Essentials

Overview

Hey look it's these guys again, still proud that Michigan's punter dropped a snap. That's how it is, man, when you're still so mad about "little brother" for the same reason morons are mad when you call them a moron. Nothing hurts worse than being diagnosed correctly.

This year's edition has beaten two MAC teams in uninspiring fashion, got blown out by Notre Dame 38-10 before a late TD sent a message with a two point conversion to make it 38-18, and then won a grossly typical MSU-Iowa game thanks in large part to Iowa's quarterback pulling a Tommy Rees.

Naturally, MSU fans could not be more confident.

Run Offense vs MSU

Still don’t understand Michigan State captain Chris Frey here or why this wasn’t reviewed. No need for this in the game. pic.twitter.com/LRkpkMvZbf

— Irish Illustrated (@PeteSampson_) September 25, 2017

Michigan has started dismally here and runs into a Defense that just obliterated Iowa's zone-mad offense with their characteristic aggression. The Iowa guys I follow on twitter were despondent that for the nth consecutive year the Hawkeyes were content to run their basic stuff in the face of a defense where any zone action saw the linebacker unit fly to the line of scrimmage far too fast for anything approximating a double-and-climb-to-the-second-level to work. Iowa sat there and ate it all game because Kirk Ferentz doesn't bother coaching except against Michigan.

MSU was allowed to sit in their traditional Narduzzi defense against the Hawkeyes and things looked just like they did back in the day. If Michigan offers up the same stuff they'll meet the same fate.

By contrast, MSU was forced into a more conservative approach by Notre Dame's spread-to-pass offense. The Irish met an MSU defense playing with their corners off and a legitimately deep safety and had much better luck on the ground.  ND tailbacks Josh Adams and Dexter Williams combined for 96 yards on 17 carries, 5.6 YPC, with QB Brandon Wimbush chipping in 52 on 8. Only 13 late clock-killing carries from Deon McIntosh and Ian Book dragged ND's rushing stats back down to the realm of the respectable.

Michigan probably must pass to open up the run in this game. They have the personnel to do so, with a mobile-ish QB who has to be respected from time to time and an open-field lightning bolt like Chris Evans.

If Michigan cannot pass because of weather or their own problems it'll be a tough slog. MSU should be vulnerable to tendency-breaking misdirection, especially subtle stuff that gets the linebackers flowing hard before hitting a designed cutback. This will be a test for Michigan's creativity, coming off a bye against a defense that plays blitzball.

MSU does have two good DTs in Raequan Williams and Mike Panasiuk, further complicating runs up the middle. MLB Joe Bachie is coming off a monster game against Iowa that I'm a little suspicious of since the Hawkeyes just let him run wild without anything like a counterpunch. The DEs are a weak point and should be targeted by whatever Michigan's got up their sleeve.

KEY MATCHUP: JIM HARBAUGH vs JIM HARBAUGH'S DESIRE TO MANBALL IT.  Just say no to lining up in the I and running straight ahead.

[Hit THE JUMP for a really good "No Diggity" reference]

Pass Offense vs MSU

Matt Morrissey is in this picture somewhere

This could go in any direction and it wouldn't be a huge surprise. Michigan State games this year have without fail featured guys hand-wavingly open downfield, but MSU has escaped all these situations without damage thanks to overthrows and dropped balls. Completing downfield shots is not easy, but a 0% success rate on repeated open downfield forays is unsustainable. Ace notes the many missed opportunities from their last game:

The secondary has held up for the most part thus far. I don't think that lasts. The picture that graces the top of this post is representative of MSU's first four games; they've let several receivers get behind the defense only to be bailed out by wayward throws. Notre Dame's first touchdown was set up by a 40-yard catch when Equanimeous St. Brown cruised right past Matt Morrissey up the seam. I've seen each corner—Josh Butler, Josiah Scott, and Justin Layne—get burned in similar fashion.

The mainstay in this year's secondary has been safety Khari Willis, who regularly takes awful angles against both the pass and run. David Dowell, Andrew's twin brother, at least didn't have a noticeable bust against Iowa after taking over for Morrissey. True freshman Trey Person also got a shot against Iowa and immediately blew a tackle on a bubble screen. The Hawkeyes could've had a lot of success on crossing routes to the tight ends but missed multiple open throws that would've picked up first downs; Michigan has those down better, it seems.

Meanwhile MSU is starting a walk-on at weakside end and has been rotating between a second walk-on and Demetrius Cooper, who had 2.5 sacks as a full-time starter last year. They're starting a freshman corner and playing safety Matt Morrissey, who looked terrible against Notre Dame. This could be an opportunity to get healthy.

Or it could be an ugly barrage of sacks and incompletions. Despite getting close to zilch from their defensive line MSU has nine sacks from eight different players and is 20th in passing down sack rate. (They're barely above average on standard downs.) They're above average at passing success rate. Meanwhile Michigan's pass protection has been a soup of missed assignments and whiffed blocks.

