I managed to throw this together on the flight. I had all the research done last night, but ran out of time.
This Pre-Snap Read focuses on the MSU offense vs the WSU defense - a portion of this game that few have investigated.
I took more of a macro approach to this Pre-Snap Read, and left out a lot of the individual player minutiae.
Some of this will be review (things I've mentioned before). Some of it will take that stuff a step further.
PRE-SNAP READ
By Jim Comparoni
Michigan State Rush Offense vs Washington State Rush Defense
What You Need To Know:
KEY STATS: Washington State ranks No. 4 in the Pac-12 in rush defense, allowing 146.2 yards per game, and No. 5 in yards allowed per run at 4.2.
Much of the pre-game chatter has been about MSU’s challenge in facing the WSU Air Raid offense. But WSU ranks better it total defense than in total offense in the Pac-12 standings.
THE REP: Washington State has self-dubbed their defense “The Speed D.” They want to play fast, and they do play fast, both in terms athleticism and all-out pursuit.
COMPARISON: Michigan State players said Washington State’s defense most closely resembles the Michigan Wolverine defense than any other opponent the Spartans have faced.
Like Michigan, the Cougars gain penetration up front with quickness and athleticism. WSU might not have the NFL Draft talent in the front seven that Michigan has, but they have plenty of ability - led by first-team All-America defensive lineman Hercules Mata’afa.
UNIQUE TRAIT: WSU enhances their quickness with excessive pre-snap stemming and movement, and then daredevil slants after the snap.
WSU uses the slim nature of some of their d-linemen as a weapon. Their d-linemen turn their shoulders sideways, enabling them to squeeze through gaps that broader d-linemen might not be able to penetrate.
In theory, blockers should be able to drive those d-linemen off the ball when they turn their shoulders perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. But that’s easier accomplished on a chalkboard than on the field, against these guys.
THE LOOK: Washington State plays a 3-3-5 against most teams, with three down linemen. One of the three down lineman is usually of conventional size, while the others are slim, but very quick and stronger than they look.
NAME TO KNOW: Their rush end, Frankie Luvu (No. 51, 6-2, 235, Sr.) is one of several guys who play bigger than their size. He essentially is a stand-up defensive end, a fourth down lineman. In theory, an offense should be able to isolate him and drive him off the ball. But Luvu can take on the point of attack and spill plays.
He is honorable mention All-Pac-12, but is probably more valuable than that award would suggest.
He had 2.5 sacks against Boise State and an INT on the final drive of the game to clinch victory against Stanford.
UNIQUE HEADACHE: With the stemming and slanting, WSU’s defensive front presents a confusing picture of moving targets for blockers. Somehow, through all of their movement, they don’t make any more gap assignment errors than conventional one-gapping defenses like Michigan State’s.
“It presents a challenge because it’s something different than what you see during the year,” said Michigan State co-offensive coordinator Dave Warner.
Warner said WSU’s defensive style has been difficult to replicate in practice with the Spartan scout team.
Center Brian Allen said the Spartans have used lighter, quicker linebacker types as defensive linemen on the scout team. That helps simulate some of the quickness of the WSU defensive front, but none of the power.
“They might be a little bit undersized, but with that speed they have power,” Warner said. “They are very strong. To get that combination of the speed and quickness, and the power, presents an issue.
“Their slants and angles are such, and so flat down the line of scrimmage, that it is sometimes difficult to present that to our offense in practice. It presents a little bit of an issue to really get that look. That’s been a little bit of a challenge.”
THE SIZE: Washington State’s starting d-linemen got 6-2, 252 (Mata’afa), 6-2 237 (Nnamdi Oguyao) and 6-3, 305 (Daniel Ekuale).
Ekuale is a legit nose guard. He can take on double-teams without budging.
WSU trots second-string d-linemen onto the field early and often.
THE REALITY PART ONE: Teams might think they can bash and bowl through WSU with power. But they are stronger than they look, based on the way they stacked up against the likes of Stanford and USC.
WSU held Stanford to just 93 yards rushing (52 of them came on one long TD run by Heisman finalist Bryce Love.) The Cardinal netted only 41 yards on their other 26 carries.
