Preview: Michigan State vs. Notre Dame

by LVS on Sep 17, 2010 8:46 PM CDT in Michigan State Spartans Football

10 years ago, incredibly enough.

Your MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS vs. the NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH
SPARTAN STADIUM, EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN
8:00 PM (ET), ABC/ESPN2
ONLINE RADIO FEED: WJR [pause] DUH-troit!
WEATHER: 64 DEGREES, 30% CHANCE OF RAIN (THUNDERSTORMS POSSIBLE).

The games between Michigan State and Notre Dame have in recent years been very close and very exciting. State won in 2007 and 2008 by margins of 16 and 17, respectively, but those large margins of victory have been the exception and not the rule. Notre Dame's last four wins in this series have been by a total margin of 17 points, and they haven't beaten MSU by more than a touchdown since 1993. There's little reason to believe that this game will be any different: MSU and ND look to be two evenly-matched teams that shouldn't be separated by more than a handful of points.

Note that it's looking increasingly likely that there will be rain at some point during the game, and that, along with the fact that it's a night game, will bring the inevitable comparisons to the 2006 nightmare. Regardless of whether it rains, I have faith that this is a fundamentally different team and program than the clownshoes version of the late JLS years, and that this won't happen again. Have faith that our team is talented, ready, and certainly hungry for a win after how last year's game finished. I do, and think we'll send the Irish home with another loss.

WHEN MICHIGAN STATE IS ON DEFENSE: . . . they'll be contending with a Notre Dame offense that isn't nearly as dangerous as last year's unit, but is certainly capable of scoring points on MSU.

As you probably know, the Irish are led by Dr. Dayne Crist, who was a very highly touted recruit from high school and was Jimmy Clausen's heir apparent for two years before finally taking the reins this season. Crist has been reasonably efficient this season: he's completed 62% of his passes, with three touchdowns and only one interception. His importance to Notre Dame was never more apparent than it was last weekend; when Crist went down for a few series in the first half, the Irish looked utterly lost on offense. The Irish had eight drives without Crist, and scored a grand total of zero points on those possessions. The eight drives with Crist yielded all 24 Notre Dame points. That's obviously not to say that ND would have blown Michigan out of the water had Crist been able to play the entire game, but he clearly makes a major difference for the Irish. Nonetheless, Saturday will mark Crist's first road start; it'll be extremely important for MSU to pressure Crist and try to force him into bad decisions.

More, after the jump.

Crist can throw to two of the country's most capable receivers: Michael Floyd and Kyle Rudolph. Rudolph, of course, had a go-ahead 95-yard touchdown catch late in the game against Michigan last week. The catch was a product of laughably bad safety play by Michigan, but Rudolph is an extremely dangerous tight end, and he did plenty of damage against MSU last season (6 catches, 95 yards, including a 52-yarder). We have struggled enormously against good tight ends in the last few seasons (Rudolph, Garrett Graham, Andrew Quarless, last week against FAU, etc.). I seriously hope that we have a plan to curtail Rudolph tomorrow, or it could get ugly.

Floyd is a excellent receiver, though his production has suffered this season. I'll let Keith Arnold explain why:

[Floyd has been] a marked man. With Golden Tate leaving early and Floyd playing opposite a true freshman that's split wide, teams have been rolling coverages over the top, and Michael hasn't had a chance to really explode for any of his traditional big plays. (He's also dropped a few balls, had Crist throw him into the band twice, and not run his trademark fade route yet, either.) The key to getting Floyd unleashed will be the continued dominance of Kyle Rudolph and Theo Riddick stepping up at the slot receiver. Floyd didn't go two games in a row without a touchdown last year. You've got to think a big game is coming.

The aforementioned freshman receiver is TJ Jones, who had a 53-yard touchdown catch last week. Without Golden Tate, this is a significantly less scary receiving corps than ND had last season, but they're still more than capable of besting MSU's embattled secondary.

Armando Allen, currently in his fourteenth season of eligibility in South Bend, will presuambly handle the most carries for the Irish on Saturday. He ran well against MSU last season (23 carries, 115 yards, 1 TD), and has been pretty good this season as well (averaging 5.5 yards per carry against two Big Ten defenses). In last year's game, Allen was successful taking direct snaps and running wildcat-type formations. Keith Arnold alerted us to keep an eye on Cierre Wood as well; indeed he was "stuck in neutral" against Michigan but he's also very, very fast and has big-play potential.

Key player for MSU: Colin Neely. Neely was fantastic last week against FAU, and he'll need another fine performance on Saturday. Our secondary will be under tons of pressure against ND's fine receivers; keeping pressure on Crist would do wonders for our pass defense. This is not wishful thinking; Ryan Kerrigan was a terrorbeast against ND, and while Neely isn't going to approach Kerrigan's level of disruption, some large portion thereof is realistic.

