Official Post Game Thread
Someone has to do it...Obviously not our best effort. This one is on the offense. The defense had horrible breakdowns BUT overall enough stops to win imho. The offense however did not produce. What matters though is what we do from here on out. We've got a tough stretch starting with Iowa, Penn State and Illinois coming up. We need to get over this fast...Oh and I hope this thread doesn't turn into an anti RRod rant.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:40 PM ^
Im going to get every thread deleted by calling you all losers. hahahahaha. enjoy the richrod era.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:47 PM ^
October 9th, 2010 at 7:40 PM ^
Just wished I could have seen us beat sparty at home once before I graduated.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:56 PM ^
I would have imagined that most people in your class would have been more disappointed to have never beaten OSU, period. Oh well, hopefully that ignominy will end this year! We will be back and we will be Champions again.
HAIL.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:17 PM ^
As discouraging as this was, there is still a chance we could beat osu. Plus, other classes have lost 4 games to osu.
Losing to msu 3 out of 4 times is pathetic and no class has done that since the 60's. We don't deserve that (seriously did I kill someone in a past life or something? wtf)
October 9th, 2010 at 7:43 PM ^
But they've been deleted. Because apparently it's easier than keeping out the trolls.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:52 PM ^
Well, we've been asking for Robinson to be more aggressive. I think we saw today what happens with this defense being more aggressive with those 2 long TD runs by MSU. I'm looking forward to seeing how poorly Ezeh did in the UFR.
October 9th, 2010 at 10:38 PM ^
yeah ezeh continues to blow my mind how bad he is. not only missed assignments and poor reads, but also tackling. i like the fact that gerg was aggressive but it really just exploits our terrible secondary
October 9th, 2010 at 7:49 PM ^
I'm more upset that we lost to MSU and D'antonio and the rest of the crew from "loudest talkers from no accomplishmentsville" than the fact that M lost. I'm going to get too worried until I see how next week goes...
October 9th, 2010 at 7:51 PM ^
I'm happy to see that this board is completely under control after a tough day like today.
My props to all the mods and the level headers who have been posting.
There is no way to sugar coat it, this game blew. But there were certainly some moments that, had they gone the other way, could have given us a chance to win.
In the end though, we were not the better team on the field. Bottom line, we have to move on and get ready for Iowa.
The offense was not clicking today. But any game that it does we will have a chance to win. Here's to getting it clicking at home next week!
Keep the faith! This is not 2009! I will hold true to that opinion until when/if I am proven wrong when the clocks read 0:00 against OSU.
Go Blue!
October 9th, 2010 at 7:54 PM ^
We do need to get better in a number of areas. This hurt, but I'll take it if we learn from it and get a W on Nov 27.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:57 PM ^
connection
October 9th, 2010 at 8:02 PM ^
This is the same team that went 5-0, except our Offense let us down this time..That is the only difference, I actually thought our D played better but a lose is a lose...on to Iowa, no one really expected us to go undefeated.
October 9th, 2010 at 9:49 PM ^
There have been perfectly reasonable, non-"UNACCEPTABLE fire GERG aarrggh" posts deleted after this game (full disclosure, mine was one). It's one thing to delete those, another IMO to delete reasonable posts because of some persons idea of what is too much volume or not. Sorry, I disagree with that. People can wade though the posts they think are relevant or non relevant,
October 9th, 2010 at 7:50 PM ^
Can't turn the ball over four times (twice in the red zone) and expect to win. I wish they would have ran Denard more, I wish the WR's would have caught the ball.
Scoring only 17 with the D we have isn't going to cut it. The play's where there they just didn't make them.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:51 PM ^
Time to move on guys. The L is a L no matter how much we all want to rant about it. Let's look foward to Iowa.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:52 PM ^
I'm curious why we didn't run denard in the red zone on those two drives. He's an amazing player I felt like he got put in situations he shouldn't have been in. Looked like we could run the ball well. We can not expect Denard to throw all day. I felt like we could have been more balances and weren't.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:02 PM ^
Yeah I was surprised how pass happy they where today. It was kinda like last year with Tate. I expected Denard to take off a few times and he just didn't. I thought they would run him on first or second more and they didn't.
But the play's where there. RR didn't throw 4 picks and have "x" amount of drops. This was on the players today. They just didn't show up.
RR has been telling them all year they aren't good enough to play average and win. They found that out today.
October 9th, 2010 at 9:13 PM ^
Very well said.
And, when it comes down to it, we expected at the beginning of the year that there were going to be days like today. It sucks that we had one of those days for this game though.
Denard is a first-year starter. Hopefully he'll learn from his mistakes and the team will bounce back. I'm confident that will happen.
It comes down to this - with the turnovers we had, we would have lost to any team in a game like that.
IIRC, we had the 3 INT's. Those - literally - were the difference in the score.
2 of our INT's occurred deep in the redzone on drives that presumably would have been TDs. That's 14 points right there we missed out on. And 1 of them led to an MSU touchdown. That's a 21 point swing. Take away the turnovers and we win.
