Lets talk about the MSU game

It's their super bowl.   Never easy.  I hope for a convincing win, no injuries and on to Rutgers.

Critical. 

This game is way bigger than we'd hope.

It has narrative & the Big Ten / refs and media are working against Michigan as I type.  

I'm convinced.  Just look at the horrific refereeing (I mean, we can not even cheer for ourselves on defense when we make a play without a penalty).  

The "commish" of the Big Ten's son (6th year) is on the spartans and they WANT them to win. 

I'll be pleasantly SHOCKED if Michigan wins.  

Some watch-out-for's: 

Critical down & distance Penalties for- unsportsmanlike, pass interference, holding, sideline warnings, targeting. 

Michigan vs Everybody.

Go BLUE. 

Is holding included in the rules this year? Asking for a friend

MSU 10 UM 95 would be a good score. 

Getting the lead early with drives that end in TDs will be key. The sooner Michigan can go up by 3 scores or 17-21 pts, the better. One or two Jake Moody FG is OK but not in the first half.

Prevent WR Jayden Reed from having a career day like Walker did last year. Hutchinson had the strip sack on Thorne last year and his TD was called back. If our DL can put on that same pressure, Thorne won't be as accurate in his throws. The Mich secondary should be able to cover their WR better than Wisc did.

MSU will counter with a hurry-up offense, at least as fast as what we saw Indiana do. They will have a few trick plays as well. I'd like to see Mich do the same, ie-double pass and flea flickers, jet sweeps and end-arounds.

The big key is not to let sparty hang around.

Michigan is a much better team.  We may not stomp them but if Michigan keeps the pedal to the metal and there isn't crazy a$$ F#@!$%y then our chance of losing is very small (less than 10% per SP+)

I do hope our defense plays a bit more conservatively on 3rd and 4th Downs-   MSU seems to love throwing deep fades on 4th and 4 & has been ridiculously successful on these attempts

DT Slade and S Henderson are back, they moved Windom to LB with Brule, and they are getting some of their younger guys PT. They supposedly looked better against Wisconsin but Wisconsin is not good, just fired their HC, and just had to kick a player off their team for fighting. 

They cannot run the ball, stop the run, or stop the pass. I think this is going to look a lot like 2019 but perhaps with more success on the ground.

I know we've shit the bed a few times recently against State, but I'm confident this game will be very similar to the 2019 result.

MSU isn't nearly as good a team as Penn State.... they will try what they will try.  They're playing with their traditional chip on their shoulder and the sick confidence that they can beat us no matter the talent differential (because we've given them that in the past).... 

I suspect we probably pass more against them than we did last Saturday, possibly using the pass to spread the defense out and set up the running game.  That said, I think we will still rush for 200 to 300yards.   

Onward, GO BLUE.....     Paul misses his home and will soon be back.

i fully expect staee to go full asshole in this game. 

i expect choking, nut punching, and ankle twisting at the bottom of the pile. i expect cheap shots on JJ. wouldn't be surprised to see a backup safety come in on a blitz and go head hunting to try to concuss him, and happily accept the targeting call to get JJ out of the game.

if staee cant win on the field, they will try to make sure they ruin michigan's season ... both if possible

The good news is I don't think the guys, coaches, fans, anyone is taking it for granted. I think that place will be absolutely rocking with all folks mentioned above out for blood with no mercy on the mind. Loved the way JJ and team quickly turned from psu to the msu game. No time to celebrate...go get Paul.

I'll talk after Harbaugh beats Mel Tucker. Otherwise right now we got nothing to brag about. They are having a horrible year. We're looking past them and everyone else eyeing an undefeated matchup vs. OSU. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

I honestly think we're a better match for them than we've been in Harbaugh's entire tenure. Michigan should be able to move the ball on the ground and through the air. The secondary is more established than last year or especially the horror of the 2020 game. The defense can cheat a little bit because Michigan doesn't have to account for the prodigy Kenneth Walker III. Plus it's a night game and at home. If the weather doesn't provide a monsoon for Staee, I think Michigan wins going away, something close to the end result of the Penn State game.

I wonder if Kevin Warren's son will travel with the Spartans for the game, and - if Kevin Warren will be "watching from above", which I'm  sure the officials will notice.

This isn't to be a "pile on Tucker" type post, but when you watch them they just are really poorly coached across the board. They lack talent at specific groups, but it isn't to the extent to what they have put out there this year. Offensively, they have a decent QB (who does seem to have 2019 Shea Patterson feet in the pocket this year), and two good and one possibly great WR. They just are sloppy though as a team across the board. Their coverage schemes are Jr High level, and they have a ton of busts on their OL.

