Previously: MSU Offense 

Yesterday this space looked at the Michigan State offense and discussed its Jekyll-and-Hyde nature, peering in at the playmakers and dissecting how to stop it. Today we take a look at the defense, whose relentless commitment to bending without breaking is admirable. Michigan State has allowed a lot of yards this season, but not nearly as many points as you'd expect in their seven games, helping the team stay undefeated. Is this unit good? Or just meticulously coached? Or lucky? Let's examine: 

 

The Film: We chose not to use Nebraska for this one because the Husker offense is not a suitable analogue for Michigan considering the chasm of difference running the ball separating Adrian Martinez and Cade McNamara. Youngstown State is not suitable because they're an FCS team and we already exhausted our supply of FCS team-based FFFF's for this season back in week two. Northwestern, Rutgers, and Indiana are not suitable because their offenses are terrible. WKU's offense is not a good comparison for Michigan because the Hilltopers have a video game passing offense that averages over 400 yards per game through the air. By process of elimination, that leaves us with Miami (FL). 'Canes QB D'Eriq King is definitely more mobile than McNamara, but this game did not include many designed runs for him, so it was a better comparison that Nebraska and Martinez. Miami it is. 

Personnel: Seth's chart. Does Cade get his cyan back? NO: 

The interior defensive line for MSU sees Jacob Slade return as a starter and he's a helluva player. They lost Naquan Jones in the offseason and have been looking for a replacement at that other spot, rotating a few solid options. The most used one by far is Simeon Barrow, getting close to the same number of snaps as Slade. However, Maverick Hansen has over 200 snaps to his name at the position too, not to mention over 160 snaps having gone to Deshaun Mallory. It is the opinion of this column and PFF that Barrow is the best of those three to pair next to Slade. 

Defensive end sees longtime Michigan villain Jacub Panasiuk line up as one starter, a player who has been at MSU so long it feels like he was recruited by John L. Smith. Panasiuk, unfortunately, is good now. At the time of the Miami game, Drew Beesley started opposite Panasiuk and was (in your author's opinion) excellent, but he has been out since the Spartans played Nebraska in late September with a leg injury. When Mel Tucker spoke to the media the other day, he declined to give an update on Beesley's status. In his absence, Jeff Pietrowski has become the starter, with Drew Jordan getting a bunch of snaps as well. Those replacements are decent players, but are not Beesley. 

MSU starts just two traditional linebackers, sticking to a strict 4-2-5 base defense. Those two starters are invariably Quavaris Crouch, a Tennessee transfer and erstwhile Michigan recruiting target, and Cal Haladay. Crouch is a proficient blitzer but has struggled in other phases of the game, while Haladay is more of a do-everything rock, whose presence MSU sorely missed when he was out for a half against Rutgers due to targeting. If one of those two come off the field (they rarely ever do), then you'd see Old Friend/New Enemy Ben VanSumeren come on, who could become one of only a few players in the history of the rivalry to lose in consecutive years for two different teams (can we get Elias Sports to look that one up?). 

At cornerback MSU has a healthy number of players who get involved, but the starters are Florida transfer Chester Kimbrough and Alabama transfer Ronald Williams, joined by legacy Spartan Michael Dowell, brother of Andrew and David. In a base 4-2-5, one of either Dowell or half-CB/half-S Darius Snow are on the field for most plays. There's a precipitous drop-off in snaps after these four, but you may see Charles Brantley out there every so often. One note: in the film of this game you're about to observe, MSU was starting Kalon Gervin at corner, who has since entered the transfer portal. He wore #18 if you see him in clips. 