Washington had success running the ball inside, churning out 328 yards rushing against the Cougars. The Huskies have the nation’s No 38-ranked rushing attack but had way more success against WSU on the ground than any other rushing attack.
Michigan State will try to replicate that. But the Huskies did it at the tail end of a 12-game season, with the lighter/quicker Cougars theoretically wearing the scars of a season. The layoff associated with a bowl game could help the lighter, quicker team rejuvenate for one last fling.
Washington had success with basic “power” gap plays and inside zone runs, the type of which Michigan State deploys on a regular basis.
But can Michigan State run those plays as well as Washington did, with RB Myles Gaskin (5-10, 191) using excellent cutting ability and vision to find daylight in rushing for 192 yards against the Cougars.
“I’m sure their motto is going to be, ‘We’re going to run around those big Midwesterners,’” said Michigan State offensive line coach Mark Staten. “And our guys’ idea is, ‘Hey, let’s go after these maybe lighter-than-normal linemen than Big Ten linemen face.’”
PRECEDENTS: When Michigan State played Baylor in the 2014 Cotton Bowl, the Spartans faced a quick, lean defensive front (at most positions) that hadn’t encountered the type of ground-and-pound football that Michigan State tries to establish
Michigan State rushed for 238 yards against Baylor in posting a memorable 42-41 comeback victory. The Spartans blew a hole in Baylor for a 65-yard run on the third snap of the game. But MSU’s run game went quiet through the next three quarters, but came on strong in the fourth quarter as the Spartans methodically, gradually took command of the line of scrimmage.
That Baylor team played a two-gapping 30 front, which is far different from WSU’s 30-front style. However, the question of MSU’s brawn being able to establish the line of scrimmage was a big x-factor against Baylor and will be again, against a WSU team that doesn’t see a Big Ten style attack often, if at all.
One big difference is that the Michigan State ground of attack of 2014 was far more explosive and consistent than the Spartans’ ground attack of 2017. Michigan State might WANT to establish its will on the ground against these lighter bodies, but it would likely take a better ground attack than MSU’s in order to put a consistent dent in this WSU defensive front. Michigan State is going to need to be balanced, and might need to resort to being a pass-happy style of attack, similar to the way the Spartans had to play against Northwestern. But WSU’s pass defense is better than Northwestern’s.
* As for other matchups, Michigan State’s style vs WSU’s quickness is somewhat similar to the Wisconsin vs TCU Rose Bowl in the 2011 season. TCU was quick and correct, and gang-tackled the vaunted Badger running attack for most of the game. But Wisconsin began taking control on the ground in the fourth quarter, forged a comeback, and scored in the late-going, but failed to win with a two-point conversion.
THE TAKEAWAY: Smaller, lighter, quicker defensive fronts aren’t as easy to blow off the ball in the postseason as we might think. And Michigan State hasn’t had nearly the ground success this year to think they can do it in this game unless the Spartans have hardness terrific improvement and maturation during bowl practice.
“Don’t let the weights or the sizes fool you,” Staten said. “They are a very good unit. The top unit in the Pac-12. We will have our hands full.”
HOLD YOUR WATER: Washington State’s pre-snap stemming not only presents difficult assignments and adjustments for the blockers, it also induces o-linemen into false start penalties. Oregon had six false start penalties against Washington State in the first half of a 33-10 Cougar victory.
In Michigan State’s most recent game, the Spartans were baited into several false start penalties due to Rutgers’ surprise pre-snap stemming.
Michigan State has had nearly five weeks to fix that problem.
A NEW REVOLUTION? About 20 years ago, spread-to-pass offenses were in their infancy. Mike Leach, as offensive coordinator at Kentucky and Oklahoma, took the spread concepts of Dennis Erickson and others new levels, leading to Leach’s head coaching success at Texas Tech and Washington State.
Leach and Rich Rodriguez, with the zone read option components at Tulane and then West Virginia, changed college football offense more than any coaches in the last 25 years, along with Chip Kelly, who took uptempo concepts to a new level at Oregon when rule changes altered the play clock and how quickly the referee can set the ball to be snapped.