So the takeaway from this is that while the loss sucks - we lost today due to factors that are fixable. It's not like we lost b/c of a talent deficiency.
As you said...echoing RR....this team can't play average and win. We played average, we didn't win. That's the bottom line.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:01 PM ^
except there were a couple of big time drops by receivers. I agree, though, that times where I expected Denard to just run for 5-10 yards, they were passing, and I don't think it was the right decision. I'm not angry, but I'm not numb, and it's the first time in three years. That simple fact, for me, makes this whole year a win so far.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:17 PM ^
The play calling seemed out of rhythm if that makes any sense? Like we got away from our strengths. I am curious to see Brian's take on what adjustments if any MSU made after drive 1 because we never ran the ball that well consistently again.
Not scoring on that first drive when we clearly had their defense back on their heels was defeating. MSU playing from behind right away with their defense lacking confidence would have changed the dynamic and put more pressure on their offense. That was a big turn. Even though early in the game.
Same as any other game, our offense has to protect our defense by jumping on teams and scaring them into feeling like they have to score. When the opposition is in the lead or within 3 points with the ball, that advantage is nullified.
The defense was plenty good enough to win today, and the offense as the strength of our team just didn't make enough plays.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:36 PM ^
I didn't particularly like the playcalling on offense today. I felt like Denard was not given enough opportunities to run in the redzone, when the passing game was obviously off in that area. Also felt like we got away from a lot of the screen passes that seem to usually be good for 5-10 yards most of the time and took too many chances throwing downfield. This game reminded me of last season - turnovers just killed us. I think we'll learn and bounce back next week against Iowa, but I think we need to stick with what worked in the first 5 games, and not change the gameplan so much to exploit percieved weaknesses, i.e. the MSU secondary.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:56 PM ^
I have moved past the anger stage and am now in my Detroit Lions apathy stage. I just don't expect much from this team.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:57 PM ^
It was the turnovers deep that were the difference. Times when Denard would have run in the past, he threw into coverage instead. He's a sophomore and these days happen. The breaks didn't go our way, and we knew that we would need a lot of breaks this year to overcome our defense. Sparty made the big play, and we didn't. It isn't the end of the world. We were a couple plays from having a chance to win this game.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:59 PM ^
I think the thing that makes me the most upset is punting with 6 min to go. Just flat out giving up. Maybe i'm missing something but to give up like that against michigan state of all teams is unacceptable (UNACCEPTABLE ARGGGGG! etc)
October 9th, 2010 at 8:11 PM ^
I was also very ANGAR at that, as were about 100% of the students around me. It was then that we knew it was an inevitability. It took all the wind out of the fans, like a huge dong punch saying "we'll save you the trouble and just admit it: we're gonna lose". That hurt a lot.
EDIT: RR said in his presser that he was trying to change this play to go for it, and if he had to do it over again and go for it, he would.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:27 PM ^
that's good to know at least, calms the angar a bit. thanks for the update
October 9th, 2010 at 9:35 PM ^
I just don't understand that logic. The head coach wants to go for it on 4th down and the punt team goes out on the field and punts the ball. Who is in charge? How do we allow such a breakdown in communication to occur like this? How can we not change the play, if that is what the head coach wanted? It doesn't make me feel better that Coach said that in the press conference. It make me feel worse because we have such a significant coaching communication issue on the sidelines, this late in the season. Did it cost us the game, no. Is it an indicator of something going on that could come along and bite our ass later, maybe... Let's hope the coaches get this "fixable" issue corrected ASAP....
October 9th, 2010 at 7:59 PM ^
Painful loss but its not the end of the world. I have faith that this team will bounce back and win a few more games this season. Iowa will be tough but we will get to see what kind of heart this team has. Go blue!
October 9th, 2010 at 8:00 PM ^
All I can say that this was the hardest time I've ever had trying to muster up enough restraint to not retaliate to all the Spartan fans on the way back home from the stadium. I've never had so many evil things go through my head before, but the thought of jail time always deters me from bringing them to fruition.
This will be a tough loss to get over, but in time, the pain will fade, and the best medicine is more winning. The thing I keep thinking about is how we're still one more win away from a bowl, and we have 6 chances to get that win. The odds are still in our favor to finish strong, especially given how PSU and Purdue have been playing thus far. It's just too bad we don't get Minnesota as well.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:08 PM ^
is what separates you from being a Spartan
October 9th, 2010 at 9:03 PM ^
And my IQ, and the degree on my wall, and my ability to resolve issues/celebrate without a lighter.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:01 PM ^
the offense was off .....and we will never be able to win a game against a quality team if we only score 17 points. Our defense is just not able to do that yet.
They got gashed for long plays and were pretty much what we knew them to be today.
Unless we play a very poor offensive team....we have to win shoot-outs.
Denard was just off today....poor throws....poor reads....poor decisions. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Lets hope he learns from it and comes back with a huge game next week.
I still love my Wolverines!
