In his piece today, Graham Couch writes about the sluggish start for the Big Ten and how Michigan State is currently carrying the flag for the conference.
Seven teams from the conference already have losses, which includes Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska.
Wisconsin has even parted ways with its offensive line coach after two games.
MSU has looked the best of all the Big Ten teams postseason eligible and this could be the year that the Rose Bowl drought ends, which is something I mentioned in the five things we’ve learned about the Spartans going in tomorrow’s paper.
The way things look now you would think MSU should be favored in the rest of their games. And that Ohio State game at the end of the month looks to be the toughest on the schedule.
Earlier today, the time for the contest against Eastern Michigan on Sept. 22, was announced. The Spartans will face the Eagles at 3:30 p.m. and the game will be aired on the Big Ten Network. This is the game that the 2012 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame inductees will be honored. That means Shawn Respert, Clinton Jones and Carl Banks will be among those in attendance.
Speaking of Respert, that leads me into this I found on basketball. Star hoops recruit Jahlil Okafor blogs for USA Today. He mentions about how he talks with Izzo a lot and a desire to get to an MSU football game with Tyus Jones – another top rrecruit.
And then there is another story of a Spartan football player taking to Twitter to make comments. This time it was wide receiver DeAnthony Arnett, who is unhappy with how he was portrayed in the media. I retweeted a couple of his tweets from this morning, but it appears Arnett has taken those down. Rexrode has a recap of the tweets.
Lastly, here’s a stat I found interesting. MSU only has one sack this season, which ranks tied for 109th nationally and last in the Big Ten. The Spartans’ lone sack came when William Gholston got to CMU QB Ryan Radcliff on Saturday. Boise State is a team that doesn’t really take many sacks (I believe they yielded just eight sacks last season), so that has much to do with that total to this point.
Firefox
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Couch’s article was was a bit of a head scratcher. “Of course, the problem with this is it only makes it more difficult for MSU or anyone else to survive the rest of the season unscathed, which only weakens the perception of the league nationally.” I guess his point was that the “usual third tier” teams beat whoever they beat and are 2-0 and a threat. I would have to check who they played to agree. Purdue’s narrow loss to ND may not mean much.
Interesting that Wisconsin’s O line coach is gone.
As far as the Arnett tweets…big deal.
Very sad that Graham Couch has called the Rose Bowl a consolation prize. I am glad that Bubba Smith is no longer around to read that.
He’d call the Potato “vile and disparaging” and I’d agree.
Couch Potato doesn’t impress, Brian you can hype him all you want, he is still not sponge-worthy. That article looks like a MAC writer to gloating over the fall from grace of a BCS conference.
Whickey firing is simply Bluemia throwing someone else under the bus, shifting the blame away from himself. He needs to look in the mirror. When the old coach left to be AD, Bluemia had a very very full cupboard of coaches and players, they are all gone now and his ineptness is showing. I think you could count on 1 finger the number of games an O-line coach has lost for a team.
Hope you are not talking about Skylers one finger, that’s a joke
Now THAT’S comedy!!
Joe Rexrode ain’t walking through that door people.
Brian and Chris feed the troops just fine, but then LSJ hires a hack who doesn’t know the first thing about Major conference athletics AND has an ax to grind. Deplorable.
here, here…
Cut the Potato into fries, add chili and cheese and feed him to Solari.
Ben,
Rayburn gets a single off a tee ball pitch then commits the 85th error by the Tigers this year.
Raburn always makes some of the worst defensive plays. I’ll never forget that ball that bounced off his glove over the wall for a homer against Seattle. And why would Austin Jackson defer to Raburn on anything?
Brian, I knew we had one sack, just didn’t know it was that bad nationally. ND’s QB’s are tough to get at due to the style so it will be a challenge for our guys. We do make QB’s nervous, regardless of sacks and the reputation is having an effect. CMU’s QB blew a lot of simple passes – I say they’re hearing some big footsteps.
On Wiscy and the firing of their OL coach, I’m just simply glad we have the coach we do. That just will not happen here under Mark Dantonio. Apparently, Beleima was not hiring for the long haul.
IDIT
PU got to the South Niles’ QB’s 5 times.
Yeah they were pm Radcliff the entire CMU game, so you’re right about them having an impact. Radcliff completed 17 of 38 passes so you see the results there.
There are only five teams in the nation without a sack and three of them (Boise State, Baylor and UAB) have only played one game
Brian do you think NDs style will allow pressure off the edge to sack Everett Golston or is it more tight coverage and ball hawking?
Hard for me to say because I have still yet to see any of the Purdue game (hopefully tomorrow after interviews I will) or what they did to have success in getting those five sacks against Notre Dame. Purdue star DT Kawaan Short had two of those sacks of Golson. I did see a good chunk of Notre Dame’s opener against Navy. I thought that game was just a bad gauge because Navy was so unimpressive.