When watching Washington State’s excessive slanting ON DEFENSE, it occurs to me that I’m watching a style of play that few, if any, others in the major conferences use. And I wonder if these unique defensive concepts will become conventional in the next 10 years, similar to the way Leach’s offense was borrowed and duplicated.
THE ARCHITECT: Washington State defensive coordinator Alex Grinch is one of the most important names of the 2017 Holiday Bowl, possibly a name you’ve never heard but likely a name you’ll want to remember. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page yet. But he’s one of the hottest young coaches in the game.
The native of Grove City, Ohio (why is it that so many transcendent football coaches come from Ohio?) is in his third year as defensive coordinator at Washington State. Leach hired him away from Missouri, where he served as secondary coach for 2012-14 (the Tigers were 23-5 over Grinch’s last two seasons at Mizzou).
Prior to Missouri, he was defensive backs coach at Wyoming.
Grinch played at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio from 1998-2001, playing for a program that won three Division III National Championships while he was there. He was a third-team All-America safety as a senior.
Thursday, he will try to be the Grinch who stole the Holiday Bowl Trophy from Michigan State (sorry, couldn’t resist). And put his name on a list of those to watch for head coaching jobs in the next decade.
There are rumors that Ohio State and Texas A&M want to hire Grinch as their program’s 10th assistant in the coming weeks.
MORE STATS:
WSU ranks No. 3 in the nation in takeaways and No. 5 in the country in tackles for loss.
THE REALITY PART TWO: We’re not here to make Washington State sound like the ’85 Bears. We’re just outlining the unique challenges that Michigan State will have in this game, challenges that have stumped some pretty good opponents.
However, Washington State’s defense isn’t terrific against all opponents. It’s not like they dominate the line of scrimmage with superior human beings, the way Alabama has done in recent years. WSU isn’t in that stratosphere. But if your team’s ground attack has problems with their quickness early on, chances are the problems will remain intact for four quarters.
Two teams had great success on the ground against WSU, with different methods: Washington and Arizona.
Washington managed to bash WSU with conventional powers and zones - variations of which will find in MSU’s playbook every week. (But Stanford had no success with similar plays. It isn’t the x’s and o’s. It’s the Jimmies and Joes AND execution. Stanford’s h-back, for instance, didn’t execute on wham blocks. The Cal Bears, however, had a 5-foot-11, 280-pound mutant of an h-back who was a hammerhead on the plays that Stanford failed to execute. But that’s just one type of play. A victory will require several).
Arizona rushed for 310 yards (and passed for only 8 yards) in a 58-37 victory over the Cougars.
Arizona scored 58 points only only 13 first downs. That has to be the highest point-to-first down ratio in the history of tackle football.
RichRod’s offense used a zone read option QB, Khalil Tate, who rushed for 158 and completed 10 passes for 275 yards.
“There are some teams that have creased them,” Warner said.
Yet, WSU held USC to its lowest yardage output (327) since the Trojans’ 2016 opener against Alabama.
What can Michigan State learn from these games? A mobile QB can be a headache against aggressive, fast-flow teams that play a lot of man-to-man.
Lewerke got loose for some key runs against Michigan last year and this year. And Warner cooked up some throwback screens against the Wolverines this year and in 2015.
It takes great execution and timing to turn a defense’s aggressiveness against itself, but Michigan State has some history in doing that, and will try to pull those levers again.
MSU’S APPROACH: Michigan State isn’t likely to bash a hole in Washington State’s defensive front the way the Washington Huskies did. But the Spartans will try, while staying true to who they are.
The Spartans will probe the run, and see if they can find success with their usual assortment of gap plays and zone runs. (Gap plays, such as powers and counters, might be more likely to work, with down-blocking on the front side of plays, sealing angles from outside-in. In theory). Michigan State MIGHT find some pleasant surprises on the ground, but the Spartans will plan to be balanced, if not more pass-happy than usual.
Michigan State has gone pass-happy at other times this year, including Lewerke’s back-to-back 400-yard aerial games against Northwestern and Penn State. But throwing the ball against WSU won’t be easy, either.
