Gopher Football
Michigan State
Michigan State is in the midst of historically disappointing season (by their standards). A promising 3-0 start to the season came to a unbelievably traumatic end with a 4th quarter collapse at home to Notre Dame. In that game the Spartans led by 16 points only to watch Notre Dame score 3 TD’s in the last 8 minutes of the game to win 40-37. That one game was a season killer”¦ and in the case of Spartan coach John L. Smith a job killer. Following that loss the Spartans lost at home to Illinois 23-30, and then got blown out by Michigan and Ohio State. Inexplicably, the Spartans responded the next week with the largest comeback in college football history against Northwestern. Trailing 38-3 in the 3rd quarter, Michigan State rallied for the games final 5 final TD’s in just the last quarter and a half to win 41-38. Just when it looked like the Spartans may have reclaimed their season, they got blown out by Indiana the following week. It was then announced that Spartan coach John L. Smith’s contract would be bought out at the end of the season. Nobody really knew how Michigan State would respond to this incident, but as it turns out, it was not very well. MSU lost at home to a mightily struggling Purdue team 17-15. So as it stands now, the Spartans are 1-5 in the Big Ten with a lame duck coach. I wish I could say that it bodes well for Minnesota, but with Michigan State you just never know.
If you’re looking at the biggest reason the Spartans are struggling, you don’t have to look to long before you start finding your answers. One of the main ones, and probably the most disappointing, is that senior quarterback Drew Stanton has not built on his success from last season. Last year as a junior Stanton threw for 66% completions, 3000 yards, 22 TD’s and only 12 int’s. Because of his nice junior season Stanton was considered one of the top quarterback in the nation and a lot was expected of him this year. But with only two games remaining in their season Stanton is throwing for only 60%, with just 12 TD’s and 10 int’s. Those definitely are not bad numbers, but they’re not the superstar quality that many expected from him. Even so, Stanton is a very dangerous player that the Gophers will need to stop. He has a good arm, he’s tough, and he’s one of the better rushing quarterbacks in the nation, having rushed for 450 yards and 5 TD’s so far this year.
The remainder of the Spartan offense is less than spectacular. The next best player is running back Javon Ringer. He is a dangerous threat on the ground, rushing for 6.7 yards per carry. Ringer does not have a lot of yards because he’s missed several games with a knee injury, but he is back now and is another key guy for the Gopher D to focus on. In Ringer’s absence Jehuu Caulcrick, a 6’0″ 260 lbs. load of a running back got the nod. Caulcrick is leads the team with 6 rushing TD’s. As with Minnesota, MSU has experienced a large decline in their running game. After leading the conference in rushing two years ago, the Spartans are last in the Big Ten at just 85 yards per game. As with their RB’s, Michigan State like to spread the ball around when it comes to getting the receivers involved. Senior Kerry Reed is the teams leading receiver with 578 yards and 4 TD’s, but MSU has 5 guys with at least 17 catches and 200 yards receiving. Michigan State is a spread offense team, and historically the results against Minnesota have been pretty good. In 2003 and 2004 MSU tore up the Gopher defense, last season the Gophers responded and held MSU to a relatively low 18 points.
What’s really killing MSU this year is their defense. The Spartans rank 96th in the nation in pass defense, allowing 231 yards per game. More importantly they’ve allowed 28 TD passes, the most in the nation. To give you a comparison, Indiana, who the Gophers tore up last week, has given up 26. The Spartans run defense is a little better, but still not great. MSU ranks about in the middle of the nation and the Big Ten with 137 yards per game, and 4 yards per attempt. They are coming off a good game against Purdue, but remember that in the two games prior to this Purdue did not score a touchdown.
On the defensive line, DT Clifton Ryan (22 tacles, 4 sacks), DE Ervin Baldwin (4 sacks ) and DT, #17 (WTF?) David Stanton (7 TFL) are the keys to keep an eye on. The most intriguing player on defense and a possible future star free safety Otis Wiley. Just a sophomore, Wiley leads in the team in tackles by a wide margin with 81, and is among the team leaders in tackles for loss with 5.5 and pass breakups with 6.
Minnesota
The Gophers finally got out of their offensive funk last weekend against Indiana, scoring 8 offensive touchdowns. The Gophers used a surprise aerial attack to catch the Hoosiers off guard and build a 35-0 lead by the second quarter. It took eight games, but Glen Mason and the rest of the coaches finally opened up the offense and allowed quarterback Bryan Cupito to air it out. The results were enormously positive, and success passing even opened up the running game for a few nice gains as well.
Last week brought a great game plan for Indiana, but will the Gophers be able to sustain the momentum against MSU? One thing the Gophers will not have is the element of surprise, so if they’re going to air out again they’ll be doing it against a prepared defense. One thing that could happen (and wouldn’t it be ironic) is that Michigan State will spend so much time preparing for the Gopher passing attack that they’ll ignore the run defense and Minnesota will once again find success on the ground. In the end, I think the Gophers are going to need to mix it up a little. I’m not sure the Gophers are good enough to come on the road and pass their way to a victory. Even though MSU is having a rough go of it on defense, they are more talented than Indiana on that side of the ball.
Defensively the Gophers have their work cut out from them. Even though the MSU offense is not doing as well is it has in years past, there still is some talent around that can do some damage. If I were the defensive coordinator, my first priority would be to keep Stanton from beating me. Keep a linebacker assigned to him to keep him from doing damage out of the backfield.
Bottom Line
This is one of those games that is really tough to predict. The last two years have seen a huge victory for MSU and a huge victory for the Gophers. MSU did not respond well in their first game since the John L Smith firing, but will they respond this week? Will the Gopher defense be able to slow down the potentially great MSU offensive or will the Spartans wake up? Will the Gophers be able to sustain the offensive momentum or was last week a fluke? In all honesty, your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I would guess for sure is that the game will see some scoring, and the team with the least amount of turnovers will win. I’m going to go with Minnesota once again because I think that at this point the Gophers have more to play for.
Prediction: Minnesota 34 ““ Michigan State ““ 31
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