This preview leans towards the productive end of the scale. It's worth pointing out that Michigan State has gone up against some horrible, horrible offenses so far this year. Early in the year who you play has a big impact, but MSU's pass defense isn't good enough to explain the craters that stand in for opposition passing offenses:

• BGSU: 114th YPA, 98th success rate, 95th explosiveness.
• WMU: 80th YPA, 45th success rate, 126th explosiveness.
• Notre Dame: 114th YPA, 117th success rate, 33rd explosiveness.
• Iowa: 54th YPA, 35th success rate, 59th explosiveness.

Michigan, for all its troubles, is 37th, 82nd, and 32nd in those metrics. John O'Korn's confident, 11 YPA outing against Purdue was Michigan's best performance of the year.

Michigan should spread MSU out with their five-wide sets and make them defend vertically, especially in the slot. Play action should also be effective, with MSU linebackers firing on token fakes. The tight ends should be open a lot; so should the deeper sections of the field. As MSU's demonstrated so far, hitting those isn't a given even when they're there. Michigan should get at least a couple big gainers.

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN PASS PROTECTION vs BLITZ PICKUP. MSU generates almost all their rush off of blitzes. A protected O'Korn should find openings. Blitz pickup has been pretty assy so far this year, unfortunately.

Run Defense vs MSU

LJ Scott pictured here with ball [Patrick Barron]

This will come down to how much Michigan State can scheme up against the Michigan defense. Last year Michigan entered with an impregnable run defense; Michigan State—despite being an obviously terrible team that could have used whatever tricks their coaches could conjure up by the time they were 2-5—cracked it early with a bunch of funky stuff they'd been prepping for two months. They did nothing on the ground afterwards until it was make-it-look-good time.

MSU hasn't done much better this year, as Ace detailed in FFFF. This sequence was particularly revealing:

This offensive line simply cannot run block, however. Here's second-and-one:

Here's third-and-one:

Guess what happened on fourth-and-one?

Hindsight is 20/20 but this stuff wasn't hard to predict with the power of foresight. No matter the running back, there weren't any yards available to get without considerable effort or a cheeky quick toss to the edge (and that worked precisely once before MSU tried to go back to the well and got stuffed).

MSU YPC has collapsed despite a schedule featuring two MAC teams and a Notre Dame outfit that ran out to a huge lead and was happy to let MSU chip away in the second half. Faced with a game-long dogfight against a pulse-bearing opponent (Iowa) last week, MSU running backs farted out 1.7 yards an attempt.

This state of affairs will not stand because MSU annually saves everything for this game and Michigan will probably get got a couple times as a result. When not being the subject of year-long preparation against a team that is no longer an important rival, Michigan will annihilate MSU.

Two players may defy the previous paragraph's assertion. One is LJ Scott, who has gone from talented man-beast to enigmatic fumble machine over the course of his time in East Lansing. When he is able to latch onto the ball he retains the combination of light feet and power that had many, including this space, projecting him as the next star Big Ten running back when he was a freshman two years ago. Even without considering the fumbles, Scott has dropped off the same cliff the rest of the Spartan running game has. He is not immune to re-setting the LOS. Michigan's fear is that he gets loose once or twice and powers through a tackle to make a moderate gain into a big one.

The second potentially viable option is quarterback Brian Lewerke. Lewerke is Michigan State's leading rusher, boasting 8.5 YPC on 33 non-sack attempts. 52 of his 280 yards came on a bizarre 52-yard QB sneak in the Notre Dame game, but even without that he's averaging 7.1 YPC on eight attempts a game. While Lewerke is decently mobile he's in the Connor Cook realm where his effectiveness is propped up by rare usage; still expect to see some speed option on third and four or five; MSU has done it for years and still has good success with it.

On Michigan's end the most interesting question is how much Bryan Mone is deployed. This is Michigan's first outing against a true manball outfit, and it's one that got whooped by a standard 4-3 last week. Mone's ability to hammer single blocking backwards will be highly relevant. Survey says this will be his most extensive deployment yet, but he still fails to get half of Michigan's snaps. When the 3-3-5 is working so well you have to ride with it.

KEY MATCHUP: DON BROWN versus DOWNLOADING WHATEVER GOOFY CRAP GETS THROWN AT HIM. See Purdue, post throwback-drive.

Pass Defense vs MSU

i like the way lew werke [Bryan Fuller]

If Michigan State is going to move the ball without the aid of hijinks it is going to be here. They've evolved into a majority-shotgun team by necessity, and versus Iowa they passed two-thirds of the time they were in the gun.

Lewerke looks great when he's able to set up in the pocket and fire at open guys, and that does happen no matter how HAVOC  your defense is. When forced off his spot or sped up or given a tight window Lewerke is prone to devolve into scatter-shot mode. Ace had him for DSRs of 58% and 59% against Iowa and Notre Dame, which is a decrement worse than the performances Michigan fans were ready to evict Wilton Speight for.

