Can we stop panicking now?

The general consensus around here (backed up by the stats) was that Michigan would completely dominate MSU.  So its understandable why some fans are in such an uproar over the team's performance.  I don't understand why someone can't be happy with the win and also look critically at how the team played.  Terms like "fluky" and "iffy" to describe what happened is rose tinted glasses nonsense and even more ridiculous when your 1st team defense is still on the field.  These weren't garbage time points.  They were genuine and somewhat concerning defensive breakdowns especially considering how dominate we were supposed to be.  I'm happy with the win, but it was far from the beatdown most (including myself) thought it would be.  

It happens. I feel like the coaching staff and players may have thought the game was over at the end of the third quarter. The same thing happened last year. You throw in that bad call on the pass that bounced and here we are.

Can we get some moderation on this guy. Feel free to post your opinion, but having 30+ posts stating the same goddam thing is really annoying. Thread was hijacked by a troll.

Too many Lions fans in the Michigan fold. Always doom and gloom. 

It gets really negative. 

I didn't really like the effort vs Illinois at times either. It felt a bit blase at times. But I also think that's not really surprising. A season will see its ebbs and flows. As long as you collect Ws in those weeks, nobody will care and as long as you have good coaches, you will learn your lessons from those games.

With regard to the D..it depends on your definition of 'elite'. If you define 'elite' as 'one of the best in college football', it probably is that. The fact not every game is a shutout doesn't really change that. People talk up the Huskies defense but they concede 24 points on average on the road and Arizona, Oregon and Utah ran the ball well against them. OSU's D? Northwestern put up over 400 yards on them in the Shoe. Even the top Ds allow some offense. That's the nature of the college game today. This isn't the 70s where teams putting up single digit points is the norm.

At the end of the day we didn't play the best but we still won the game. I don't think there has been a championship team that that has steamrolled opponents each and every week, at least in the modern era. Harbaugh will get them ready to Maryland next week and keep the train moving. One game at a time.

with 7.5 minutes left msu had 34 passing yards. its true, its true

Well Wisconsin beat MSU 30-6 so the badgers are going to kick our ass when we play them. Oh wait...

Couldn't agree more.  I didn't get to watch the game until tonight, but reading the comments on here this afternoon you would've thought we were lucky to even be in contention for a win today.  For fucks sake, we pretty much rolled them for 50 or so minutes of this game.  Yeah the 4th quarter was sloppy as fuck, but i'm not too worried about that.  It happens when you have a big lead sometimes.   Sack up people, 11-0 going into columbus and they aren't looking as unbeatable as everyone thought a few weeks ago.  

Also, did MSU move there DB coach to Line coach??  Good god they got away with a shit ton of holding along the line today.  

Pretty sure he'll say Michigan should drop out of the top 25...

Very little blitzing and stunting.

I panic about what I'm eating for breakfast in the morning.

Saw a great team today.   That team unfortunately revealed a couple cracks in it's armor that I'm not particularly thrilled about.  
I don't think it's blasphemy to discuss them, but I'm going to celebrate the win all night & sleep happy.

 

I haven't seen a post for 45 minutes. Kind of concerned about him.

I just have PTSD for MSU. All game I felt nervous and my BP was elevated. Last year in particular was so shocking that I think the number of souls dantonio has to sell may well be limitless. Unless we have a 40 or lead with under two minutes to go then I assume they are in the game.

I expected us to blow out sparty.  We didn't and honestly, I wasn't happy about that.  But now that the dust has settled.  MAN THIS IS FUN.  Undefeated and still one of the only elite teams.  Of course, ohio at the end of the year is what matters but I'm gonna enjoy this ride!

GO BLUE!!!

but this isn't a video game.  You don't just win because you have better talent or quality coaching.  Things happen in games that you need to overcome.

1) Sparty prepares all yerar for this 1 game...it's their superbowl.

2) There were a lot of flukey plays and iffy calls late in the 4th quarter that led to a much closer score than there should have been.

3) Our D-line played their worst game of the year, but they have the talent to improve.

Win and go home.  And let's be honest, the game was not nearly as close as the final score.

 

 

Maybe the gameplan vs. staee was to show

them ultimate disrespekt by not giving them

our best.  They just weren't worthy enough.

 

I think all of SalvatoreQuattro's negatives in this thread maybe some sort of record.

274 posts arguing vehemently about how whether or how badly an 8-0 team sucks is a vast improvement over apoplexy about almost losing to Akron.

Just watched the game again. The poor tackling is an issue. McCray, Stribling and Hill. Wow. Gassers all day.

And Michigan's game against Iowa in 1997 was a terrible performance, but we still won the NC

1. Context. This game was MSU's whole season sometime around their loss to BYU. State's season was salvageable in only one way, and that was to beat Michigan. I think this idea is all but confirmed by the loss to Maryland. 

Also, this is Don Brown's first go at Michigan State. While he was setting priorities for this game, I could imagine moments like "they would've had to work on this thing for the last three weeks and not put it on film; ignore x possibility."  

2. First Score. Because of 1, I have no problem with MSU scoring on some scripted drives they haven't put on film. I should mention that crummy Balkan internet prevented me from seeing the actual drive, so maybe I'm wrong. 

3. Wait for the UFR: Elite Defense's Non-Elite Day or (Just a) Very Good Defense. The former is the result of stuff like the assymetrical amount of focus the coaching staffs gave one another or an easily-fixable/temporary personnel problem. The latter is due to longer-term holes in personnel (skillset or talent) or some kind of unjustifiably inadequate coaching preparation that has been covered up by great talent. Let us wait for some UFR analysis to figure it out.

4. Reason to be Disappointed. Michigan State's o-line should not have held up to Michigan's d-line, and this was supposed to screw up everything else for them. The UFR will show why that happened, but it's still disappointing, given the overwhelming advantage Michigan was expected to have.

5. One Concern for the Offense. I forget which announcer said it, but Michigan looks like it still needs a speedy vertical threat. I think that's about right. Chesson was once that guy, but it doesn't seem like he's fully recovered; I'd say he has lost a step or two. He's just not leaving CBs behind by a couple of strides like he did last year. It wasn't a problem v. State, but it could haunt Michigan later on. Here's to hoping Chesson recovers and/or that Michigan finds that guy in the coming games. 

Watching college football (vs NFL)...
Is an exercise in watching games often talent mismatches and trying to project your teams ability to win all of their games (national champion).
Anything less than domination makes it problematic in projecting the remaining games
Lots of uncertainty ( panic) will exist

after eight game's Michigan is the best team in the conference. For myself if Wilton continues his improvement and the fellas stay healthy their is no team in the Big Ten this year that can defeat the maize and blue. Will see. How about Kenny Allen.

Yes, we can stop panicking.

That doesn't mean we let our alertness slip (as we started doing in this game).

Calm, focussed, confident, humble, awake.

Go Blue!

I'm still at about DEFCON 3 regarding our defense after that shit show. Really an inverted game. Really thought the offense would struggle instead.

I'm sure as hell not panicking because I know we are good, arguably best in a solid B1G conference...and getting better.  But eyes on the future.  Don't let shit like that happen again.

Post-game quote from Jourdan Lewis:

"I think this was probably one of our worst games," Lewis said. "The first drive, they did some perimeter-running -- stuff we hadn't seen yet. We calmed down (and played well) and then just took our foot off the pedal and stopped concentrating. That's what happened.

"That shouldn't have been close. And we made it close because we didn't execute."

This quote nailed it and it's exactly why I am not panicking.  I'm glad that a team leader and one of the best in the country agrees that it became a shit show in the second half and we didn't demolish them like we should have.