MSU hires Colorado OC Jay Johnson as OC
Johnson led Colorado to the #51 offense according to S&P+ despite having a first round pick at WR and the schools all-time passing leader at QB. #51 is an improvement over MSU's 2019 offense, and Colorado's 2018, it this seems like an uninspiring hire as most UC fans are happy he's gone.
So far Mel Tucker is being paid $5.5 mil to put together a Frankenstein staff of MSU and UC coaches. That, like the OC hire, seems uninspiring.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:03 PM ^
Is the shitty roid rage pussy ok with this? That is really all that matters
February 17th, 2020 at 9:05 PM ^
He’s the one coach Colorado fans are happy to see leave.
Reminds me of Hoke bringing Borges with him, but having no where near the talent at his disposal year 1.
Also, it’s not UC. Two Cincinnati coaches shave told Sparty no already. Colorado AFAIK is CU.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:09 PM ^
You're right about the UC vs CU. All old Big 8 schools are *U, but I didn't realize my mistake until after the post and we still can't edit OPs.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:51 PM ^
The weird thing is that the official name of the institution is the University of Colorado, but for some reason the athletic dept goes by CU.
It's the same thing with Kansas: the athletic dept goes by KU, but the official name is the University of Kansas.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:55 PM ^
It's so unbelievably dumb and almost all of the Big 12 does it. I believe I read that they do it to distinguish themselves from more established schools that already have the nickname. For instance, Kansas goes by KU because Kentucky goes by UK. But like, aren't you just basically conceding that your school is second fiddle if you literally have to make your nickname an incorrect abbreviation of your actual name?
February 17th, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
*Big 8. Even former Big 8/12 schools like Missouri and Nebraska go by MU and NU. As opposed to Texas which is UT.
February 18th, 2020 at 6:59 AM ^
But Texas is a former Southwest Conference and never in the Big 8, so that would explain them using the correct initials.
BTW, I like that they all the the *U. It's their way of standing out. Not conceding they are second fiddle.
February 18th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
No, it's kinda second fiddle and kinda weird. Like saying "my name is Jim Smith, but you can just call me SJ"...????
February 18th, 2020 at 11:39 AM ^
Right, that's why I listed Texas as the counter example
February 18th, 2020 at 7:09 PM ^
Oklahoma is OU.
February 17th, 2020 at 11:38 PM ^
Living in MN, I've had to get used to the locals referring to the University of Minnesota as the U of M. Maybe they thought MU was already taken by Sparty, but it still sounds weird every time I hear the reference
February 18th, 2020 at 9:08 AM ^
There are a lot of states starting with M, are there not? I actually have a grandson attending another U of M, in his case Manitoba.
Me? Michigan. Go Blue!
February 18th, 2020 at 12:17 AM ^
Better than "The Colorado University"
February 18th, 2020 at 1:28 PM ^
Definitely an old Big 8 thing shared by many of the schools and even pre-dates the Big 8. Nebraska's fight song, from1924, even has a verse, "Dear old Nebraska U".
February 18th, 2020 at 10:56 AM ^
The university of Oklahoma goes by OU. It was an old Big 8 thing along with referring to Oklahoma State as O-State; Kansas State as K-State and Iowa State as I-State.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:06 PM ^
Are we surprised by this?
I laugh at Sparty, not so much Tucker yet. Isn’t his fault they are paying him $5.5 mil.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:07 PM ^
From a Colorado fan on Reddit:
"CU offensive rankings:
91st points per game
91st red zone scoring
75th yards per game 4
6th 3rd down conversion percentage
I hope for the sake of MSU that he isn’t going to be their OC. I imagine he’ll probably just be the QB coach."
He will be both the QB Coach and OC. QB Steven Montez regressed in every major category last year (Completion %, YPA, INT%, TD% QB RTG) as a senior 3rd year starter.
February 18th, 2020 at 12:52 AM ^
Against PAC 12 defenses.
February 18th, 2020 at 10:35 AM ^
I laughed but then I remembered our recent QB regressions.
February 18th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
You make me sad.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:11 PM ^
MGoBlog's twitter account had a noteworthy tweet about his hire. Color me unimpressed.
https://twitter.com/mgoblog/status/1229582276763246592
February 17th, 2020 at 10:47 PM ^
For those of us who are blocked, what did the tweet say?
February 18th, 2020 at 12:14 AM ^
I thought you were joking, but I clicked on the tweet and found out I'm blocked, too. Wtf? I've never done anything at all to get blocked there. Weird.
6.7.0February 18th, 2020 at 12:34 AM ^
Don't know why some people are being blocked, but here's the tweet:
Good news for MSU fans who'd like their offense to be in the top 50 of the SP+ rankings once in a while: Jay Johnson gets his offenses into the top 50 once in a while. pic.twitter.com/fw8AiyuUpL
— mgoblog (@mgoblog) February 18, 2020
February 18th, 2020 at 12:37 AM ^
Thank you! Now I'm more concerned with why MGoBlog would block me.
6.7.0February 18th, 2020 at 2:21 AM ^
Did you ever "like" anything that Ant Wright posted?
February 18th, 2020 at 9:55 AM ^
I don't get the Ant Wright dislike from some people. Is he too neutral or did miss something in particular?
