What did we learn?- Michigan State

SouthLincoln Husker said:
I follow you, who is also a know it all!
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Your response reminds me of a scene in Shawshank Redemption.

This is a message board. We are all “know it alls”. Where some of us differ is we don’t consistency lead with insults. You tend to lead with someone being impaired or stupid if they have an opinion that differs from yours.

You chose not to respond to that.

You choose to attack. We’ve all done it. It’s your “go to”. Do better.

 
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Mavric said:
On about as windy of a day as you'll find, we called 60% pass plays (adjusting for sacks).
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I think if Dana had his choice, he would have ran the ball more, especially when going against the wind. However, we only gained 2.2 yards per rush. That isn't conducive to being confident in sitting back and calling a bunch more running plays.
 
Outside of a garbage time TD and Raiola finding Barney wide open for 45 yards and dialing up a few good plays for a TD, both teams offenses looked atrocious going into the wind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before.

Overall, the defense was pretty good and I’ll sound like a downer but I wanted a few more plays from the defense. The first MSU scoring drive frustrated the heck out of me. 4th down conversion and 2 penalties inside the goal line, one of which did not need to be committed.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team come up with 0 pts after 2 INTs and a punt return inside the 25.

Any fans attend the game? What was it like inside the stadium between the punt block TD and the next offensive series? It was a solid 30min before the offense got a snap in. What a momentum killer.

that was such an anomaly of a game I hope I don’t have to sit through one of those again.
 
BigRedBuster said:
I think if Dana had his choice, he would have ran the ball more, especially when going against the wind. However, we only gained 2.2 yards per rush. That isn't conducive to being confident in sitting back and calling a bunch more running plays.
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Not sure where you're getting that 2.2 number, we ended on 3.3. RBs were 17 for 103, over 5 per carry.
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BigRedBuster said:
I think if Dana had his choice, he would have ran the ball more, especially when going against the wind. However, we only gained 2.2 yards per rush. That isn't conducive to being confident in sitting back and calling a bunch more running plays.
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I don't think he would have. That's not what he does.

And, as was pointed out to me earlier when I brough up the 2.2 ypc, EJ averaged 6.4 ypc. Our three RBs combined for 6.0. It was Raiola's -17 yards in sacks that killed the team's average.
 
Mavric said:
They must have adjusted something in the final stats because ESPN had us at 2.2 yesterday.
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Ah, interesting - looks like they changed the fumbled snap debacle so it wasn't a sack/didn't count against Raiola's numbers, but also then just removed from the total. The first part makes sense, but not sure why the -15 yards doesn't count in our rushing. But in any case, the RBs were a little boom or bust but had a very reasonable average and low utilization.

I am curious to see some breakdowns, there was one cut to commercial where Raiola was looking at a tablet and shocked that he missed something and he alluded to receivers running open while he ran into sacks postgame. I really don't think the wind was a huge issue, and maybe if Raiola was seeing things clearly or the line protected better we're all thrilled with the aggressive gameplan that led to a huge passing day. But Holgorsen is definitely very quick to decide the running game doesn't look good enough but gives a lot of leeway to the passing game. Which should not surprise anyone, but can be frustrating.
 
Mavric said:
I wasn't sure how good we'd look in this graph, given the number of big plays that helped us out. But still not too shabby.


View attachment 22553
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I went back and looked at the USC/Mich St. game. Was almost the exact same level in the graph (around +0.13).

Also that game was fairly similar to the NU/Mich St game. USC was up early, Mich St fought back (although never led), USC pulled away in the 4Q, Mich St got a garbage time TD.
 
I did learn our run defense can be decent against mediocre rushing offenses. Wright and Shavers both looked really good, Wright in particular just seemed a lot faster in attacking play.

Mobile QBs are a problem, but that's not unique to us. The good news is we don't face another true running QB until UCLA but guys like Malik Washington and Jayden Maiava certainly can run.
 
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