NUance
Assistant Coach
Yeah, I thought the line was too low by several points. Even so, I still took Nebraska to win in my pickem' pool.
Overtime: Michigan St Post-game Overreactions
- Thread starter Thanks_Tom RR
- Start date
zoogs
Assistant Coach
chamrocck
All-American
We played a lot better tonight and I was generally more pleased with the performance tonight but I admit I did think we were going to come up short so winning was awesome. I hated the pass plays in the red zone that led to the INT. It just felt like that sucked all the momentum out of the game and we needed to keep matching Sparty as they were moving it on us. Thought we could not climb out of that double digit deficit but we did! Man, we gave Cook a lot of time back there (maybe that is why he felt so comfortable letting 7 seconds off at the end...Mack Brown flashback with the Dantonio asking for 1 second left!). Special teams...onside kick look liked we never practiced it...and why did we not kick the ball deep at the end of the game...we nearly gift wrapped them field position to hit a FG and break our hearts again. Imani Cross and Jordan Westercamp were awesome! Reilly with a clutch catch! Tommy kept battling and that's who is...I feel like if he had the time Cook did he'd be a lot better QB. The OL blocked for the run better tonight but they still can't pass protect. If we had lost I'd have said we saw good progress but winning is major progress. Let's win our next one. Noise came through on television so we need top recruits from this game. Packed house sounded electric!
krc1995
Heisman Trophy Winner
Landlord
Banned
huskerfan74
All-American
Please give us Les Miles. I would take him in a heartbeat. LSU are a bunch of whiners. Let's trade LSU, Les Miles for Riley. I will even deliver him to LSU myself and will throw in banker and Eichorst for free.
There is a reason they played so many poor teams so closely, and it's similar to the reason some analytics had this undefeated team dangerously close to being out of the top 25 (that's really hard to do for such a team this late in the season). They're just not a top ten caliber team on either side of the ball (total offense and pass defense, in particular). The political correctness policy may say that scoring margin should not be used in college football, but there is a very good reason it should be: it predicts future success better than any other primary stat in alternate possession sports. Michigan State's margin of victory was pedestrian given its strength of schedule. That's why this line was so low. The record and therefore ranks of these respective teams were a much bigger gap than their metrics.
Arizona 2009, despite 5 losses, has a similar profile to this MSU team in terms of differentials (their production relative to their opponents). The big difference between those teams: turnovers, and turnovers have a high degree of randomness to them.
While those two may have similar profiles, 2010 Missouri has a better one. They beat their opponents by more, and out gained them by considerably more. They finished 6th in scoring defense, MSU came in ranked 37th. Missouri scoring offense 44th, MSU 48th. (Yes, it is silly to consider a team top ten with those scoring numbers.)
2015 MSU only out gains opponents by 0.3 yards per play (and they didn't outgain us today in that category). 2010 Missouri was at 0.7. (For reference, 2015 Alabama is at 1.5 yards per play, but many griped when they were ranked ahead of undefeated teams like MSU.)
Edit: Post Nebraska, MSU out gains opponents by 0.2 yards per play, rank 40th in scoring offense, rank 47th in scoring defense.
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Okie 'Sker
Walk-on
After this game, I'm inclined to give Riley at least another half-year, though I remain baffled by a lot of decisions he or his staff makes.
Thanks_Tom RR
All-American
Michigan St was having success in the return game, so Mike Riley made the call to take that away and trust his defense. It worked.GOAT said:
I said nothing about questioning whether any of those teams were a "true" top 10 team. That 2009 game in the monsoon at Missouri was an excellent win. We were down, made adjustments and dominated the second half. Mizzou fans cleared the stadium and chants of "Go Big Red" were loud.
I prefer the 2010 game also because of the way we ran the ball. Helu was unbelievable.
To say last night's game was the biggest accomplishment since 2001 is a stretch in my opinion.......but you have yours.