Lastly, at safety there's star Xavier Henderson lining up at the SS position, who has received excellent grades in every facet of the game this season. Opposite him is Angelo Grose at FS, who isn't quite the same caliber of player. When I say those two never come off the field, I mean it: they have each logged over 550 snaps this season and the next closest true safety has just 83. But as mentioned, Snow may line up there, since he's listed as a safety on the roster. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: this article bennnnnnnds, but it don't break]

Base set: As has already been mentioned, Michigan State goes with a base 4-2-5 look, playing some combination of four linemen, Haladay and Crouch as the two LB's, and then their five DB's selected out of a rotation of four corner-ish players + Henderson/Grose. Here's what it looks like: 

The two LB's are lined up in pretty standard position (in this image right on the yellow first down line), and here you have Henderson as the lone deep safety. MSU sticks to its base set more than any other team I've tracked this season (even more than NW last week!), so I honestly don't need to show you any more formations because they come up so infrequently. This is what the Spartans are going to live and die with. 

Man or zone coverage: Michigan State was running a mix of Quarters and Cover 3, which slot them more into the zone category. Around half of the plays I charted saw them play with one deep safety, deferring more to Cover 3 in those instances, and the other half had two deep safeties (pre-snap), which tended to skew more towards Quarters. MSU, as we will dig into, plays its corners with a ridiculous amount of soft coverage (particularly underneath) when they're in their man alignments, and the zone looks are pretty soft too. Open receivers were a major storyline here. 

Pressure: The other major storyline for me is how blitz-happy MSU was in this game. They graded out at 4.33 rushers per play, but that includes a bunch of drives late where Sparty was playing their version of prevent defense and only sending four on every play. MSU sat at 4.63 rushers per play over their first 25 defensive plays that I was able to chart, with 5-6 rushers being a very regular feature of the defense. This is one of the most blitz-inclined defenses that Michigan has seen this season. 

Dangerman: There are a few options here with three different players receiving stars, but I'm going to pick DT Jacob Slade. Slade is having a terrific season and is starting to pick up some pro buzz as a monstrous run defender and a good pass rusher, following in the footsteps of great MSU interior linemen past, including predecessors Naquan Jones and Raequan Williams. The Spartan DL had a very good day against Miami and Slade was one of several players who feasted. Some of his plays stuck out though: 

#64 second from bottom of DL

That pass is completed, but look at how Slade undresses the guard and would've had a thundering sack, if the coverage was better. 

D'Eriq King's initial hope on this play was to either run up the gut or take it off the left side. Jacob Slade said no, and forced him to reconsider his path: 

#64 second from the bottom of the line

A lot of players are involved in the run stuff here, but I want you to focus on Slade's explosion off the snap right up the middle: 

#64 third from bottom of the DL 

The reason I'm highlighting Slade is because explosive interior rushers are one of the most dangerous wrecking balls in college football. If Michigan has to pay attention to Slade, that's less time they can spend on Jacub Panasiuk on the outside. And since Michigan is a team that will want to establish the interior run, dealing with Slade is a key objective. This will be one of Andrew Vastardis' most difficult tests and it would be awfully nice if Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter are ready to go on Saturday to help out handling Slade. 

 

Overview

Bill Connelly's SP+ has this as the 12th best defense in college football... is that right?

Well, you know, I haven't watched a lot of non-B1G teams so I don't feel comfortable making a national defense ranking...

JUST TELL ME IF MSU IS GOOD OR NOT?

Ehhhhh I don't know. For the #12 ranking, I was pretty underwhelmed with what I came away with after watching this film. Here're MSU's national defensive rankings across various simpleton counting stats: 

• Total Defense: 406.4 yards per game (89th) 
• Scoring Defense: 18.71 points per game (19th) 
• Pass Defense: 285.4 yards per game (121st)
• Rush Defense: 121.0 yards per game (31st)
• Sacks: 26 total, 3.71 per game (5th) 

Take a look at the gap between those top two rankings again. 89th in total defense (bad), 19th in scoring defense (good). This defense is an all-time entry in the Bend Don't Break Hall of Fame, giving up gobs of yards (particularly through the air), but finding ways to get off the field without allowing touchdowns. Part of it is 12 takeaways in 7 games on defense, which puts MSU in the upper third of FBS teams, although this is not an Iowa situation where Mel Tucker has a voodoo doll hypnotizing the opposition into a -4 turnover differential each week. MSU gets turnovers but it doesn't scream obvious turnover luck.