MSU PASSING ATTACK vs WSU PASS DEFENSE
THE STATS: WSU ranks No. 8 in the country in pass defense (167.4) and No. 1 in the Pac-12 in third-down defense (24.8 percent).
THE STYLE: The Cougars love to play tight, press man-to-man. They aren’t a 100 percent man-to-man team. Like most teams, they will mix in zone and change some pictures. They don’t blitz much; they don’t have to, because their front four usually does a good job of penetrating the backfield and providing heat.
In the secondary, they will grasp and hold and push the envelope and dare the officials to throw flags - similar to the way Michigan plays. Stanford receivers became very frustrated by WSU’s holding.
MSU’s POTENTIAL ANSWER: Lewerke’s ability to tuck and run, turn a covered pass play into an impromptu scramble, could come in handy in this game.
Stanford’s QB, who is much less of a run threat than Lewerke, turned a red zone scramble into an untouched TD run of 14 yards when WSU’s aggressive pursuit (and man-to-man defense in the back) left a vacuum of daylight.
Lewerke has had some big rushing games this year, especially early in the season. Michigan State might NEED that style of chain-moving freelance spice in the offense from Lewerke in this game more so than at any time since the Michigan game.
From a conventional standpoint, Michigan State will likely want to move the pocket with Lewerke. Probe the run, get the defense to react to it and flow to it, then come with simple play-action passing. Roll out the QB in the process. Change his launch point against a WSU team that ranks No. 5 in the country in TFLs.
Michigan State can’t roll out every single play, but some well-timed dosage of counter-boot roll-out passing could open some windows.
Play action passing against WSU is a cute idea, but the Cougars keep charging and charging at you. Against the Cougars, QBs don’t have as much time to throw after a play-action roll as they do against most defenses. And WSU will play tight, handsy, graspy man-to-man in the back end (like Michigan).
They don’t give you many open windows to throw to, and don’t give you much time to find them.
Lewerke is one of the best combinations of pocket-passing, freelance running, and throwing on the run in the country. He’s not great at all of those elements all the time, but he has the potential to wheel and deal at a high level on any given play or any given Saturday (or Thursday). If he is at his best, and finds a rhythm, he could become the latest of a short list of offensive players to find creases against the Cougars.
IN SHORT: Basically, when Washington State’s defense is good, they’re great. They shut out Colorado and Montana State. We mentioned that they held USC to its worst offense day in more than a year.
Oregon entered its game against Washington State averaging 537 yards of total offense and a nation-leading 49.6 points per game, but the Cougars held the Ducks to 277 yards of total offense and 10 points (with three takeways, 11 TFLs, four sacks).
When they’re good, they’re great. If you don’t have them figured out early, chances are you won’t get them figured out on the fly, you haven’t practiced quite right and will have a long night.
POST SCRIPT:
Washington chewed up WSU on the ground and tamed WSU’s offense.
Arizona RichRodded the Cougars to death (although WSU had more than 600 yards of offense that day.
So what went wrong for WSU in its 37-3 loss at Cal on Oct. 14?
Basically this: WSU had seven turnovers, Cal had zero.
WSU was 6-0 and ranked No. 8 in the country at the time, fresh off a victory against USC. Washington State couldn’t handle their success.
Secondly, the game was played amid 20-plus wildfires in the state of California at the time. Air quality index was at 170 at kickoff (151 to 200 is considered “unhealthy” by important people who measure such things). The NCAA wanted the game canceled or postponed if the index rose above 200, to “very unhealthy.”)
So the air quality was a strange backdrop to the game, with many spectators watching while wearing filter masks.
WSU’s first Top 10 ranking since 2003 didn’t help, nor did the hangover from the USC victory.
* Cal played good defense, and sacked WSU quarterback Luke Falk four times in the first half (none on blitzes).
Falk threw an INT on his first pass of the game (giving Cal a free trip to the red zone and a 3-0 lead). And Falk threw an INT in the end zone later in the first half. Both INTs came when Falk didn’t read cover-two cloud coverage along the sideline.
Cal played a lot of press quarters, like Michigan State. The Bears mixed in the cover-two, creating the two pivotal interceptions (he threw five INTs on the night). Michigan State has played more cover-two this year than any time in the Dantonio era, and disguises it well.
