But the offense is a hot mess. OL does not open up holes, and the only back who runs with authority is Higdon. Cole getting beat by a walk-on 245 pounder was disappointing, to say the least. Outside of Perry, the receivers are terrible. Poor route running, don't come back to the ball. Pretty easy to defend. On one play where O'Korn was sacked, they had a view from behind him. Every receiver was stationary with a defender on his hip. O'Korn was toast. He made some bad throws into coverage, but he didn't have open receivers often.
Probably should retire the fade route when he's on the field. We also dropped some key passes.When got the ball back after scoring in the third Q, Hill dropped a pass in the flat that he could have turned up field for big yards on first down. Instead, we're behind the chains. Of course, McDoom dropped one on the last drive.
As Herbstreit said a hundred times, Spartan LBs were loading the box and running down hill. Play action should work, but we didn't use it much and didn't have receivers behind the LBs. The throw to Perry that set up our short TD was play action. McKeon is looking good, but for the fumble where at least he was making extra effort.
Not sure why we kept running between the tackles so much. We set up one sweep beautifully with Wheatley in motion, but I don't recall us going back to it. I never had a feeling that the offense could sustain a drive after the first one. On that one, we inexplicably abandoned the run in the red zone.
The defense, of course, was stellar but for a couple of plays. Bush's unsportsmanlike conduct penalty probably cost us a TD because Lewerke was sacked on the play. MSU capitalized on a couple of great calls, one of which was the screen play for a TD. We bit and were burned, but that was a great call.
Dantonio had a good game plan, which they executed. Our turnovers primed the upset, but MSU having none was just as important. We got nothing easy. Looks like 3-9 was an aberration.
Probably should retire the fade route when he's on the field. We also dropped some key passes.When got the ball back after scoring in the third Q, Hill dropped a pass in the flat that he could have turned up field for big yards on first down. Instead, we're behind the chains. Of course, McDoom dropped one on the last drive.
As Herbstreit said a hundred times, Spartan LBs were loading the box and running down hill. Play action should work, but we didn't use it much and didn't have receivers behind the LBs. The throw to Perry that set up our short TD was play action. McKeon is looking good, but for the fumble where at least he was making extra effort.
Not sure why we kept running between the tackles so much. We set up one sweep beautifully with Wheatley in motion, but I don't recall us going back to it. I never had a feeling that the offense could sustain a drive after the first one. On that one, we inexplicably abandoned the run in the red zone.
The defense, of course, was stellar but for a couple of plays. Bush's unsportsmanlike conduct penalty probably cost us a TD because Lewerke was sacked on the play. MSU capitalized on a couple of great calls, one of which was the screen play for a TD. We bit and were burned, but that was a great call.
Dantonio had a good game plan, which they executed. Our turnovers primed the upset, but MSU having none was just as important. We got nothing easy. Looks like 3-9 was an aberration.