Rather, the big secret is that the Spartans are allowing TD's on just 46% of Red Zone possessions, and because punter Bryce Baringer has the third highest average punt clip in the NCAA right now (49.19), MSU is often winning the field position battle. Which of course means that you can give up a 60 yard drive, but if your opponent starts from inside their own 20, that drive will end without ever even touching the Red Zone. Translating those yards into points has been the big challenge for Spartan opposition. 

The defensive metrics above drop into three buckets: pass rush (excellent), rush defense (mediocre), and pass coverage (very porous). The MSU run defense numbers, while good at face value (31st ain't shabby), are less impressive when you strip out sacks. For the season, their rush defense is holding opposition to an impressive 3.32 YPC. But once you adjust for sacks (they've gotten 26 sacks for -149 yards), suddenly the YPC clip jumps all the way to 4.35 YPC (996 yards on 229 carries).

Despite this potentially vulnerable run defense existing, it hasn't been tested all that much. MSU faces a shockingly small number of rushing plays per game, when compared to the pass. Here's a list of the distribution of pass to run by FBS opponent this season: 

• Northwestern: 43 pass to 38 run
• Miami: 60 pass to 24 run
• Nebraska: 36 pass to 50 run 
• WKU: 65 pass to 26 run 
• Rutgers: 41 pass to 36 run
• Indiana: 52 pass to 36 run 

It's important to note that the "run" column include QB runs, meaning there are a number of sacks and scrambles embedded in there, which if readjusted (I don't have the time to do that), would skew the distribution even more towards the pass (especially in Nebraska's case). Michigan will literally be the first FBS opponent MSU has played all season who is going to make the run priority #1 on a down-to-down basis. MSU's run defense may be vulnerable, but we're also not working with a big sample, and not many like examples when looking towards Michigan. All of this is a fancy way of saying we're going to learn a lot about the Spartan run defense tomorrow. 

What I saw in the Miami game was generally good success from the Hurricane rushers, which is why it was extremely frustrating from a playcalling standpoint that the 'Canes seemed allergic to sticking with it: 

They were often able to generate 3-4 yards per carry running between the tackles, even behind what was a very bad OL in pass blocking: 

Cam'Ron Harris ran for a 4.0 YPC clip... on 11 carries. Hey, Miami: Y U NO RUN THE BALL? Like I said, Saturday will tell us whether the Spartan run defense is the Death Star exhaust port, or if its star power in the front seven makes it much better than the numbers I've presented suggest. 

What we know is that the pass defense is how opponents have moved the ball on MSU this season, IF you can protect your QB. If you can't, bad things will happen. Let's start with the pass rush side of it. Like I said, it's very depressing, but Jacub Panasiuk is good: 

#96 to bottom of DL

It might be a good idea to, *ahem*, attempt to block him. Here he is again, this time drawing an obvious hold: 

#96 to bottom of DL

The rusher opposite him is Drew Beesley, who as mentioned earlier, has been out for the past month and we don't know when he's coming back. I loved Beesley's tape from this one and the game really changes if MSU can run him out there opposite Panasiuk. The other DE's weren't as impressive but I did clip this from replacement starter Jeff Pietrowski: 

#47 to bottom of the DL

Pretty nice punch right there. Between Slade on the interior, Panasiuk on the edge, and a rotating cast of other rushers, not to mention Crouch from the LB level, this is an intimidating pass rush. They love to throw different blitzes at you. Here's an all-out blitz where MSU sends the house: 

And here's a delayed blitz where they send six, including Xavier Henderson from the safety level: 

