Folks, I'm the biggest Spartan slappy (as evidenced by my foolish prediction that this team would go 12-2), but even I know that this season is lost. Incredibly, the offense is worse than last year, even as the defense is better. The offense scored one touchdown against a team that gave up 53 points last week. That simply does not bode well.
I think we've seen enough now to say that the Spartans could easily miss a bowl game and Mark Dantonio could end up on the hot seat by then end of this season. The bottom line is the offensive culture needs to change, and I think the best way to do that is to bring in new offensive coaches. I actually hoped Dantonio would bring in new people at the end of last year, but I also thought his moves this off-season would work -- I guess they didn't.
If I were Dantonio, I would already be looking around for a talented offensive coordinator. I would look for someone that is relatively similar in style to what MSU currently has (pro-style) and that pays attention to detail. MSU's offense seems to be hurt by a lot of the little things breaking down: bad blocking, dropped passes, slightly inaccurate quarterbacks, poor selling of fakes, etc.
Other than that, here's a brief list of things I saw in this game:
- The quarterbacks will not save this team. Maxwell is not mobile/creative enough, and the mobile/creative guys are too inexperienced, inaccurate, and mistake-prone. Maybe someone like Manziel could do something with this offense, but you don't want to build a program that relies on such rare talents. Sorry to many folks, but O'Connor does look like the number 3 QB. The order to me is still Maxwell > Cook > O'Connor, and I would just ride Maxwell and Cook the rest of the year. Unless Terry really is better than all of them, and I just don't think that is the case.
- Receivers seem to regress in this program. Burbridge is actually worse than last year. Will Kings get worse, the longer he stays in this program?
- The offensive line is supposed to be good, but they look lost. Poor pass protection, don't consistently open holes. There were some young guys playing (Conklin and Clark) so it's harder to blame it all on the coaches, but MSU's o-lines have struggled for years, so I'm leaning more than ever towards believing that the coaches deserve most of the blame.
- The running backs have talent, but that talent is limited by the struggles of the o-line and the rest of the offense.
- Special teams looked bad. Muffed punt, missed chip-shot field goal, no explosive plays. I guess the punting looked good, at least.
- The team looks generally undisciplined. Too many big penalties.
- The defense is elite, but that just breaks my heart.
Upshot: the offense looks set to break records in futility this year and will likely cost MSU a bowl game. Worst of all, this season could set the program back, and could even unmake much of what has been built in the Dantonio era.
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