Key player for Notre Dame: Theo Riddick. If he can get going, MSU won't be able to focus on Michael Floyd. And then bad things will happen. So, let's hope this doesn't happen.

WHEN MICHIGAN STATE IS ON OFFENSE: . . . it's absolutely imperative that Kirk Cousins throws the ball more accurately, and makes better decisions. Cousins certainly hasn't been great so far this season, but I'm still confident in him. Mark Dell had a huge game against Notre Dame last season (6 catches, 121 yards, including a 57 yard catch) and looked very good last week; he should be a primary option. Regarding Notre Dame's pass defense, here's what mgoblog said last week:

As far as ND goes, Marve struggled against the veteran secondary, throwing a pick when Walls sank into the deep route in cover two and Marve chucked it anyway and completing a large number of uselessly short passes. Though he went 31 of 42, all those completions only gained 220 yards, a Threet/Sheridan-esque 5.2 YPC. The longest completion of the day went for 16 yards. Notre Dame also racked up four sacks, though as mentioned the coaching staff put the blame for three of them on Marve; the fourth was blamed on a tailback's blitz pickup. Notre Dame looks to have the same low-mistake secondary they've had for a long time.

ND lost Kyle McCarthy to graduation but nearly everyone else is back for them. They're good but not exceptional, and Cousins' interception at the end of the game last year unfortunately obscured the huge game he had: 23-35-302. Obviously, the scheme is different this year but Cousins has been successful against the ND personnel and there's no reason to believe that he can't be again.

Cousins would be helped enormously if MSU can get the running game going again. Baker and Bell have been unbelievable in the first two games, and they'll be joined by Larry Caper this week. Here's what Keith Arnold said about ND's rush defense:

It's tough to dismiss Robinson's performance, but the Irish have actually done a very good job of bottling up running backs. Granted, it's only two games, but opposing running backs are only averaging 3.3 yards-per-carry against the Irish, and Ian Williams, Manti Te'o, and Carlo Calabrese are rock-solid run defenders. (As rock solid as you can be if you gave up 258 yards in one afternoon to a 185-pound kid that wears velcro on his shoes...)

That's somewhat true, but 1) you can't entirely discount what Robinson did, even if MSU's scheme is completely different, and 2) they weren't lights-out against Purdue, either. Dan Dierking (who? Exactly.) rushed for 6.2 yards per carry for the Boilers managed 102 yards on the day with worse running backs and a worse offensive line than MSU has. It's probably unrealistic to expect MSU to constantly gash the ND defense in the style they've managed in the last two games, but establishing a running game will be critically important to establish the play action. And if we can do that, good things will happen, like so:

Erm, yeah, that's ND's safeties freezing on the run and then getting buuuurned. Speaking of mgoblog--if we can do things like this, cackle with knowing glee. ND's linebackers were similarly susceptible to play action last week--even the vaunted Manti Te'o had difficulties.

Key player for MSU: Kirk Cousins. This sounds like the easy way out, but it's true: if he doesn't play better, we don't win.

Key player(s) for ND: Ian Williams. ND's excellent nose guard had a strong game against MSU last season but struggled against Michigan last week. If he's having a good game, we probably won't get much done on the ground and the entire game plan is altered. This will be a big, big test for John Stipek.

FINAL THOUGHTS: OH HEY I already wrote this:

I'm usually pretty manic-depressive about predicting MSU games, so the fact that I'm reasonably optimistic about this one disturbs me some. I love the way we've run the ball so far, I think that Kirk Cousins will be highly motivated to atone for his interception last season, and while I don't think our defense is going to dominate Notre Dame, I certainly don't think they'll be steamrolled, either. It's always risky to count on a quarterback playing well in his first road start, and I think we'll have some success blitzing Crist and rattling him. There are plenty of ways MSU could lose this game: Michael Floyd could go off, as could Kyle Rudolph (and the latter is more likely, in my opinion), we could turn the ball over a ton, we could have horrific defensive breakdowns, and so on.
But I think the first two games have been perfect for MSU: challenging enough to keep the team interested, but not challenging enough to force the coaches to open up the playbook or for the players to be tired/banged up heading into this game.Furthermore, playing this game in East Lansing will make a difference. From the beginning of spring practice, there's been a terrific vibe surrounding this MSU team; they're talented and ready, and I think they'll pass their first big test of the year. 30-24 MSU, or something like that.

I wrote that on Tuesday and still like it now. GO STATE.

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Comments

Great preview. Sorry the SBN ate your homework.

