All Hands on Deck! Time to Get Creative with Receivers

The receivers will be a strength . . . next year. This year, they are crashing the offense. They are simply unable to catch and hold on to the ball with enough consistency. And so, I think it's time to take drastic measures. MSU cannot survive without a passing game, but they can't rely on the current group of receivers. What to do, then?

I think it's time to put guys in there that can catch the ball and hold on to it, regardless of what position they were intended to play. I'm talking about guys like Lawrence Thomas and I'm talking about getting more tight ends and running backs in there. Whatever! All hands on deck!

LT has caught every reasonable pass thrown at him thus far, and Andrew Gleichert seems to have some decent hands. Why not throw some more passes their way? I don't know what the other tight ends look like, but if any one of them is showing good hands at the practices, the coaches need to consider using them instead of the receivers. I don't care if they have to burn redshirts!

Can Nick Hill catch the ball? I know Caper is supposed to have decent hands -- though he did drop one earlier this season. What about the other running backs?

I hate to say it, but MSU needs to look at what UM has done with their receivers. Coming into this season, UM's receiving situation looked to be about as bad as MSU's. Then they converted a quarterback into an adequate receiver and started a freshman tight end. Suddenly, their receiving situation looks much better than MSU's.

Look, MSU's receivers are very talented and should actually be spectacular next year. But the inexperience is obviously a problem. If MSU wants to win even 8 games this year, they need to stop banging their head against a wall and try something different. It might be as simple as using 2 tight ends more often, or dumping the ball off to LT 3 or 4 times a game. I don't know, but something has to change.

Spartans Make Significant Jumps on Offensive and Defensive Rankings

So as I mentioned in my preview of the Indiana game, a big game against Indiana would likely allow the Spartans to make significant moves up the national offensive and defensive rankings.  The Spartans came into the game ranked 8th on defense, allowing 16.5 points per game.  Well, after holding Indiana to just 3 points, the Spartans are now ranked 5th in the nation, allowing only 15.3 points per game.  That's elite territory folks.

On offense, the Spartans came into the game ranked 61st in the nation, scoring 27.6 points a game.  Well, MSU's performance against Indiana was good enough to move them up 17 slots all the way up to 44th in the country.  They scored 55 against Indiana and that took their season scoring average up to 30.1 points a game.   Not bad for an offense that was breaking in three offensive linemen and a new offensive coordinator, this year. 

Unfortunately, I think the Spartans are probably going to slide out of the top 5 on defense and they probably won't move up much further on offensive rankings.  For the next 2 weeks they will be facing two teams with decent offenses and defenses.  Northwestern and Wisconsin will both put up points against the Spartans.  The Spartans will also not be putting up 55 points on either of those teams.  However, I do believe the Spartan offense has turned a corner and will be able to score over 30 against Northwestern and Wisconsin.  More on that later.

In any case, the Spartans should probably still end the season in the top 10 on total defense, and perhaps get as high as top 40 on total offense.  Not bad at all.