FanNation - The Republic of Sport

My black lab, Cheese, is the sweetest dog that I've ever had. He came to us as a starving stray puppy of six months age, and he appeared to have had a rough life before arriving at our door. He must have been abused in other ways, because you could literally make him wet the floor back then just by speaking crossly to him. Even though it is years later, and he's just shy of 100 lbs, loud and angry words, even if not directed at him, still make him scurry away to another room.

At several points during the first half of this game, Cheese was upstairs cowering behind the bed, getting as far from me as possible. (He really hates it when the Spartans play road games and I have to watch them at home.)

Even though we got the win that I anticipated, this contest departed significantly from what I expected. That point of departure can be summed up with two statistics:

473 yards.

29 points.

There were really two Michigan State defenses on the field. One delivered the two interceptions, the safety, the drive killing sack on third down in the second half and the big hit to cause the fumble. The other one seemed to have only 9 of the 11 guys out there, and it gave up a half dozen (or more?) huge plays. This game reminded me a little of the Northwestern debacle at home last year, and that game was the only one all last season where a Dantonio team defense gave hints of the John L. Smith team defense that preceded it.

But not entirely. Even in a game where it spends some time going flat, this year's defense lit up and made big plays of its own. And it leaks early and gets stingy late, showing that the coaches can fix things at halftime (and that Cheese can eventually come back downstairs to get a drink of water.)

Still, today's defensive problems make me worry about the flashy offenses still on the schedule.

On special teams, poor Cheese's nerves were further frayed by yet another blocked punt producing points for the bad guys.

While mostly performing well and as expected, the Spartan offense had its troubles. The drive-killing drops of easy third down passes in the first half by Mark Dell and Blair White continue an annoying trend from all the receivers. If just one of those drives had continued and produced points, this game is probably under control by halftime -- which is what I had expected going in.

Javon Ringer continues to be the personality of the offense. I kept laughing at the ESPN crew speaking as if Indiana had him bottled up because he hadn't yet busted a 60 yard run. Even though the carries continued to pile up the yards: 80, 90 yards, 135 yards, etc... Pretty soon, that starts to do some damage, ya' know?

The way you beat Ringer is to put his team in situations where they can't give him the ball anymore: Get a lead early or put the Spartans in long-yardage situations. See the Cal game for how this is done.

But if Michigan State has the luxury of giving him the ball 40 times, then he'll get his big yards, and the other offense is going to spend a lot of time on the sidelines. That's the point of smashmouth football. It's like the TV people have forgotten what it looks like.

Brian Hoyer's critics should be cooling off. Once again, zero interceptions and zero sacks, meaning he accomplished his primary goal of keeping Ringer as a legitimate threat on nearly every down. But to go with it, Hoyer completed 14 of 26 for 261 and 2 TDs. For extra measure, he even ran for another TD.

Final numbers: 261 passing and 236 on the ground. A very nice, balanced, power offense that made no big mistakes at all.

That makes Cheese very happy.