I learned last year to type posts in Word then copy & paste and format in the SB editor.

Watching Texas high school football tonight. Obviouly thr spread offense has really caught on here. Everybody runs the shotgun, 4-wides, veer option.

Anyway, it gave me some food for thought while watching the game tomorrow:

—Is an 8-yard gain on 3rd and 6 worse than a 12-yard gain on 1st and 10?

—Would you rather have an offense that gains 2.6 yards per play on average with a standard deviation of 0.1 yards, or an offense that gains 5 yards per play on average with a standard deviation of 3 yards?

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 17, 2010 10:19 PM CDT via mobile reply actions

To clarify...

On that first question, I mean from the defense’s perspective.

One more: If team D scores 28 points on the first four drives, then loses 30-28, is it worse for them than falling behind 30-7 and then scoring 21 points?

OK, one last one. If team A beats team B 31-17, it’s not a blowout. If team A had beaten team B 52-17, it would be considered a blowout, right? So why is it on team A’s defense that team A only won by 14 and didn’t achieve the expected “blowout”?

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 17, 2010 10:40 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions

1) Not really; it might be slightly more disheartening since you did a good job for two plays and then failed, but if you’re never getting to third down that’s pretty depressing too.

2) Not enough info given. Assuming normal distribution (which is almost never the case; YPP distribution tends to have a huge spike at 0 due to incompletions and a long, fat tail for long passes and breakaway runs), the former turns into 10.4 avg, 0.2 stddev per 4 plays; the latter is 20 avg, 6 stddev per 4 plays. So if you assume you’re going to go for it on 4th every time and turnovers never happen, you’re slightly more likely to score a TD with the former. (Actually, that neglects the possibility that you get the first down within the first three and then lose yards on 4th to fall short of 10; this isn’t frequent with that distribution, though.) If each has the same turnover risk per play, the higher-variance one is almost certainly better – you get down the field with fewer opportunities to turn it over. Same is true if you’re attempting to come from behind. On the other hand, the first team would be absolutely Navy-esque at chewing up clock once they’re ahead.

3) Definitely. One is a massive choke job, the other is a never-say-die attitude. (Think U.S. soccer. It’s immensely frustrating that we don’t seem able to figure out how to play until we’re down, but I’d much prefer that to scoring early every game and then falling apart once we have the lead.)

4) It’s not. At least, not any more so than failure to achieve an even more ridiculous blowout in the latter case would be.

by SpartanDan on Sep 17, 2010 11:30 PM CDT up reply actions

Thanks for your thoughts.

So why, in #1, do we put so much emphasis on giving up first downs on third and long plays? In football you have four downs to gain 10 yards. Does it really make that much difference whether it occurs on first down or on third down?

good analysis. It comes down to expected value of each play, I think, and needs more assessment of probabilities beyond my SWAG above. I think a Navy-type strategy would be much closer to a normal distribution of yardage in the long run. [And yes given that distribution I would go for it on 4th down nearly every time.]

Are you saying this ironically? My irony sensors are on the fritz lately.

correct. If it’s on anyone it’s on the offense, not the defense.

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 18, 2010 8:21 AM CDT up reply actions

1) Because that’s a situation where we should stop them. An average offense against an average defense is probably 65% or so to get a first down within 3 plays from 1st and 10, but if you get them to 3rd and long the percentage at that point is much lower. Kind of the same thing as point #3: you did well to start and then choked.

3) Not at all. The result may be the same, but I think how you get there says a lot about what sort of results you can reasonably expect in the future. It may be cliche to speak of “mental toughness”, but it really does matter – and a team that makes a huge comeback but falls short has a lot more of it than one that jumps out to a lead but folds at the first sign of adversity.

4) It depends on what sort of opponent you’re playing. If it’s somebody whose offense is really terrible, then yeah, your defense is at least somewhat at fault. If you’re playing, say, Houston, I would argue that the defense did fine and the offense has issues. Even blowouts can have cause for concern if they’re something like 63-28.

by SpartanDan on Sep 18, 2010 9:16 AM CDT up reply actions

I am starting to think differently about the "third and long" failure.

Really, third down is mentally large because most teams punt on 4th down. But really, a team has 4 downs to get 10 yards. I don’t know that “never punt” would necessarily be worthwhile, although it’s been tried, documented on Smart Football. But I agree with Gregg Easterbrook that punting inside opponent’s territory in the zone between the 50 and field-goal range is a mistake.

Number 3: think of each drive as an independent event with a probability of success. If a team is capable of scoring on 40% of drives, and they have 10 drives in a game, they will more likely than not score on 4 drives. If they score on the first 4 in a row, it’s the same as scoring on the last 4 in a row, or the four middle drives, or distributed throughout the game.