They could give us problems if their OL can block decently and Thorne can sit and get the ball to Reed, Coleman, and even Mosley. Collins is back after a 3 year hiatus and doesn't look bad.

Now, if we come out and are aggressive early, then it could get ugly quickly. They have shown no resiliance all year. The Washington game was a bunch of cotton candy yards when the game was significantly out of reach. Minnesota took them to the woodshed. Bring pressure early, and get Thorne uncomfortable. I trust DJ, GG, and Mikey to be stout in coverage. I expect a good play made or two by Reed and/or Coleman, but we'll have to live with that.

44-14.

MSU must know by now their secondary is terrible, so it might be reasonable to assume their efforts would be to load the box at every opportunity for 2 main reasons:

1. M's greatest competency is on the ground in the form of BC, DE and the mere threat of JJ...
2. Alas, Sparty's only hope for defending the pass is to get quick pressure on JJ when he does pass.

The usual fun-fact: the winning team has rushed for more yards in 46 of the last 52 games.

Also, keep in mind that the M defense will be seeking to make a statement after allowing the most points to MSU in the history of the series last year.

This is Michigan State so...

Over and under (in Minutes or Occurrences) on:

 Targeting, Roughing the Passer, Hit out of Bounds, Facemask, Chop Block, Mel Tucker Smiling, Unfathomable Ref Calls

?

It's a night game at home between a legitimate top 5 team vs. a middling at best P5 team.

I get all the Sharty voodoo and flukish shit over the years, and how well they have played in the Big House, but after 2 straight losses to them, I don't see UM not taking this game just as seriously as MSU this year.

They'll hit a couple annoying arm punts deep / or get PI calls on them, and a few annoying 4th down conversions on QB scrambles, but ultimately they won't have anything sustainable on offense as their O-line can't deal with the talent and depth on our D-line.

I expect a lot of WR screens, tight end crossing routes, and JJ rollouts with recievers open at multiple levels of the defense to get JJ comfortable.  I think we use some QB run early as well.  I think this is a game where we can use a high efficiency, conservative passing game to open up the run.  Once accomplished, they will bring up their safeties to stop the short passes and running game and we can look over the top, and hopefully JJ can hit a couple this week.

I expect it to not be close going into the 4th, despite all the Sharty fluke and shenanigans.  This is a year where they really are not good, and more importantly have minimal depth, whereas UM is legitimately good and deep at multiple positions.

Penalties, turnovers and special teams have always decided the outcome of this game, and in the stupidest ways imaginable.

Bad referees on the field and in the booth have been a chronic plague in college football, especially the BIG10.  There is nothing the players or coaches can do about it, except play clean and avoid stupid penalties and showboating.  That's never easy in an emotional rivalry game with no love lost between the two teams, vendettas, etc.

Michigan is 5-10 since the Dantonio era (2007).

Harbaugh his 3-4 vs MSU since 2015.  All 4 losses were by 4 pts or less. 

This game is MSU's season. A win would likely get them bowl eligibility. A loss could wreck it entirely with ILL and PSU still on the road. 

The only team MSU has played that is the most Michigan-like is probably Minnesota. The Spartans were annihilated by the Gophers start to finish in East Lansing.

MSU's defense is by orders of magnitude worse than PSU and Iowa. Their offense has been dreadful.

In my opinion this game will be a blowout win for Michigan, similar to 2019.

You can expect another does of Panasuik-like terrible unsportsmanlike-, targeting- and roughing the passer- penalties in this game , and perhaps even some injuries as a result.  I could be wrong, but probably not.

Here are my concerns for this game.   A fluke upset.  I'm thinking OSU vs Iowa in 2017 and OSU vs Purdue in 2018.  

Sparty amps up the playing dirty factor and headhunts our QB successfully.  

Sparty has a lot of success either drawing DPI's on long fades and/or their talented receivers making ridiculous plays in tight coverage.

Michigan stubbornly sticks to the run in loaded boxes even if it's repeatedly not working.

Michigan has some bad turnovers.

Fluke plays, weird bounces and bad officiating all go in Sparty's favor.  

