Football Study Hall: Surveying the Wreckage at Michigan State
As we're in a small lull between the BTT and the start of the tournament, here are some good readin's from Football Study Hall on the demise of MSU football which may be relevant to your interests. Nothing that is earth shattering but interesting to see that the smart guys over there are also seeing a tough climb for MSU to be nationally relevant again
Beyond the off the field issues that are plaguing Michigan State, the question remains of whether they’ll be able to rebuild their pass defense to allow their aggressive scheme to work against the increasingly potent opponents on the schedule. The prognosis is grim and it appears that the window has indeed closed on more championships coming to Lansing, MI.
Or is it that there is no one at MSU who is that interested in the football progarm to write about its implosion?
thinks he is. . .
Tim Staudt isn't a writer. But he is the most respected and most in tune with the program.
March 13th, 2017 at 11:27 PM ^
March 13th, 2017 at 11:40 PM ^
has been mailing it in for years. He's been at WILX for 40+ years, basically he's just putting in the hours to retirement. Barely does more the 6pm news cast anymore.
March 13th, 2017 at 11:56 PM ^
He has very much been phoning it in for years.
There is only one, and we have him.
:)
Who is the John U Bacon at MSU?
Graham Couch. Clearly
March 13th, 2017 at 11:42 PM ^
that left to cover Tennessee last summer. It will be awhile before anyone steps in to replace those shoes. Couch is ok but he's just has some awful opinions and takes, I don't know anyone that looks forward to reading anything he writes.
March 14th, 2017 at 12:19 AM ^
It's interesting that they mention MSU's defense. Barnett is running a poor mans version of Narduzzi's defense. I think Narduzzi was a key factor in their success, but I see him turning into RichRod 2.0 at Pitt.
He had a unique scheme that worked for awhile, but now other coaches have caught on to it. Now he is being too stubborn to run anything but quarters with man-press with DBs that are too unathletic to execute it. They gave up 61 points to Syracuse for fucks sake. Luckily they have a good OC.
They don't have a good OC anymore, Matt Canada left for LSU. Next year will be interesting for Pitt.
Hopefully they can still beat PSU somehow.
Pitt hired Shawn Watson to replace Canada.
Oh yeah. Thanks to you and Bursley, I forgot that.
Cajun Brady Hoke should be in good shape down there with him and Aranda as coordinators
March 13th, 2017 at 11:02 PM ^
which is even more impressive when you consider the talent gap. Can't take that away from Pitt and Narduzzi.
March 13th, 2017 at 11:33 PM ^
Even more impressive is that they beat Clemson at Clemson. However, the score was 43-42, so it had everything to do with their offense, notsomuch their defense.
Albeit that was before their offense was clicking.
that beat the winners of 3 conference divisions
They also hit on Trae Waynes and Darqueze Dennard. Two recruits rated in the +1000 for their recruiting class that ended up being 1st round draft picks.
Completely agree. They were essentially an 8 or 9 win team parading as an 11 or 12 win team because of a down Big 10 in general, but specifically their two guaranteed annual games during that stretch Michigan and Penn State were down basically that entire period.
if you do survey it, do so from a safe distance and wear a breathing apparatus.
The Spartans didn’t have a single pass-rusher in 2016 that managed more than 2.5 sacks, which is bloody horrendous, but the bigger issue is poor coverage that prevented any pressures from having a chance of getting home.
To be fair, they did eventually get home, just long after the lights popped on and the street had cleared for the evening and everyone else had gone home, that's all.
Actually, I hadn't taken a serious look at pass-rushing stats for MSU, but inspired by this, I just did and YIKES....
"There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do." - Miracle Max
Or to put another way -- they're not quite Purdue-dead.
But I doubt they'll see 11-wins and a B1G title for the remainder of Dantonio's reign.
a) Recruiting
b) Harbaugh
c) Meyer
d) The completely mystifying resurgence of Penn State.
or that they continue on the upswing? I see that that many of the pundits have them ranked high for next year, but I wonder. . . I believe that geographically, long-term, with their history and fan base, they are likely to remain a factor. But they might surprise by sucking for a little while to come.
March 13th, 2017 at 10:02 PM ^
They can recruit well and Franklin can only single-handedly lose so many games in a given year. So they are on the upswing and waving to MSU on their way down.
Put it this way, all that complaining that we have done about having to play our two toughest Big Ten East opponents on the road every other year . . . that no longer applies.
Unless we mean Ohio State and Maryland.
March 13th, 2017 at 10:13 PM ^
their QB had a pretty steep learning curve last year and he will be back.
March 13th, 2017 at 10:15 PM ^
So I think they'll follow a similar trajectory. Program becomes really good, a lot of people credit the HC, then the top coordinator leaves (Narduzzi / Moorhead) and the wheels start to come off and the reported brilliance of the head coach begins to fade quickly. I don't think anyone believes James Franklin is a top 10 coach. He made a brilliant OC hire which may have saved his job this year
March 13th, 2017 at 11:09 PM ^
and used them to get scorching hot down the stretch. They are a much improved team but probably not as good as their results this past year.
I see them as a 9-3 or 8-4 team next year.
Both.
I don't think they were as good as their record indicated - for instance, it took a series of small miracles for them to beat OSU. But I think they're on their way up.
March 14th, 2017 at 10:57 AM ^
You ain't right in the head.
March 14th, 2017 at 12:54 PM ^
If that was posted on their board, it'd be trolling.
- they held training sessions in the back yard at an undisclosed Ingham County Correctional facility.
March 13th, 2017 at 10:30 PM ^
March 13th, 2017 at 10:16 PM ^
using. all predicting 9-3 to 12-0, all predicting some form of bored condesension on 'beating michigan....again', building an 'empire', etc. maybe sparty bob the clock operator is related to baghdad bob of persian gulf war fame:
March 13th, 2017 at 10:32 PM ^