The same result — a 30-28 loss — we interpret as either a blown lead or a valiant comeback, but in reality, both are just a 30-28 loss.

For #4: In both examples the opponent scored the same number of points — 17. What could the defense have done differently to make their own offense score more points to get to blowout status?

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 18, 2010 9:36 AM CDT up reply actions

#4: They could have not given up 17.

As for #3, I don’t buy that drives are independent.

by SpartanDan on Sep 18, 2010 12:04 PM CDT up reply actions

If they are not independent, then what are they?

Why does FAU go 3 and out on one and 77 yards for a TD on the next? Then 3 and out on the two successive after that?

I think it’s more than drives being independent. They are independent groupings of a succession of independent tests.

There’s some amount of adjustment, sure. On both sides of the ball. Point is, if there’s a switch to score at will, why not have the switch in the “on” position all the time?

Also, on #4, how does giving up fewer points on defense cause your offense to score more points?

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 18, 2010 12:20 PM CDT up reply actions

Momentum's effect may be overstated, but it does exist

Especially when you’ve blown leads several times and it looks like it might happen again.

As to #4: 31-0 is a blowout. 31-17 is not. So the defense could have made it a blowout.

by SpartanDan on Sep 18, 2010 3:56 PM CDT up reply actions

"blown leads several times and looks like it might happen again"

…is a self-defeating psychological effect.

“Believe it and you will see it”.

by CPT Hoolie on Sep 18, 2010 6:16 PM CDT up reply actions

Nonetheless, it exists.

by SpartanDan on Sep 19, 2010 12:19 AM CDT up reply actions

I used to write them in Word, but it never comes out looking like I want it to.

So I’m back to the SBN editor, and will take my lumps from time to time — but it’s annoying and difficult to write the same thing twice.

PP-TPW.
The Only Colors

by LVS on Sep 18, 2010 2:49 PM CDT up reply actions

I am very excited and very worried about...

how much we have been holding back the previous 2 games. By this I obviously mean the 3-4 defense, blitz packages, and the trick passing/running plays with K-MART and Nichol. After watching the Western and FAU games a couple of times I am worried about a couple of things.

1) Pass coverage with LB and pass rush with the D-line
2)Consistent pass offense, specifically Cousins and our TEs (both of which we heavily relied on last year)
3)The experience of our DBs and how they will handle their first real test of the season

Last year I thought I had we had a real chance for a Rose Bowl, and this year I have been a bit more pessimistic with my predictions for MSU. So far this season I’m pretty glad about having reserved hopes for this team, but if our D shows up and Cousins returns to his near perfect form leading the Spartans to a solid win I will def be gulping down the Dantonio Kool-aid for the rest of the year….

Hope you were entertained by my nerve racked rant. Cheers and GO GREEN

"We were a little fat and sassy" -Tom Izzo

by itsalwaysunnyinEL on Sep 17, 2010 11:26 PM CDT reply actions

Agreed on LB pass coverage

The corners have done a decent job when they remember to look back instead of maiming the receiver (although they certainly haven’t been tested like they will be tomorrow yet). The pass rush hasn’t really been terrible either; the problem is that the checkdown is always open. If the opponent can throw a quick slant or flare every time, it doesn’t matter how good your pass rush is.

I think the passing game will come around. It’s the pass defense that worries me.

by SpartanDan on Sep 17, 2010 11:33 PM CDT up reply actions

Let the record show

that the ND comeback in 2006 didn’t actually start until after it was done raining. (MSU was up 16 points at that point, having scored a Caulcrick TD on a drive that featured his power running on the wet field.)

Not that that makes me any less superstitiously paranoid.

Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!

by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 18, 2010 8:41 AM CDT reply actions

I'd argue that the comeback began

when we went from in FG range to 3rd and 42 due to this hideous sequence (at which point I believe it was still raining):

Timeout (to avoid delay of game)
False start
Gain of 8
Holding
Holding
Timeout (to avoid delay of game)
15-yard sack
12 yard gain; holding penalty declined (because really, it’s 4th and 30 anyway, why give them another shot even if it would be 3rd and 52?)

I don’t believe there’s an adequate way to describe that without a number of words that you don’t want here.

by SpartanDan on Sep 18, 2010 9:22 AM CDT up reply actions

Reasonable point

MSU was still in very solid position to win, up 16, punting from midfield, with only 15 minutes or so to go. But I suppose you’re right that the tipping point (in retrospect) occurred when the rain was still going.

Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!

by KJ@theonlycolors on Sep 18, 2010 9:52 AM CDT up reply actions