, but they have some decent 2nd team players. Conklin will continue to grow and improve his footwork at LT. They lose two on the interior (France and Treadwell) that have been the strength of that OL, but Clark is a quick footed albeit a bit small OG that will be pretty decent. One of Allen or Jackson will slide to the other OG position and those are pretty good replacements. Scary position is RT, where they don't really have a good replacement. Clark may slide out there, but that isn't optimal. Finley could be good down the road but still needs to improve footwork (I'm guessing from where he came in at). Kruse is probably the next one in, but that isn't optimal. They won't have as much depth next year as this year.

DE: Will bring back both DEs for probably their last year (I bet Calhoun leaves after his RS JR year). I think Rush is pretty much what he is (he's Roh if Roh had a position for 4 years). Calhoun will continue to improve and should be solid. MSU really needs Cooper to come around if they want decent pass rush depth at the position, Heath is more a SDE/3-tech tweener. I could see them moving Lyles back to DE, the depth at TE has improved from when they first moved him, think they need more at DE. Athletic but raw player.

DT: They have pretty good depth at NT, and you could see one move to 3-tech. Kittredge and Knox can both play but are undersized, which won't help young LBs. I still think LT is another year away from really contributing a lot, and haven't been impressed with Scarpinato (gave up the punt block last night).

LB: You don't replace Bullough, you just don't. Ed Davis seems pretty good, but what he's been asked to do as a situation player compared to as a starter will be much different. Reschke will be a RS FR and has some potential, but will likely have growing pains. Taiwan Jones is a good player. Need someone to step up at MIKE, and I see this as the biggest reason their defense takes a fairly decent step back.

CB: Waynes probably slides over to Dennard's boundary CB position, but you don't replace Dennard. While Waynes has athletic potential, he still has a lot of room to grow, particularly with his body technique. They'll have to involve their safeties a bit more to help him. The other side will be young, likely Ezra Robinson. He's alright, but not yet great. Dantonio knows how to coach DBs though, so they should still be solid there.

S: Safety is where they actually probably have the most potential as far as raw talent, but they will be raw if Drummond leaves. Williamson, Cox, and Hicks all have athletic ability, but have also been exposed a bit when they've played. With having to likely help the CBs a bit more, and the LBs taking a step back, this puts them in a difficult position in their cover 4 scheme.

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I think their offense will be a slightly improved version of this years squad, but not a whole lot. I think they pretty much are becoming what they are, an above average group.

Their defense should step back to not-Godly, but will still be a top-25 group in my opinion. They do have a bit more depth issues next year in the case of injuries, but it's more depth issues in the sense that the backups are young and quite inexperienced.

I'd prefer to focus on us getting better, and doing what MSU did this year -- marked improvement over the course of the season, strong player development, non-knucklehead coaching, etc.  Unless Dantonio falls over and/or Narduzzi gets his shot as a HC, Sparty is going to be a tough out for the foreseeable future.  The folks who are convinced that they just "can't keep it up" with the recruits they are bringing in fail to consider that Sparty's recruitng hasn't been much worse lately than in years past.  And yet, 10+ win seasons a lot more frequently than we've seen.  They do a good job with the talent they get.  Like it or not, they are the measuring stick we need to meet before we are able to return to a better place in the B10.

They're going to lose 7 starters on D and the heart of their O-line.  They play Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon (none of whom they met in 2013), all of whom might be a step up from ND, Purde and Illinois.

We know how much it can hurt to lose the interior of your O-line and work with a young D.  They'll be 6-1 headed into our game (5-2 if they lose to Nebraska).  Prob 7-5 at the end of the year.  They won't recover from losing so many essential parts on D.

9-3. The 2014 schedule stacks up pretty favorably for them:

Jacksonville State

at Oregon

Wyoming Cowboys

EMU

Nebraska

at Purdue

at Indiana

Michigan

Ohio State

at Maryland

Rutgers

at Penn State

I could easily see them dropping games to Oregon and Penn State since both are away. Let's call Michigan and Ohio State "toss ups", although both are home games for Sparty. All of the rest are entirely winnable (though Indiana's fast-paced offense will test the MSU D). Without Notre Dame on the schedule, they could be a minimum of 6-1 through the first 7 games. They should beat Rutgers and Maryland easily. That means they only need to go 1-2 against U-M, OSU and Penn State. Doable. 

They will take a step back and be 8-4/9-3 with all that they're losing. Now I fully expect to be attacked by the Sparty lovers who claim that there's an unspoken rule about this and I should just concede that they go 14-0 every year.

They'll beat us....

Agree. We don't have hundreds of threads on here when they, Ohio, or ND do something bad. We don't need hundreds of threads on them when they do something good. I only cheer for one Michigan team and that one resides in Ann Arbor.

Probably better than us.

Still the best team in Michigan. :(

We'll see what happens when Meyer and Hoke's guys are seniors and RS seniors. Both guys are bringing in some pretty highly regarded guys. I don't think State can bring in and develop someone better than Drake Harris or George Campbell.

Watched the game last night with several MSU friends.  Watched a few of their games, think I have a decent handle on their roster.

