stlspartan

Who wants waffles!!

Interesting. I think MSU has the personnel to stop it - however I'm not sure they have any experience with the scheme. It might be the kind of game where they have to maintain composure since they will be having some breakdowns.

I jumped here, to page 3, and it seems that this thread has exploded. I was going to mention that I really don't think that anybody at MSU really cares what Martinez thinks about Denard's passing. Denard throws the long ball so high he has to compensate for both the wind and the Coriolis effect.

That seems like the big unknown in the game; can MSU's defense force Martinez to be a pocket passer. If Nebraska can run through them like Wisconsin did on several drives last week then MSU could be in for a long day. Question - is Nebraska going to run more for the corners or between the tackles?

Because MSU is a running team, when they have been forced to pass and have been successful at it, they are perceived as being balanced. On the other hand Nebraska thinks of itself as a running team as well, but either hasn't been forced to pass or hasn't been as successful at it so they are "less balanced". You can read it two ways... either MSU isn't as good at running as they should be or Nebraska isn't as good at passing as they should be.

At first I thought this thread was about a player from MSU. I was thinking - "crap - we just get Gholston back and now Thad Randle is .... wait second, who's Thad Randle?" I hope he's ok.

If you don't want game day around, hit them with a beer can. They didn't come back to E. Lansing for quite a while.

MSU plays them early next season. I'm going to be attending that one for sure.

Gholston will be back - so at least we'll have one guy who is in shape. ( I know it looks like a handshake, but he tore Hoke's arm off shortly after the photo was taken)

Yep - it's not like his legs are stone but he's certainly more of an elusive pocket passer than part of the MSU run game. To my eye he's releasing the ball nicely when blitzed and hasn't shown any tendency to panic. Everybody loves the guy and he seems comfortable with who he is and his role. I contrast that with Wilson in the Wisconsin game, also well liked, but he had more to prove and seemed to have a little more of the world on his shoulders. I think with MSU you get a very good team that has all the elements of a very good team in every phase of the game. They're quite balanced on offense and have plenty of speed and talent. They are well coached and generally play like they know what they are supposed to do. No, they aren't ready to play Alabama and LSU but they aren't Minnesota either. If I had to bet, I would say that they will not get beaten solely on the ground. Nebraska is going to have to protect on the pass and execute. Likewise, I don't think MSU can win it on the ground. They will throw mid-range passes and toss in some deep strikes. When all else fails, they have two very talented tight ends that can catch as well. I see this as a game where the team that can pass the best wins it. That's why Wisconsin is so tough. You can't stop their run and even if you do it doesn't get any easier with Wilson back there.

Folks keep mentioning the Notre Dame game. In that game, ND stopped MSU from running and Cousins couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. End of story - there was no sugar coating it. However, that isn't how he normally plays; he doesn't always hit the long ball but he is solid on the short-mid game. He's almost up to his normal standards which are pretty good. ND was an anomaly, I wouldn't plan on winning using their formula.

Really impressed with this thread. Folks have done their homework. My take is a) that Cousins and the O-line had a very rough start and are on a trajectory of improvement and b) the defense is feeling pretty aggressive - fueled by some talented guys and good corner play that lets them blitz when they want to. I see the Wisconsin game as the triumph of preparation and focus over a team whose offense should have beaten them. If they can keep that edge, they can win Saturday.

For whatever reason, Cousins has had a slow start this year. Notre Dame shut down the run and Cousins couldn't make them pay through the air. He's gotten back in form since then and a different story last night. UW Att. Cp. Int. Yds. Lg. TD Wilson 21 14 2 223 42 2 MSU Att. Cp. Int. Yds. Lg. TD Cousins 31 22 0 290 44 3

Funny - When he said that I said to my wife, "Somebody get that guy a pill!"

The Big10 is funny - there are some teams that you just don't like playing. MSU always struggles against Iowa - look at last year, but for Iowa we win the conference. Overall they weren't great, but they kicked the Spartans A**. I swear that Iowa could be in the midst of a raging cholera epidemic, coached by Luther Van Damme and still squash us like a bug.

Nothing wrong with a little emotion. It reminds me of when UM players mocked Dantonio after beating him in his first year as MSU coach. and UM hasn't won a game from the Spartans since.

I'm not sure how you can say that the Spartans were not respectable or classy when they finished the game penalty free. The Spartans I heard interviewed were quite complimentary to the Badgers. The game was magical, the scenes were memorable - under the lights with all the spirit and pageantry that college football can muster. I have season tickets but wasn't able to attend, dammit, but I can tell you it was electric and magical in Spartan Stadium tonight and everybody who was there will remember it for the rest of their lives.

Thanks Badgerfan - but I'm not sure we play Minnesota next week. I'll have to check my schedule - I'm sure we play somebody.

Hey, great game tonight. See you in Indy hopefully. Hey - thanks, I'm pretty sure Wisky is going to be there - MSU has some more work to do.

One thing I love about Dantonio - first with Little Giants - and now the hail Mary - "Rocket". It looks like such a piece of luck on the field, but when they asked Cousins about how long they had been practicing it he said the have been working on it at the end of the Thursday practice for the last 5 years.

Ha ha - well said. MSU has to win, because if they don't Wisky will put up 100 points on them and that would be humiliating.

You will soon come to realize that any year UM or OSU fail to win the conference championship - it is "down year" in the B10. Wisconsin could finish BCS champs and it wouldn't matter. Welcome to the conference.

I watched the game in South Bend and the the offense was not clicking at all. My first thought was that the o-line wasn't up to snuff, but it might have been a bigger issue that Cousins was having accuracy problems - the long balls were all uncatchable. He honestly wasn't 1/2 as good as what he was last year. The good news for State is that he is playing much better now. Even in the winds against Michigan he was much more accurate on all hist throws - with the long ball still being iffy. He was also extremely quick at reading/unloading against the rush. The wind makes it hard to know for sure - but I think Cousins and the offense are hitting on all cylinders now. The defense looks very good. Tomorrow will tell - but I've gone from looking at the Wisky game as a sure loss to a toss up.

Yes - it . I've been to every UM/MSU game for ~ 35 years and UM never misses a chance to step on a hand, twist a leg or 'accidentally' kick a player in the head as they jog by. Folks who want to jump in on the latest punch in a 100 year long feud need to get some perspective. Funny how none of the clips show the face mask that precedes the punch or the play early in the game where two UM defenders shove Baker into the benches. Or the player that 'accidentally' kicked Baker in the head when he was down. MSU got as many penalties as they deserved and then some. They payed the price in yards on the field and Gholston is getting the suspension he deserved for the face mask. The punch was nothing and wouldn't have happened if the officials had thrown the flag on the facemask that preceded it.

They should probably take an appropriate amount of time to "investigate" and then possibly some action next week (after the MSU-Wiscy contest). But seriously, those were a couple very cheap shots. The punch to the throat/face was bad but the helmet twist on DR could be considered an "attempt to injure" in hockey lingo. Does this dufus really think a camera will not pick this stuff up when he plays at a place like MSU? To be honest, I don't think Dantonio cares. Apparently, this is the type of image he wants his program to perpetuate. You know nothing about MSU athletics if you think Dantonio is dirty. He's the most straight up guy out there. I agree that the face mask twist seemed out of the blue and dangerous and has to be addressed somehow. However, the punch followed a that is conveniently edited out by all the UM fans. If you see a link to a clip of the punch that is missing the face mask that preceded it, then it was posted by some UM homeboy. I very much hope Nebraska is blessed with the same blind officiating crew. Lewan is, apparently, known for these kinds of shenanigans so I'll be back to see your opinions after the Huskers play them.