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Postgame Aftermisery Thread of Spectacular Failure.

While last week caused heartbreak, this week simply begets anger.  It's nearly impossible to discuss this game at the moment without channeling my inner Mike Valenti, so I'll leave it at this: when we give up 42 points to an offense that was previously worst in the conference and 112th in the country, and was missing its best player, and which overcame about a billion penalties to score those points, we have no business winning.

This rivals the 2007 Northwestern game as the worst loss under Mark Dantonio, and a bowl game is now very much in jeopardy.  There will be no crowing to your Michigan friends and co-workers this week.  We sucked just as badly.

Discuss, if you must, in the comments.

0 recs  |  Comment 15 comments |

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I'm about out of bright side.

I can’t make excuses or find moral victories in this one.

I am finding it harder and harder to get motivated to do MSUFRs when it’s a pointless exercise. The offense plays well, Blair White is awesome, Cousins is efficient, etc. etc. And it all comes to sh*t because the defense can’t stop any team that is willing to throw the ball. MSU Defense, you are dead to me.

by CPT Hoolie on Oct 31, 2009 11:09 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I would say that our offense plays “good enough” most of the time. By that, I mean we constantly do the good things that you mention above, then for some unknown reason take the proverbial foot off the gas when we start to get on a roll:

- We shuffle in Nichol for Cousins just when Cousins starts getting some traction getting our offense going
- We constantly go away from what was working previously. We are not a power running team this year, no matter how many inside carries you give to our RBs. We kill many drives needlessly trying to get this going
- Our offense seems to lose all imagination and variety at the worst times. We run a motion end around for a 70+ yard TD, and never even attempt to run another reverse or misdirection play again for the entire game. And this against a team that had been stuffing our interior run.
- When we get near the goal line, we act just like the power running team that we aren’t, and our results reflect it.

Our defense is as bad as you say (and probably worse), but at least they don’t look like they could be good if they just had the right coach calling the plays (although that would help them too I’m sure).

"It's a trap!"

by AdmiralAkbar on Nov 1, 2009 12:02 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

No, this doesn't just rival losing to Northwestern '07

Northwestern was generally bad but is one of those teams that’s always good for something freakish once or twice a season. This is far, far worse. Minnesota wasn’t good at anything without Decker. They weren’t even particularly good at anything with him.

The freakish sequence that led to their last score … wow. To sidestep the referee argument: the first call was probably right and the second absolutely was. The first, it looks as though he’s losing the ball before he ever gets hit (though it’s tough enough to tell that I had hoped it might not be “indisputable” enough to overturn). The second is just one of those freak plays that becomes the stuff of legend. The luckiest blasted thing I’ve ever seen, and that includes the Nebraska “Foot of God” catch. The receiver gets the ball, and his consciousness, dislodged, but the ball bounces up off his hand straight into the hands of another receiver who just happens to be cutting into the same area. (And nobody would plan that; multiple receivers running routes into the same area is usually a disaster because it draws more defenders and makes the catch harder in traffic.) Unbelievable.

And it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t have playcalling that made Debord-era Michigan look creative. Every first down, every third and short, every goal-line situation … 90% of the time it was “run up the middle for no gain”. When it wasn’t, the play-action stuff worked beautifully (at least at getting guys open; the catches didn’t always happen, but it was a play that actually stood a chance of succeeding) and the one outside run went the distance. On defense, Minnesota ran the same play-action on almost every first down and we bit on it every single time. Our pass rush was almost nonexistent. Our coverage was occasionally semi-competent, often terrible. I hesitate to use the term “schematic advantage” because of who it brings to mind, but I thought with the end of the John L. era that at the very least we would no longer be at a schematic disadvantage every game. That hasn’t been the case. To borrow a phrase from Brian, we throw rock. Rock, rock, rock. Rock. Why? Because eff you, that’s why. We mix it up just often enough to prove that we’re capable of doing so, but I don’t think the gain we get from breaking tendencies on the rare occasions we do so outweighs the constant losses from setting up those tendencies. At least with John L. you got some unpredictability (too much so, at times … there are reasons that certain plays are the percentage plays and get run more often).