October 9th, 2010 at 8:02 PM ^
I watched some of the presser and I feel for these players. RVB was close to tears and I read Denard had possibly been crying, too. This is a team that really cares and I admire the passion. We should get behind these players 100% and move on to Iowa. Losing sucks more for them than for us.
Sparty played a great game today - congratulations to their team. As for the trolls on this board dissing us, you're just a black mark on your team and you have no understanding of what it means to be a true winner. Crawl back to EL.
Go Blue!
October 9th, 2010 at 8:04 PM ^
that has a defense that cannot get off the field on 3rd and 15 numerous times. Denard is good, he had a bad outing, but our defense is a serious problem. call it youth, call it what you will, but there is no reason or excuse to put a defense like that on the field week in and week out. We need to spend the rest of the recruiting efforts on the defensive side of the ball. Neg away, but there is talent on this team and if Greg Robinson can't do anything with this talent then RR needs to send him on his way, or he could be sent packing before the OSU game, and thats a real possibility!
October 9th, 2010 at 8:48 PM ^
1) We were -3 in turnovers, and they were TERRIBLE turnovers.
2) Their defensive line completely owned us for three quarters.
The defense is the whipping boy, and fine, it is not as good. But this game turned on those two fundamental issues. We can't expect our defense to keep things close if the offense gives the ball away, especially at the end of scoring drives.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:05 PM ^
I am just feeling for Denard right now. I really believe that he will bounce back and use this as a learning experience; I just know it must be a difficult time right now.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:05 PM ^
I just want to say what do people expect, that we were going undefeated this year. Denard was bound to make some mistakes, he is a sophomore and was nearly perfect for the year. We are 5-1, not 1-5. I like that our D mades some stops, and they played hard and GERG made some good calls. Relax everyone, I hate losing to MSU too, but this team is getting better. And one last thing, We got Dee.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:16 PM ^
Exactly; the team is off to a great start and this is only one loss. MSU has a very good team and no one really expected an undefeated season.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:20 PM ^
Are you being bombarded with "GO GREEN! GO WHITE!"
Then don't tell people not to be pissed. There is NOTHING worse than this
October 9th, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^
Who said not to be upset, be upset, I am, but just look at the bright side. If you think there is nothing worse than this, I am not sure what to tell you. Some people are about to jump off a cliff. Sparty is a good team and they played well.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:55 PM ^
Ask Phil Brabbs if there's nothing worse.
October 9th, 2010 at 9:47 PM ^
Then don't get excited when we win or when Dee Hart signs or anything. Because it's not like something important, like beating cancer. That comparison is such bullshit.
October 9th, 2010 at 9:49 PM ^
Those that are "Eh, just one loss" (even though that doesn't take into account that it was one winnable loss...with some no chance to win still coming), are all out of State and no where near any Sparties. Tell thatto the recruits of Detroit.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:06 PM ^
- The ints killed us, obviously.
- MSU had a better D than I gave them credit for. You don't intercept balls without being in position to make those plays.
- The offense's mistakes were either uncharacteristic of their skill level (ints and drops) or indicative of their skill level. We won't know which is the case until after a few more B10 games. Gotta protect the ball and gotta catch it.
- I didn't like running with Vincent Smith so much. I had been a huge proponent of his previously, but I'm starting to flip to Brian's side on this one. I would have loved to see more plays with Hopkins to try to pick up an extra yard here and there.
- 4th and 1? GO FOR IT.
- D still needs a ton of work on tackling. Also, it should be the easiest sell in the world to bring in linebackers and DBs. "Come to Michigan. Play on day 1."
- Congrats to Sparty. They played as well as they needed to on both sides of the ball. They've got a good team this year, and with their schedule they could really make a move.
- I still love Denard with the fire of a thousand suns.
- Anyway, I'm frustrated, hungry, and ready to decompress a bit. I look forward to the next few games. Iowa could be a close game if we can execute better, and we really should be Illinois, Purdue, and Penn State if we're on our game.
October 9th, 2010 at 8:29 PM ^
I love the little guy, but I'm really miffed at why RR keeps using him on 3rd and short situations. It absolutely makes no sense. Also, I liked what I saw from Hopkins today and don't understand why he didn't get more attempts.
October 9th, 2010 at 9:15 PM ^
Yup. I have no problem using him on 1st and 10 or 2nd and 6 or something, but Hopkins (or Shaw or Cox) give us a better chance to pick up short yardage first downs, IME. Smith is a warrior, and I wouldn't trade him for the world, but Mike Hart he is not. He's definitely better in some situations than others.
October 9th, 2010 at 11:09 PM ^
I thought it odd that Shaw didn't play more. Perhaps the injury wasn't as healed as we thought?
October 9th, 2010 at 8:40 PM ^
Agreed that the offense wasn't clicking after the ints. It seemed to have made Denard think twice the whole game. When the offense didn't play up to par, I think this put too much pressure on the defense.
This team is going to get better and mature. They won't press as much when we get behind. I felt we gave this game away more than State earned it. As we mature and get better players, this team is going to be dangerous.