Although they lose 4 or 5 starters on defense, they rotate heavily and have a lot of depth.  Ed Davis is a sophomore backup LB who was a monster against us and OSU, he replaces Allen.  They actually did not start Reynolds or Hoover last night, they started 3 sophomores and a junior on the D line, although Reynolds and Hoover played often.  That other DB, Trae Waynes, is almost as good as Dennard is.  Williamson and Brummond are both good safeties as is Cox who plays in their nickle.  Their D line will be better, secondary will not be quite as good, but should still be very good.  LBs is their question on defense, who will replace Bullough?

Offensively?  They return everyone except for 3 O linemen.  Normally losing 3 O linemen is rough, as we painfully know, but tMSU rotated their O linemen all game, they play 8 O linemen extensively.  It sickened me last night to see that the last drive of the game they were rolling with 3 backups on the O line with 2 starters.  Apparently, they did this every game and are comfortable with all 8 "starters".  Apparently even Fowler is coming back for a 6th year, wtf?  They could have a much better offense next year.

They return all of their specialists.  They have a favorable B1G schedule playing us, OSU, and Nebraska in East Lansing.  They play Oregon on the road in pre B1G play.

I see a floor of 8 wins.  Ceiling?  Who knows, I would have never thought they'd win 12 games this year.  I'd guess MSU and us will vie for the title in the East.

MSU is not going away.  They have the program in place now to keep churning out quality players to replace what they lose.  I think we'll improve a lot more than they will though and we can beat them next season, but it's at best a tossup game for us.  We are going to have to deal with the Spartans for years and they are for real.  With Ohio, MSU, and a resurgent Penn State, the East Divsion is going to be tough sledding from here on out.

 

 

 

Last 4 years:

11-3, 11-2, 7-6 and 12-1

7-6, 11-2, 8-5, and 7-5

at this point, the 2 programs have completely switched places. they are the team winning the B10 and going to the Rose Bowl, M is playing in the toilet bowl. They win 10-11 games most years, M manages it as often as a leap year. M has inexplicable win vs ND, they lose to ND.

there is absolutely no reason to believe that next year Team A who finished 8-0, 12-1 will be worse than Team B who is 3-5, 7-6. Especially considering team A is at home next year.

I remember the days when M would finish 5-3 in conf, and everyone freaked the fuck out. now, we're hoping for M to have a year (2015?) where EVERYTHING falls just perfectly right for us to have a chance to win the division- schedule easy, everyone is a SR, 5th year with out any coaching transition.

Kirk Cousins. BJ Cunningham. Keshawn Martin. Jerel Worthy. Will Gholston. Le'Veon Bell. Yeah, Dennard, Bullough, Allen, Lewis, these losses will hurt. But every year these "devastating" graduation losses supposedly presage State's return to "normalcy", every year it was just one great class that hit its peak but now they're gone and Sparty sucks again. Sorry, guys, but I think Dantonio, while not on Saban's level of recruiting talent, has at the very least built the kind of depth where there will almost always be fifth-year seniors to plug in, or younger players who were hand-picked for Dantonio's system. I don't think this decline is coming soon. If Michigan is to reassert dominance, it's going to be via rising to their level, not waiting for it to drop. Hoke has this year to prove he is the guy to do that, and if he fails, I think its time to look elsewhere. It sucks, but this is reality now, I believe.

They were a couple PI calls versus ND away from playing for the National Title this year.  They won 9 B1G games all by at least 10 points, that's never been done in the history of the conference.  MSU was very very good this year, even if they do come back to the pack a little, they'll still be right in the middle of the title race for the conference.

MSU will still be very good.  39% of that roster is upperclassmen, and about 60% of that roster is comprised of guys who have been in the program for at least 3 years.  The love to redshirt almost every player that comes in their program, and it pays off.  MSU will probably not be as good next year, but they will still be very good. 

They may take a step back in 2015, but that depends on how Michigan and the rest of the Big Ten develop their 2012 and 2013 recruiting classes. 

Ya the past 2-3 years we keep thinking their graduating seniors will make a big difference. Hasn't happened so much. I'm going I go ahead and guess they will still be very good

Football isn't magic... and I don't think Dantonio is any special genius. Maybe what they do is prepare obsessively for each opponent.  I'm betting they watched tapes from our game with OSU every waking minute.  Whatever MSU is doing, we have the opportunity to do better.

 

 

They will be good as long as they play with a chip on their shoulder..Coaches keep feeding all kinds of crap to these players so they can play te victim game like they alway do..so yeah who cares about msu, they are obsesse with beating us and will do whatever it takes to do so

If you look at Dantonio's early records, they're worse than what Hoke's put together in his first three years.  I like Hoke, not necessarily saying he's the answer, but keep everything in context.  People can say that Michigan, recruiting wise, is a step up from Michigan State so Dantonio did more than Hoke in his first three years, but Dantonio didn't have to reinvent the culture like Hoke did from the spread and tire fire of Oline recruiting like RR left Hoke.  I guess what I'm saying is Hoke has a history of success, lets give his recruits and coaches more than 3 years to develop the kids he's bringing in.  If you put any stock in the recruiting services, he can obviously recruit.  Starting next year we'll be able to see if him and his staff can develop their talent.  Then we can begin to pass judgment.  I really think we should give him 4 - 5 years.  Few programs succeed with constant coaching changes and I don't want to see Michigan become a program that has constant change.