Michigan State Spartans Football: Spring Game Recap

White Wins, 9-3

This tweet from KJ proved to be prescient, as the White team was just an extra point away from covering a 6.5 point spread:

@BreslinBirds @isportsDave @MikeWilson247 @justcoverblog I'm going White -6.5. White D-line could eat up Green interior O-line.

— KJ (@KJatTOC) April 23, 2015

Also predictive was the idea that the White defensive line could eat up the Green offensive line; though White only came away with 1 sack to Green's 4, Tyler O'Connor never looked comfortable. O'Connor went 6 for 16 with an interception and just 51 yards. #HireKJ

Despite the low-scoring game, I don't think that there should be much concern about the offense. These games tend to favor defenses, anyways. Plus, Madre London and Gerald Holmes both looked at least competent with the ball in their hands. London didn't have the breakaway speed I was hoping for on the 50-yard run where he got caught from behind. Still, he looked adequate. Holmes earned some praise from Dantonio, as well:

I was impressed with Gerald Holmes ability to tough it out. He got some tough yards, very tough yards. I thought he ran pretty effectively.

Let's take a look at my things to watch for from the preview:

Jake Hartbarger was a little inconsistent, but had a 40.7 yards per punt average which is solid. That would be a step back from Mike Sadler, but something tells me Hartbarger will be better prepared come fall.

Running Backs were pretty good as mentioned above. I thought this quote from Madre London was interesting, though:

It just felt like a regular game. Coming from high school, we had a good amount of fans out there. It was just a regular game and I had to be patient and let the game come to me and not let myself get overwhelmed in the situation.

It certainly sounds that the game is important for the young guys.

New Offensive Lineman were spotty, but that was sort of to be expected. From Jack Allen:

I'm just going to keep pushing the guys. We need to do some drill work. Some of the younger guys, we have new guys out there like David Beedle, I think this was his fourth or fifth practice as an offensive linemen. I think he did a good job. We are just going to help teach the young guys and help them understand our concepts a little bit more.

Guys like Beedle, Devyn Salmon, and Brandon Clemons are guys who were originally defensive lineman and are still relatively new to the offensive line. The depth should improve, and I'm glad these changes occurred in the spring rather than the fall.

Cornerback Play was decent. I started to be concerned when A.J. Troup got behind Vayante Copeland on the first play of the game, but Copeland settled in nicely after that. Likewise, on the other side Arjen Colquhoun got beat by DeAnthony Arnett, but settled in after that as well. Given that it's the Spring Game, I have no idea how physical the corners were supposed to be in press coverage.

Takeaways

There were no major injuries I saw during the game, and that's a positive. Dantonio seemed pretty pleased with the performance of the team, and that's good enough for me. Outside of those things, it's tough to make any sort of solid conclusions.

One thing I will say is that getting 48,000 people to the game was impressive. The Go Green/Go White chant in the stadium was legitimate, and the quote from London shows you how much that attendance matters to the players. Between the attendance and the uniform unveiling, the team got four five commitments for the 2016 class over the weekend, which is exciting (I'll be working on getting up Welcome Aboard posts this week). Maybe this Mark Dantonio guy knows what he's doing, huh?

There are 130 days until the opener against Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. Start your countdown now.