There are many ways to take this loss. I'm going to take it as a loss to a championship team. Oregon is good. Really good. If they stay healthy, I think they should go all the way. MSU had to play it's best game to have a chance in this one, and as we saw, they didn't. The most disheartening thing was really how poorly several of MSU's stars played. Oh well, MSU tends to get stronger as the season goes on. So hopefully the Spartans will get another shot at Oregon.
Thoughts on Offense
Boy, I hope Oregon's D is good, real good, because otherwise, the Spartan O is in some trouble. The running game was definitely a problem. The inability to get much on first down runs forced changes to the game plan that just didn't work after the first half. MSU needs balance, so the running game needs to get on track.
That will require better play from the O-line. They had their moments, but overall, the O-line struggled to get much push and they allowed Cook to get pressured too much.The running backs didn't help much, either. They didn't have much space to run, but they also struggled to create much on their own, Langford in particular.
Cook looked pretty good, but not like the prodigy I thought he was last week. Some of the receivers could have done a little better. Though Lippett continues to excel. Price also played pretty well.
Thoughts on Defense
I hope the unbelievable number of blown coverages is something that goes away as the season progresses. The defense played well, overall, but the big plays killed them. It was sad to see Drummond blowing the coverage on 2 plays.
Trae Waynes stood out. He should be an All-American. Marcus Rush was also outstanding.
Special Teams
Shelton could finally be the explosive return guy MSU has been looking for since KMart.
The coverage was good against a speedy return team.
The kicking was good.
Coaching
Bottom line on this one is that the Oregon coaches seemed better prepared. They worked in effective plays that I have seen MSU use before, but didn't use today. For example, on one of Oregon's touchdowns, they had one receiver "screen" Hicks so that the other receiver could get wide open. MSU did that to Nebraska last year but they didn't use it at all today.
I'm pretty sure that one reason MSU had so many blown coverages is that the Oregon coaches threw in some wrinkles the Spartans secondary was not prepared for. Unfortunately, MSU did not seem to have come prepared with their own wrinkles.
Conclusion
MSU is further along than they ever have been at this point in the year. So that's encouraging. I think they have what it takes to run the table in the B1G. But they have to be focused and hungry. Sadly, I take the fact that several of their stars struggled today as a sign of some complacency.