February 18th, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
There was a whole thing on twitter a few weeks back. Ant was a dick, questioned the kickstarter $ Ace got last year (or more correctly, questioned why Ace took that $ from some and then blocked those people), and in doing that his phrasing made it clear he didn't believe Ace's CFS ailment was severe or real. A big Michigan twitter war started, others chimed in that Ace hadn't been thankful enough, or that they had donated and felt betrayed because they were blocked by Ace because they also followed Ant. And many of those comments continued to question Ace's CFS and its severity. Just a horror show on many sides.
That's twitter though. Ace and mgoblog blocked lots of folks for being toxic to Ace, or just following or liking someone who had been toxic to Ace. I somewhat get that, but I've seen Ace and mgoblog be plenty toxic to plenty of people (toxicity is probably the best one word description of twitter, and Ace and Brian certainly know that). To take the time - what must have been hours and hours - to go through and meticulously hunt out people who followed Ant or LGHail (he also got pulled into this nonsense I believe?) or whoever - most of whom made no comment on this twitter war at all - is petty and peak twitter. Probably a much better idea to get off the app ("but Ace has lots of followers and this is how he makes his living"; understood but toxicity is going to come at you from all angles on twitter). The whole thing was vomitous.
February 18th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
Are you serious? That whole drama thing with Ace? Man, that's some childish shit. I tried to make sure I didn't "like" anything that would upset Ace, because I heard he was going thru Ant's and other people's tweets to see who liked them to he could block them. I guess I failed. Funny thing is, I'm not blocked by Ace, but I am from MgoBlog.
February 18th, 2020 at 2:40 AM ^
Because Brian is Tim Brando and Tim Brando is Brian?
February 18th, 2020 at 2:40 AM ^
Because Brian is Tim Brando and Tim Brando is Brian?
February 18th, 2020 at 8:46 AM ^
Good chance if you're blocked by Ace, you're also blocked by MGB.
February 18th, 2020 at 9:16 AM ^
/vomits
I hate being reminded that actual adults behave this way on social media
February 18th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
I'm not blocked by Ace, but I am blocked by MgoBlog. Lol, that is some weird, childish shit, whoever is running that twitter account.
6.7.0February 18th, 2020 at 1:44 PM ^
Probably went through and mass-blocked accounts and maybe thought your account belonged to someone else? I don't know.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:31 PM ^
Don’t care. FYS.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:32 PM ^
He’s a meh OC. The OL guy they hired (also Colorado) is decent though. Not Warinner, but he’s an improvement for them.
February 17th, 2020 at 9:43 PM ^
Sadly, an improvement is not saying much
February 17th, 2020 at 11:05 PM ^
Cumong, there are at least 5 - 7 good things about him!!!
February 17th, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
In a good year.
February 18th, 2020 at 1:46 AM ^
A stick in the mud is an improvement over Bollman
February 17th, 2020 at 9:33 PM ^
If there's anyone who doesn't have Tucker fatigue by this point, here's an SI piece on his last hours at Colorado:
https://www.si.com/college/2020/02/16/mel-tucker-colorado-michigan-state-football
February 17th, 2020 at 11:25 PM ^
Just finished reading that article. The Colorado folks are saying things about Tucker that make "waffling flake" look like a compliment.
February 18th, 2020 at 8:47 AM ^
"Sipping on his trademark Scotch and water, Tucker paraded through a reception of big-money Buff Club members in a plush, window-lined room, eventually delivering a speech and taking questions."
The man waters down his scotch. Who would hire him as a football coach, knowing that about him?
February 17th, 2020 at 9:40 PM ^
Tucker is going to make things better for Sparty BY PURE FORCE OF WILL
ROAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR
Oh **** I've been watching too many BWW commercials
February 17th, 2020 at 9:40 PM ^
For all the talk about competing with the big boys, it seems like they are paying a lot of money for subpar coaches.
February 17th, 2020 at 11:46 PM ^
So many Sparty & CU coaches getting pay raises because no one else will take the jobs. Will the result be any different just because the same coaches are paid more?
February 17th, 2020 at 9:41 PM ^
I'm not crazy about the OC hire, but not going to bash it until I actually see plays called. I would have liked to see a bigger name as OC but given the timing we probably didn't have much of a chance for that this year. IMO, our main problem last season was terrible blocking, not so much to do with play calling.
I'm very happy with the OL coach hire though. By all accounts he's a good OL coach, and that has been by far our biggest weakness the last few years. Keeping Burton and Tressel was good as well, especially Burton. Obviously a lot left to fill out on the staff so we'll see where this goes from here. Probably won't be a lot of great options available at this time so we might have to try again next year.
February 17th, 2020 at 11:16 PM ^
I agree playcalling wasn't a problem for MSU last year. If anything I thought the offense made a lot of sense for the ability on the field. Their problem was they got lucky once in building Jack Conklin and French and Beedle, plus an Allen brother, into a great OL, and instead of continuing to scout guys and take the best shots, I'm convinced MSU decided those were their types and got super-focused on repeating that. What they ended up with were a bunch of tackles too light to play (Chewins, Reid, Campbell, Arcuri, Higby) a lug in Jarvis who can't get anywhere fast enough, and progressively worse Allens who try to make up the difference with laughable holding attempts. And since the twiggy tackles break like twigs they're constantly injured.
I think the Samac kid will be good one day, and who knows maybe some of the other youngsters they used will be too. But shit you can't play offense with the lines they've been putting out there the last few years.