Thoughts on Wisconsin Game

I didn't think it was possible after the game against Notre Dame, but a big difference in this game was coaching. MSU looked well-coached, prepared, and creative for Notre Dame, but in this game it looks like the Wisconsin coaches came in better prepared. Paul Chryst was apparently calling the plays and he was simply excellent. Granted, their QB also showed some incredible accuracy. He was putting throws on the money. MSU was just not creative like they were against ND. On defense, Wisconsin was complex and aggressive. MSU was too soft.

Of course, the job of the MSU coaches was made much more difficult by the struggles of O'Connor. He was just too late and inaccurate on many throws. He does not look beyond the first read. And he doesn't have the arm strength and accuracy for the long passes. On the second interception he should have been able to spot a wide open Corely for a touchdown. That play in particular made me really question O'Connor's ability to lead this team to much success. I think the coaches will need to think hard about replacing him. He's a good kid, and it's always painful to see good kids struggle, but I just don't think he has what it takes to beat good defenses.

If O'Connor is the best QB on the team, then the coaches may have to let him loose. I think his struggles are partially connected to his excessive caution. He doesn't want to make mistakes, but that's causing him to throw late and lock onto receivers. So the coaches may need to let him become a gunslinger and they'll just have to live with the interceptions.

They also need to let the backup QBs play. This game was over by the fourth quarter, and the coaches should have immediately let Terry or Lewerke play. I don't know why O'Connor was still in there with less than 5 minutes to go. I do think that MSU has hurt the development of their younger QBs by not giving them more snaps in real games. I thought the coaches learned that lesson with Maxwell, but I guess they're getting another chance to learn that lesson again this year, and likely next year.

O'Connor was also not helped by the fact that the O-line also looked like a shell of itself in the ND game. Hopefully, Wisconsin didn't just show the world how to beat this O-line. Hopefully the performance against ND was not a fluke.

There is still time to turn things around, but MSU may need to do what Wisconsin just did: replace a senior QB with a redshirt freshmen QB.