Michigan State 34, Wisconsin 24 -- Rebirth of the Pass Defense

All scUM fans don’t seem to realize (or are unwilling to accept) the fact that they now play second fiddle to MSU. It is more and more apparent every year. Let’s look closer:

In basketball is has been glaringly obvious for a decade now. scUM gets what Izzo does not want without fail in recruiting. They get someone like Manny Harris and we take Chris Allen, Durrell Summer and Kalin Lucas in the same class. The basketball argument is beating a dead horse as its obvious MSU is the class of the Big Ten, not just the state of Michigan.

In football MSU has become what Michigan used to be. Dantonio loads up on local talent by reaching to Detroit and Ohio for a majority of his commits. In the past if a kid was talented and from Detroit he was a lock for scUM. No longer. Ask Will Gholston or Lawrence Thomas.

Michigan State features a power run game that can pass when needed very effectively. Their defense is physical and swarms to ball carriers with talented linebackers.

scUM lines up in a spread that features a talented QB and not much else. Their defense allows gash after long gash via the pass and run and cannot sustain a drive longer than 8 plays without a long TD or a punt.

Their defense lost the last remnant they had of an NFL talent last year in Graham. When was the last time U of M did not have NFL talent jumping off the page in a number of positions? None at all must be hard to take. scUM is MSU under John L. Smith. Talented QB (Drew Stanton) and then a bunch of rag tags that put together some solid games but fall apart completely against steady and strong opponents.

Go Green

I’m so pleasantly surprised at how awesome he’s been so far this year. I was worried we were headed for another year like 2005 when John Goss and co. only hit 31% of their attempts. We were spoiled with Brett Swenson, but Conroy has picked up right where Swenson left off. Well done.

None of this “scUM” business this week. It makes us (and, specifically, you, whomever is commenting) look no better than the Walmart Wolverines who call MSU “little brother.” The University of Michigan is not scum. Let’s stop playing to their level and not perpetuate stupid rival nicknames started over at other decidedly less awesome and more ridiculous MSU blogs (cough cough ENLIGHTENED SPARTAN cough).

Should be a Battle Royal on Saturday. Best way to stop Denard is to tackle him, but so far very few people have been able to do it. We’ll see how MSU does.

Anyway, my fellow blogging e-friends at The Only Colors……any of you going to the game? We’ll be set up in the Fingerle’s Lumber Yard, I’d love to extend an olive branch to my MSU friends and please stop on by. You guys have linked me in the past in posts and on the sidebar, and the very least I could do is invite you all over.

Should be a fun day, but a LOOOOOONG week. Holy heck, its not even lunch on Monday

Go Blue

While Kirk’s first INT was definitely a brain-fart, replays appeared to show Nichol attempting to cover up the ball with both hands as soon as he turned away from the first Wisconsin defender, only to have the ball knocked out by a pitch perfect play by the second defender (a LB?). At least that was my perspective, I could be off.

I’d also be leery of claiming that James White was overly impressive. He had a solid day, but let’s not forget that 50 of those 98 yards were on 2 carries. Both were on blitzes up the middle where he was able to successfully bounce outside. The second one saw a great crack-back block on Trenton Robinson and Johnny Adams unable to keep contain as a result of following the receiver too far inside.

Regardless, my first post at TOC, and looking forward to more! Great stuff!

Tackle Denard = win
Don’t tackle Denard = lose.

MSU has plenty of team speed on defense to get near him. They need to bring him down at first contact almost every time.

At least bad news for those of us entralled by the 8 minute drive at the end of the Wisco game. There won’t be any of those this week.