Back to one of your healines:
I’m not sure it’s ncaa legal to talk to Coach Izzo all the time, I know they have releaxed those rules, but this makes it sound like it’s morning, noon, and night.
Comes with being an upfront guy, Dantonio would Roger up and take the heat for the season and make a change afterwards, Congrats on the Scoutmaster inauguration tonight.
We are so lucky to have Coach’s Dantonio, izzo, etal.
Earning a scholarship is every walk-ons dream.
U of SoCal walk-on linebacker Will Andrew saw his dream come true when the school awarded him with a scholarship.
Andrew’s dream, however, fell apart when linebacker Simione Vehikite was released from jail last week after serving a little more than three months for leaving the scene of a car accident. Vehikite was driving with a .08 percent blood-alcohol level and sentenced to a year in jail.
After his early release, Vehikite was put back on scholarship by U of SoCal head coach Lane Kiffin at the expense of Andrew.
Interesting our neighbors first husband was Mark Flores, UCLA QB 1971, she says her ex hates Kiffin on a lot of differant levels for stories like that.
Soooo, downtown is the classy part of greater L.A.?…
Big game this weekend when my Spartans take on the Irish. Mike Golic of @MikeandMike: Care to make a friendly wager?
I am not allowed to bet, right now I would say that Mark Dantonio has the tougher team, that is of more championship quality, but I will say that the coach of my Alma Mater feels that Dantonio no longer has the ability to read his book after last years game in South Bend.
These coaches will underestimate the other at their team’s peril.
I was expecting a lot of resistance from Notre Dame in the trenches this year. What do you think happened with the O line v. Purdue? Did they simply not take Purdue’s front four as seriously as they should have?
Pursue is that tough up front.
1 thing Belt, last years team that went to South Niles had a 1st time group of O-line, if we’d played the drunks later in the season the outcome would have been hugely different. (that’s not a woulda, shoulda, coulda, it’s an assessment of the way the O-line developed – earl;y they were like Whiskey’s, later they got it done agains a darn good sec team) And, you can tell Kelly for me that he can go right on believing any drivel he wants, please underestimate Coach Dantonio, please.
So does that include Golf matches, too?
Funny you mention wagering. As I wrote elsewhere:
Las Vegas favors Michigan State to win. In fact, the betting line opened at 2½ points, but has increased to 5 points in favor of the Spartans. MSU [football] has finally gotten the national lay-person’s respect. The Spartans must now show that they’re worthy of retaining it.
Easy money, 1 he’s a grad so he must bet and 2 he works with all the sec infected parrots who are still anti-MSU, so he thinks you are throwing it away.
Big development deal going down in Detroit. Hope your proposal I accepted. The D needs all the assistance you can provide.
Stick a Fork in the Tigers, they’re done.
Ben, another quality start?
Taking the day off sports in tribute for the Americans who died 11 years ago today, see you tomorrow.
For MSU to win, Roushar needs to get some help from Dantonio and become more cerebral in his offensive calls. He was terrible in the Boise St. game and made it so much harder on Maxwell to get into a rythym. Hard to judge CMU since everyone knew were going heavy on the pass game for the benefit of reps, but Roushar needs to step-up this season. Never thought I would miss Treadwell, but I’m close.
Overall, I think the Spartans have a legit team this year, but similar to last year, our ultimate success will depend on our QB play (greatly influenced by Roushar). Cousins was shaky at beginning of last season too, but Maxwell needs to stop throwing these wobbly balls and just play. He’s not a freshman. I was genuienly surprised at how he showed his nerves against CMU in the beginning. If he does it against ND, we’ll be down 10-0 at end of 1st Q.
Should be a good game on Saturday. Go Green.
And we’ve heard from the negative nancies very early, indeed!
IDIT
Not so young marine,
The book is very hard to read this year, how high does that register on your concern-0-meter, having the stronger team but going up against a coaching genius?
Let’s see, qb controversy, 52 yards against a middling B1G D, and a secondary that doesn’t seem to cover very well pretty much sums up the primer on South Niles CC this year.
Purdue returned 16 starters and will likely win their division, even with Mavre out. Middling?
I’m getting tired of these stickball comments and going home.
Negative Nancy? Should I call you Kool-Aid Karen?
To set the record straight, I couldn’t be any more excited about the Spartans this year, and I have high hopes for Maxwell, but if anybody out there hasn’t noticed the wobbly balls from him (not just the uncatchable fast balls) and poor play calls by Roushar (Perles-esque) against Boise St., they need to put down the Kool-Aid and watch the tape again. My point here is that the ND game and probably OSU game are going to be tough tests because we’re going to be spotting each of them 7-10 points via offensive blunders (that will be fixed by mid-way point in our season). Thankfully, our defense is probably the best I’ve seen at MSU in 25 years, so luckily we’ll be able to recover from most of these mistakes (while riding Le’Veon) and still get the Ws.
If MSU gets to 5-0…watch out. Could be truly special year.
FU 2 with IDIT comment. No need to go there.