The goal of this Michigan State defense is to pressure the opposition to either turn it over produce a sack to get off the field. If they can't get home and disrupt the play, it's not good for the Spartan defense, who are giving up nearly 300 passing yards per game for a reason. The corners are not allowed to play close to their guys (probably because of what would happen if they did) and that left D'Eriq King with free yards after free yards underneath so long as he had time to throw: 

Another example: 

And one more: 

It didn't really matter who the corners were, most times they were not within earshot of the receiver. This has helped MSU cut down on the big plays; there were very few deep shots on them in this one, but it is part of the reason why they face so many dang plays. The Spartans' all-or-nothing offense and their Bend Not Break defense means that this defense has faced 83.4 plays per game this season, most in the country by over three full plays. No wonder they rotate at DL and CB. 

The MSU attempt to cover in the end zone did not go well: 

Even Noah Vedral threw for 200 yards on the Spartans, something he's done against no other FBS team this season (!).

Seth and I had a discussion about whether to cyan the corners. It seems like someone in the secondary should be cyan'd when you're in the bottom twenty in passing defense, but the conclusion I reached is that the corners are indistinguishable both in how I graded this game and their PFF grades. Either you cyan them all or cyan none of them. We decided to respect our bitter rivals and cyan none of them. I don't know how good or bad any of them really are because none are allowed to play corner in a normal fashion, but let's just say that if you have a Jourdan Lewis, you don't staple him 10-15 yards away from a receiver. It's safe to say none of these corners are Jourdan Lewis. 

One last player to shout out before we wrap this up: S Xavier Henderson is legit. We saw him blitzing earlier and he made a few nice plays in this one. Here's a taste: 

#3 lined up at yellow first down marker

There are some issues with the State defense, but between Panasiuk, Slade, and Henderson, they have some very good players too. 

 

What does it mean for Michigan? 

Here's where I'll try to tie it altogether. Michigan is going to come into this game trying to run the football and I honestly can't tell you how much success they'll have. The evidence suggests there's a chance it could be a decisive, game-altering advantage, but there's not a ton of evidence total here. If Michigan is able to run at 4-4.5 YPC (excepting sacks), that totally changes the calculus, because it lets the Wolverines sit in their comfort zone and stitch together long drives. It also may not be the most intimidating game for Cade McNamara, especially if MSU is playing their typically soft coverage underneath. People are complaining that Cade is only throwing short passes, but MSU isn't going to do much of anything to stop that. And if Michigan can run the ball with some success, and the Spartans are giving Cade the 6 yard completion at will, that may be all the Wolverines need. 

Of course, the game dramatically changes if one of a few things happen: 1.) MSU shuts down the run, 2.) MSU goes up early and Michigan has to play catch up, 3.) Michigan can't protect McNamara. When Cade drops back, the heat will come through the blitz. The good news is, Michigan's protection has been sharp this season and McNamara's willingness to focus on short passes has allowed him to take just three sacks all season, the second lowest mark in the NCAA. But this is also the stiffest pass rushing test since Wisconsin. 

The final, and most crucial, key to talk about is finishing drives. Michigan's going to be able to move the football one way or another, but they cannot get tight in the red zone again, as they did last week against Northwestern, and have at other times this year. MSU wants to keep you out of the end zone, and Michigan hasn't been good enough getting into the end zone once they get in goal-to-go situations. 

Michigan State is probably lucky to get to 7-0 given how they played against Nebraska and Indiana, but good teams find ways to win games they shouldn't. And bad ones lose games they should've won, and that fits the bill of Nebraska and Indiana. And honestly, Miami. Watching this game, I was amazed at how many errors Miami made, and how poorly coached they seemed. In this game they lost two fumbles, threw two interceptions, missed a FG, and had a TE drop an easy TD in the end zone. MSU has done well to win games by letting the opposition make self-inflicted wounds, and I think the Spartans are well coached, so all the credit to Mel Tucker's group there. Michigan, however, can't fall into that hole. Stick to the gameplan, finish drives, don't turn it over. Don't beat yourself.