It’s funny. QB was supposed to be our one weak spot this year; I’d expected to lose a game or two to QB inexperience. Yet Cousins has probably been the brightest spot on the whole team, outside of maybe Greg Jones. If you’d told me before the season that Cousins would be as good as he’s been (which isn’t spectacular but for a guy who had no college starts before, it’s pretty good), I’d have thought the Rose Bowl was an outside possibility and a New Year’s game a virtual lock. But not a single other position has lived up to expectations, and now if we manage to avoid Detroit it may well be because we don’t even qualify.

by SpartanDan on Nov 1, 2009 12:01 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I kinda doubt it.

It shouldn’t supplant Michigan’s even EPICER FAIL against the worst team in the Big Ten. Unless Brian is (a) in denial and (b) lacks material due to locking down the diaries and comments on the mgoblog.

by CPT Hoolie on Nov 1, 2009 9:46 AM CST via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

Oh, they'll be there too

But there’s room for both.

by SpartanDan on Nov 1, 2009 11:05 AM CST up reply actions   0 recs

Eh, whatever.

"Do not cheat your team or your teammates. Know your plays. Block. Protect. Add to what we are trying to do."
The Only Colors

by LVS on Nov 1, 2009 3:05 PM CST up reply actions   0 recs

I actually laughed out loud at the vision of Narduzzi constantly calling for "rock"

Spot on analysis (I just said some of the same things about the offense specifically in response to the first post in the thread). The thing that really gets me about these “schematic disadvantage” situations that we seem to be getting into every game this year is the fact that they are so easy to spot a casual observer can do it from home! My buddies wife (who happens to be an Iowa fan) can tell me what is wrong with the plays we are calling after watching one of our games for 30 minutes. How is it that the highly paid professional football coaches who are actually calling our plays from the sidelines and the press box don’t pick up on these same things? “Running up the middle didn’t work? I bet they’ll never expect us to run the same play again!” Even a 10 year old playing Madden knows that this strategy never works, yet we constantly “give it a go” to our own peril at every opportunity.

"It's a trap!"

by AdmiralAkbar on Nov 1, 2009 12:09 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

I know

It feels like that old Rocky and Bullwinkle bit. “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” “But that trick never works!” “This time, for sure!” [FAIL]

by SpartanDan on Nov 1, 2009 12:44 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

I know we would like to run the ball, but pounding it in the tackles clearly hasn’t worked. As a numbers guy/baseball fan, I feel we’ve reached a big enough sample in the season to realize we’re not a power-running team (like others have said) and we should probably, you know, make some adjustments.

by Mike Rogers on Nov 1, 2009 12:25 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

Worst loss of the year

Up to this game I’ve had reasons to be optimistic, but I have nothing now. Giving up 42 to one of the worst offenses in the country with out their best player is just rediculous. Every time after we scored to cut into the lead or even take the lead the defense would give it right back. They killed us on play action roll out plays.

And the play calling/coaching is an issue again. Why we put in Nichol on that drive when we were backed up on the goal line after Cousins led us to a TD on the previous drive is beyond me. Like you guys have said, don’t we have a large enough sample size to realize the run up the middle doesn’t work in goal line situations for us? It’s not effective in other parts of the game either, but especially not in goal line situations.

I would love to have a power running game and I know that’s the type of offense this coaching staff wants to produce, but part of being a good coach is playing to your teams strength. I said from early on this year that if we wanted to maximize our talent on offense we’d be a team that emphasizes the pass. We should have at least 3 WR’s on every offensive play. We should have 4 guys (WR’s and/or TE’s) going out for a pass on pass plays. Cousins has proven to be an efficient accurate passer who can go through his progressions and we have a talented group of WR’s and TE’s….we don’t have a good run blocking o-line though and everyone besides the coaching staff seems to realize this.

by Stones1981 on Nov 1, 2009 8:19 AM CST reply actions   0 recs

Food for thought

I expected a let down, somewhat, after the painful loss to Iowa. Watching the Big Ten games this week, i can (sort of) take solace in the fact that at least the Wolverines played worse than the Spartans. But being the two worst teams in the Big Ten this week makes it a hollow victory…

by St8rBoiInMN on Nov 1, 2009 1:16 PM CST reply actions   0 recs

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