The loss of RJ Shelton, Josiah Price, and Donnie Corley leaves Michigan State's receiving corps in a bit of a transitional state. Strapping junior Felton Davis has emerged as the primary target. Davis had a breakout game last week against Iowa... when the Hawkeyes were forced to play Michael Ojemudia, a plainly overmatched backup who looked every part of the #120 OLB he was ranked as. Davis goes 6'4" and is one of those guys who isn't entirely covered when he's covered but he'll find the sledding much tougher against Michigan's trio of cornerbacks, all of whom have been effective so far.

Darrell Stewart, Trishton Jackson, and tight end Matt Sokol round out the guys with double-digit targets. All look fine. All look like guys who are Just A Guy. Notably, Michigan State's passing game is tenth in success rate and 119th in explosiveness: this is a dink and dunk passing offense, owing to a lack of athleticism on the outside and a distinct fear of their own pass protection.

That pass protection will get a severe test against Michigan's havoc-laden defense. Michigan State has held the dogs off so far with a combination of play action and quick passes, but their weakness is clear when you look at their sack rates on standard vs passing downs. Standard downs: 3.3%, 42nd. Passing downs: 9.1%, 86th. MSU's young tackles get exposed when they're asked to block for more than two seconds. Against a team that's #1 in havoc rate nationally, #1 in standard down sack rate, and #11 in passing down sack rate Lewerke will be under siege.

Expect a ton of slants and screens and short stuff as MSU attempts to conjure up yards in every way they can think of that doesn't threaten to expose their pass protection. Michigan has proved vulnerable to this in spurts both this year and last; it's hard to make the entire plane out of that material. MSU will also no doubt have some frippery-laden deep strikes in their back pocket; I'm sure everyone reading this remembers the fullback-out-of-nowhere strike from two years ago.

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN'S FRONT SEVEN vs SCREEN RECOGNITION. Too many times this year they've poured across the line willy-nilly; Michigan can likely sacrifice a rusher here and there to combat the blizzard of short stuff they're about to face.

Special Teams

Freshman kicker Matt Coghlin is 2/3 on the year, hitting from 38 and 40 and missing from 48. Kickoff guy Brett Scanlon has gotten just 2 of 18 kicks to the endzone, which may or may not be good news since Michigan's kickoff returns have been terrible.

Punter Jake Hartbarger has been impressive, averaging 43 yards a kick and giving up just two returns on 20 punts. He kept Iowa pinned in their own end for most of the first half last week... he may have been their MVP given the vast disparity in starting field position MSU enjoyed for the bulk of the game.

MSU return units have done nothing of note so far. They did nothing last year, either. They don't really have a slot guy who plays a lot, and we mentioned the athleticism thing.

KEY MATCHUP: AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING THE THINGS YOU HAVE DONE SO FAR

Intangibles

Cheap Thrills

Worry if...

• Michigan's offense gets the same treatment Iowa's does and Michigan just keeps eating it.
• MSU's inevitable trick plays work.
• The weather sucks.

Cackle with knowing glee if...

• Michigan takes a bunch of deep shots.
• Michigan has some things schemed up to take advantage of MSU's hyper-aggressive linebacker play.
• Lewerke is constantly running for his life.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 4 (Baseline 5; +1 for They Spend All Year Preparing For This Game, +1 for Inside Zone Is Setting A Down On Fire, +1 for New QB and Shaky Pass Pro Could Lead To Turnovers, –1 for No Organic Pass Rush, –1 for Secondary Has Escaped Looking Terrible For Too Long, –1 for Their Offensive Line Is A Sieve, –1 for Don Brown Off A Bye Week.)

Desperate need to win level: 10 (Baseline 5; +1 for Season Aspirations, +1 for Dantonio Might Evaporate In Front Of Our Eyes, +1 for A Long Winning Streak Is Necessary To See How Long Sad Bastard MSU Fans Will Bring Up The Punt Thing, +1 for I Mean We Are A Double-Digit Favorite At Home, +1 for And Undefeated).

Loss will cause me to... find some other group of people to compare Michigan State fans to now that juggalos are, like, marching on Washington and stuff, proving their superiority to MSU fans.

Win will cause me to... shrug.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

MSU's offense has done close to nothing against the two P5 defenses they've faced so far that wasn't 1) a fluke QB sneak, 2) exploiting a terrible backup CB, or 3) making it look good against Notre Dame after falling behind 35-10. Michigan's defense is much, much better than either ND or Iowa's. MSU will have a drive they've scripted and various things like Purdue did two weeks ago; like Purdue two weeks ago that's good for a bout ten points. MSU will get more if Michigan provides them more with turnovers.

Michigan's offense is going to be rough if they don't do their best Big 12 team impression by spreading it out and passing vertically. They won't run the ball effectively aside from tendency-breaking plays; they have had a fair amount of time to scheme those up off the bye. If O'Korn continues his performance from Purdue this won't be close; Michigan will have guys running open. If he gets a ton of pressure and is sped up this becomes a rock fight. One that Michigan should win absent disastrous turnovers.

If rain makes it impossible to throw, hello coinflip rockfight.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• John O'Korn goes over 300 yards passing at 9 YPA.
• MSU has less than 50 yards rushing (sacks included).
• Someone goes for two when it is not all appropriate to do so.
• Michigan, 22-11.