Class, son, pure class
Comedy, son, pure comedy. Last time I checked, I wasn’t 23.
Sounds like somebody likes to throw around jabs, yet can’t handle it when it somebody thinks it’s BS and gives it back. Perhaps you should spend your time elsewhere.
Son, you just let your mouth keep on writing those checks that your body can’t cash. Let me introduce you to my little friend, GBU-57A/B , coming to a near basement, soon .
NJRob, time to lighten up. Maxwell has now started 2 CFB games. I’m sure the view from your seats are wonderful but you might consider cutting him some slack. There’s not a throw in the PB that Maxwell cannot make. The play calling was not an issue, the film will help you there.
The play calling has been fine so far. Variety and balance.
Rob – I agree with you that QB play will determine how far this team goes, but I disagree about Maxwell throwing wobbly balls. If anything, a big part of his problem has been throwing fastballs when a nice easy changeup is what’s needed. There were passes in both games that didn’t get completed bc Maxwell just put way too much into them. The thing is, this is the week he needs to have acquired touch, he won’t be able to afford mistakes like he made against Boise & CMU.
It was Maxwell’s first road start v. CMU. We should expect him to be comfortable [but not perfect!] starting his second home night game Saturday. Roushar and Dantonio do need to demonstrate that they learn from their mistakes and that their offense can own the field. On the former, I think they’ve been at least satisfactory so far. But the stakes have risen; this is the game where they must show that the BSU win was no fluke and MSU deserves to be the favorite in games until someone better can stop them. I can hardly wait! Go White!
Here ya go, new fodder: UCLA is under investigation for recruiting violations in boys Basketball:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/pac12/story/2012-09-03/ucla-disputes-reports-about-recruits/57563830/1
How the mighty have fallen. Coach W must be rolling right now. Ahhh the glory that was …..
It should be quite a game this weekend, I think ND’s defensive front is as good as any that MSU will see this year, and it will be a huge challenge for our o-line. I just hope Roushar doesn’t try to get too cute like last season, with his unbalanced lines in that game that ND just blew up.
Play smart & conservatively on O, and aggressive on D against the qb making his first road start (the “@ Navy” game in Dublin doesn’t count as a roadie at all), and we should get win #3.
They can’t win if they can’t score. Agent 86 (love that one) just needs to manage the game and avoid the big turnover. The D will do their job and it’s time for Hill to take one to the house.
Haven’t been to a game in years, but I’ll be there this weekend.
Pound Green Pound!
Would appreciate if anyone has any inside comments from practice this week, on Mark Dantonio”s schematics and how he plans to utilize cover 2 and gap rushes.
Would love to hear any details you fellas might have regarding his game plan. This is a championship caliber defense in E Lansing.
Check out Hondo Carpenter’s blog Spartan Nation, he always seems to get good quotes from both staff & players. But I hope you don’t mind video/audio, he puts a ton of that up there.
Thanks MSU Dersh,
I will tap into that resource. I have a friend who is attempting to read a very complicated book in a short period of time and this will help him out.
Kelly needs more than the audio version. It’s interesting that you are helping a B1G opponent when your livelihood comes from the B1G. I guess loyalty is about as important to you as finishing 1st.
No so young marine, let’s just pretend for the moment that you graduated from the Air Force Academy, and that you are an employee of Michigan State. Now Air Force is coming to East Lansing and you know that Michigan State has a better ball club. Now Fischer Deberry calls you
Up and asks for help. You could not turn your back on your alma mater, even though your head tells you that Michigan State will win, hope this satisfies you.
Yes I could, it’s like the Drunk who comes on here when he’s not yakking about Paris Hilton squeaking by your named USAF Academy which is the same type athletes as USNA an incidentally, South Niles CC beat the dog poop out of the Ensigns (no 2nd LT.’s could have possibly been on that team to lose to those yahoos); He gets paid by Paris Hilton, he knows which side his bread is buttered and he wants to continue to finish 1st, not 3rd in life.
Don’t tell anyone, but MD intends to run the triple option for 40% of the snaps. He will then use Nick Hill in the Wildcat for at least 10 snaps. 50% will be Bennie Fowler reverses. The remaining 80% will be Bell runs.
Even an old goat is too smart for that one.
The plays and schemes don’t matter. 90% of the game is mental, the other half is physical.
So you and Golic lurking on blogs like some dirty ole’ men at the girls soccer game? looking for help for Auntie Kelly? you guys are really sorry.
I told ya man, he passes when he should run and he runs when he should pass.
Brian & Chris – great job getting the twitter feed up on the blog, it’s a great way for you guys to add insight and good links throughout the day. And it saves some of our old-timers from having to figure out how to use the Twitter!!
Just caught the ESPN trailer for the ND game Saturday night, it was great, and got me really pumped up!!!
Chuck Long is stuck in the 80′s, asking about is it different facing a passing team. Wow, guy’s right there on the pulse of the B1G.