* Three of Cal’s first four drives began in WSU territory, including the held of a 30-plus yard punt return.
* WSU fumbled on the second play of its third drive, near midfield.
* Basically, Cal played a sharp game and WSU wanted a do-over.
Total yardage: Cal 365, Washington State 337.
Cal rushed for 106 yards. Other than avoiding mistakes, Cal didn’t do anything all that heroic on offense in order to win the game - other than scoring a TD on the final play of the first half, eschewing a short field goal attempt in order to throw an all-or-nothing 2-yard TD pass at the buzzer (a play-action fake, under center, to the tight end - very Midwestern). That TD gave Cal a 17-3 halftime lead.
This Pre-Snap Read focuses on the MSU offense vs the WSU defense - a portion of this game that few have investigated.
I took more of a macro approach to this Pre-Snap Read, and left out a lot of the individual player minutiae.
Some of this will be review (things I've mentioned before). Some of it will take that stuff a step further.
PRE-SNAP READ
By Jim Comparoni
Michigan State Rush Offense vs Washington State Rush Defense
What You Need To Know:
KEY STATS: Washington State ranks No. 4 in the Pac-12 in rush defense, allowing 146.2 yards per game, and No. 5 in yards allowed per run at 4.2.
Much of the pre-game chatter has been about MSU’s challenge in facing the WSU Air Raid offense. But WSU ranks better it total defense than in total offense in the Pac-12 standings.
THE REP: Washington State has self-dubbed their defense “The Speed D.” They want to play fast, and they do play fast, both in terms athleticism and all-out pursuit.
COMPARISON: Michigan State players said Washington State’s defense most closely resembles the Michigan Wolverine defense than any other opponent the Spartans have faced.
Like Michigan, the Cougars gain penetration up front with quickness and athleticism. WSU might not have the NFL Draft talent in the front seven that Michigan has, but they have plenty of ability - led by first-team All-America defensive lineman Hercules Mata’afa.
UNIQUE TRAIT: WSU enhances their quickness with excessive pre-snap stemming and movement, and then daredevil slants after the snap.
WSU uses the slim nature of some of their d-linemen as a weapon. Their d-linemen turn their shoulders sideways, enabling them to squeeze through gaps that broader d-linemen might not be able to penetrate.
In theory, blockers should be able to drive those d-linemen off the ball when they turn their shoulders perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. But that’s easier accomplished on a chalkboard than on the field, against these guys.
THE LOOK: Washington State plays a 3-3-5 against most teams, with three down linemen. One of the three down lineman is usually of conventional size, while the others are slim, but very quick and stronger than they look.
NAME TO KNOW: Their rush end, Frankie Luvu (No. 51, 6-2, 235, Sr.) is one of several guys who play bigger than their size. He essentially is a stand-up defensive end, a fourth down lineman. In theory, an offense should be able to isolate him and drive him off the ball. But Luvu can take on the point of attack and spill plays.
He is honorable mention All-Pac-12, but is probably more valuable than that award would suggest.
He had 2.5 sacks against Boise State and an INT on the final drive of the game to clinch victory against Stanford.
UNIQUE HEADACHE: With the stemming and slanting, WSU’s defensive front presents a confusing picture of moving targets for blockers. Somehow, through all of their movement, they don’t make any more gap assignment errors than conventional one-gapping defenses like Michigan State’s.
“It presents a challenge because it’s something different than what you see during the year,” said Michigan State co-offensive coordinator Dave Warner.
Warner said WSU’s defensive style has been difficult to replicate in practice with the Spartan scout team.
Center Brian Allen said the Spartans have used lighter, quicker linebacker types as defensive linemen on the scout team. That helps simulate some of the quickness of the WSU defensive front, but none of the power.
“They might be a little bit undersized, but with that speed they have power,” Warner said. “They are very strong. To get that combination of the speed and quickness, and the power, presents an issue.
“Their slants and angles are such, and so flat down the line of scrimmage, that it is sometimes difficult to present that to our offense in practice. It presents a little bit of an issue to really get that look. That’s been a little bit of a challenge.”
