Thoughts on UM Game

Disclaimer: I made the mistake of trying to watch this game with friends and fam, which led to various reasons I had to miss chunks of the game. Anyway, here are my thoughts on what I was able to catch.

Offense

The o-line is still struggling to get a push and that hurt the running game. They did a better job today of pass protection, however. Overall, they did as good as they could do, considering the injuries.

Maxwell played better than last week, but he's got to work on not overthrowing receivers. That has produced 2 interceptions in the last 2 weeks.

The receivers continue to improve, but they did drop a couple that good receivers normally catch.

The running backs almost cost MSU the game. Bell and Caper were careless with the ball and they almost lost what would have been backbreaking fumbles.

Defense

They really showed a lot of heart in this one. They put forward the kind of effort that makes you stand up and clap.

As painful as this loss is, the defense gives me hope.  If everyone comes back next year, this will be a championship level defense. The only non-elite part of it will be the defensive tackles. But even there, they should be solid.

Special teams

MSU is really facing the perfect storm of scoring impotence this year. The struggling offense is complemented with a struggling kicker. Conroy missed a very key field goal again. His struggles could not have come at worse time.

Coaches

The defensive plan was brilliant. The fake field goal was brilliant.

The offensive play calling was better than last week, but still kind of disappointing. I wanted to see more clock-killing running plays in the final 2 drives, but the coaches went to the passing again. I admit that the play calling was largely a matter of preference. I think the calls that were made could be defended, so these are just my 2 cents.

Upshot

The next 3 games will likely go pretty much like this one. I just hope the Spartans are on the winning side of at least 1 of them.