Thoughts on WMU Game

OK, the Spartans won, but they certainly did not inspire much confidence. Things just don't look much different from last year. Here are a few things I noticed.

Offense

At times WMU's offense looked more competent even though they were playing against MSU's elite defense. That can't happen. That can't happen. MSU should have better talent, so MSU's offensive struggles are mostly on the coaches. I can accept that a program might struggle one year because it gets hit with a perfect storm of graduations. But two years in a row shows that you have a problem within your program.

Maxwell looked pretty good at times. At the end of the first half he looked outstanding, throwing some confident bullets right on the money. But overall, he struggled to move the offense. I did wonder more in this game whether Maxwell would excel in a more established offense.

Connor Cook runs very well, fast enough and tough enough to keep O'Connor and Terry on the bench - if in fact there were plans to use those guys to run the option or other running plays. He does appear to be less accurate than Maxwell, and I can see why the coaches worry about his decision making. But I think he is actually a good complement to Maxwell.

Langford looked explosive. He does look like a home run hitter. Too bad he didn't get many good holes to run through. Riley Bullough ran better in the first half. Otherwise, he didn't do too much. Nick Hill looked good at times.

MSU needs to evaluate its wide receiver coaches and/or its receiver recruiting. The receivers are not making progress. Fowler seems to get open a lot, but he must have dropped at least 3 catchable balls. Everyone else is not getting much separation, or running bad routes. I don't know, but the receivers did not look good.

The best offensive line of the Dantonio era did not look good. They struggled to open holes for the running backs and allowed the quarterbacks to get pressured too often. This unit will struggle against Notre Dame.

Defense

Looks very similar to last year, which is not a bad thing, overall.

Looks like teams are going to be trying to beat the defense with the long bombs. It does work sometimes. But the secondary does look better than last year.

The defensive line is still strong against the run, but doesn't get much penetration on its own -- except late in the game. Most of the penetration was the result of linebacker blitzes.

Special teams

There was a lot of sloppiness. Bad snaps, the punt returner struggled to locate the ball. But at least the kickers looked decent.

Coaches

The play-calling looked OK, except that on offense it seems that the coaches want to push plays that this offense just can't execute.

I know Dantonio likes to stay loyal to his guys, but it's danger time. If this offense does not improve by the end of this year, they need to go pick off Western Michigan's offensive coordinator, or some other outsider who can come in and change the offensive culture. The offensive struggles could put Dantonio on the hot seat by next year.