I don't see the blow-out upset happening.   UM will be too focused to allow that.   Of the 5 bullets I made if MSU succeeds with 3 of them this will likely be a close game.  If they succeed with 4 or 5 of them they have a pretty good shot at winning.  The likelihood of more than 3 of those bullet points materializing is very low.   This is a game UM should win by at least 2 scores.   My gut tells me it will be nervously and annoyingly close but I could see UM winning in a blowout also.  

I do think they have a chance and I'd like to make a minor quibble - from 2008-2014, they were the better program and won 6 of 7. From 2015-2021 they've won 4 of 7 - but never when they were much worse. 3 of their wins came when they had 10 win seasons. and the other was when they were bad - but frankly, we were worse (2020). In 2016, 18 and 19, we were much better and we pounded them. They've won the close ones, usually when both teams were decent or good, and other than one year when they've been bad we've still been good.

A lot of the "bad juju" here is that we've lost close games, not that we've been way better and been upset by a much worse team. Doesn't mean we shouldn't take them seriously, doesn't mean they don't have a lot we need to account for. Just...there is no secret, there is no curse. It's just football.

At this point you should assume MSU is going to make this an annoyingly-close game through a combination of solid play and college bullshit.  It just happens.

At the same time, Mel Tucker isn't Mark Dantonio and MSU has needed two Herculean performances plus suspect officiating to win two games by a combined 7 points.  At some point you have to assume that bit of bad luck will turn.

MSU averages 1 more penalty per game and 13 more penalty yards per game on the season.  We'll see if that holds up, because you have to go all the way back to John O'Korn to find a game where MSU actually had fewer penalties than UM.  In Harbaugh's 7 games against them, we've been called for more penalties in 5 of those games.

Just dont give the state fan any reason to be glad they keep paying Mel Tucker th absurd amount they do…..In other words, step on their throat all game, kick their ass, give them no chance for “dignity”, make this insufferable for them, Harbaugh. Break their will the way OSU did to us for so long. End this madness that MSU somehow always gets a close game/trash win against us. Make the 2019 MSU game the norm, every year. Send that program to the moon for the next decade. 
 

….did I do it right?…

I fear we'll have a thread on this topic every day for the next 12 days.

BEAT STATE. BLOW THEM OUT

So Sparty defense is "better" but Wisconsin scored more point in this game than any non-Northwestern P5 team.

A lot of attention gets paid to the rivalry stuff (Sparty Super Bowl, “July drive,” etc.). While that surely plays a role, two things the OP mentioned are far more relevant:

• No 200-yard rushing games for U-M since ‘06
• MSU’s playmakers and deep-shot mentality

MSU makes U-M play left-handed. U-M generally wins by paving the opposition on the ground and bleeding the game out with its D, but that’s not how you beat State. They sell out to stop the run, and they’ll get theirs on O because of their willingness to go for 4th downs and target their playmakers. (Jayden Reed’s 4th-down catch down the sideline versus Dax Hill last year is a classic example.)

This year’s game thus plays into State’s hands a bit, given U-M’s success on the ground and McCarthy being a little wobbly in the air. State also isn’t the same team of a month ago; they’re finally getting past some injuries. Michigan should be fine if they’re willing to throw on 1st down, throw on 3rd and short and throw when they’re up 14 in the second half. We’ll see if they are.

Regardless of how they've played so far this season, I fully expect MSU to pull magical fairy dust plays out of their asses and suddenly more closely resemble Georgia than the stumblebums they looked like against Minnesota or OSU for this one game. The irritating thing is that they'll probably look like crap again the week after playing us.

We are overdue for some interceptions and maybe even a turnover on special teams. I don't think it will be close.

I fully expect the game to play out like the 1983 game where we ran it down their throats and then threw it over their heads when they tried to stop the run.  Total domination from start to finish.  It was young Jimmy Harbaugh's first MSU game and he got some snaps in garbage time: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwFK7YDx-uI

Soooooo many flags in the MSU / Wisconsin game. 

On paper, Michigan should win comfortably.

My concern is the number of PI and defensive holding calls they will benefit from when we are on defense. I get the impression that the majority of their offense will be chuck-and-pray and our CBs are grabby. They will get their explosive plays and their points. 

As long as our offense is effective, though, we should be all right. I don't think we'll win by 3 TDs or whatever, though.

Our red zone struggles are mostly based on our refusal to throw the ball. We can fix that whenever we want, this week seems like a good time to start.

I oh so crave a beat down after the absolute horseshit that was the entirety of last year's game. Fuck those refs. 

Our key is that we need to win the high leverage points when Michigan State is on offense.