THE SIZE: Washington State’s starting d-linemen got 6-2, 252 (Mata’afa), 6-2 237 (Nnamdi Oguyao) and 6-3, 305 (Daniel Ekuale).
Ekuale is a legit nose guard. He can take on double-teams without budging.
WSU trots second-string d-linemen onto the field early and often.
THE REALITY PART ONE: Teams might think they can bash and bowl through WSU with power. But they are stronger than they look, based on the way they stacked up against the likes of Stanford and USC.
WSU held Stanford to just 93 yards rushing (52 of them came on one long TD run by Heisman finalist Bryce Love.) The Cardinal netted only 41 yards on their other 26 carries.
Washington had success running the ball inside, churning out 328 yards rushing against the Cougars. The Huskies have the nation’s No 38-ranked rushing attack but had way more success against WSU on the ground than any other rushing attack.
Michigan State will try to replicate that. But the Huskies did it at the tail end of a 12-game season, with the lighter/quicker Cougars theoretically wearing the scars of a season. The layoff associated with a bowl game could help the lighter, quicker team rejuvenate for one last fling.
Washington had success with basic “power” gap plays and inside zone runs, the type of which Michigan State deploys on a regular basis.
But can Michigan State run those plays as well as Washington did, with RB Myles Gaskin (5-10, 191) using excellent cutting ability and vision to find daylight in rushing for 192 yards against the Cougars.
“I’m sure their motto is going to be, ‘We’re going to run around those big Midwesterners,’” said Michigan State offensive line coach Mark Staten. “And our guys’ idea is, ‘Hey, let’s go after these maybe lighter-than-normal linemen than Big Ten linemen face.’”
PRECEDENTS: When Michigan State played Baylor in the 2014 Cotton Bowl, the Spartans faced a quick, lean defensive front (at most positions) that hadn’t encountered the type of ground-and-pound football that Michigan State tries to establish
Michigan State rushed for 238 yards against Baylor in posting a memorable 42-41 comeback victory. The Spartans blew a hole in Baylor for a 65-yard run on the third snap of the game. But MSU’s run game went quiet through the next three quarters, but came on strong in the fourth quarter as the Spartans methodically, gradually took command of the line of scrimmage.
That Baylor team played a two-gapping 30 front, which is far different from WSU’s 30-front style. However, the question of MSU’s brawn being able to establish the line of scrimmage was a big x-factor against Baylor and will be again, against a WSU team that doesn’t see a Big Ten style attack often, if at all.
One big difference is that the Michigan State ground of attack of 2014 was far more explosive and consistent than the Spartans’ ground attack of 2017. Michigan State might WANT to establish its will on the ground against these lighter bodies, but it would likely take a better ground attack than MSU’s in order to put a consistent dent in this WSU defensive front. Michigan State is going to need to be balanced, and might need to resort to being a pass-happy style of attack, similar to the way the Spartans had to play against Northwestern. But WSU’s pass defense is better than Northwestern’s.
* As for other matchups, Michigan State’s style vs WSU’s quickness is somewhat similar to the Wisconsin vs TCU Rose Bowl in the 2011 season. TCU was quick and correct, and gang-tackled the vaunted Badger running attack for most of the game. But Wisconsin began taking control on the ground in the fourth quarter, forged a comeback, and scored in the late-going, but failed to win with a two-point conversion.
THE TAKEAWAY: Smaller, lighter, quicker defensive fronts aren’t as easy to blow off the ball in the postseason as we might think. And Michigan State hasn’t had nearly the ground success this year to think they can do it in this game unless the Spartans have hardness terrific improvement and maturation during bowl practice.
“Don’t let the weights or the sizes fool you,” Staten said. “They are a very good unit. The top unit in the Pac-12. We will have our hands full.”
HOLD YOUR WATER: Washington State’s pre-snap stemming not only presents difficult assignments and adjustments for the blockers, it also induces o-linemen into false start penalties. Oregon had six false start penalties against Washington State in the first half of a 33-10 Cougar victory.
In Michigan State’s most recent game, the Spartans were baited into several false start penalties due to Rutgers’ surprise pre-snap stemming.
Michigan State has had nearly five weeks to fix that problem.
A NEW REVOLUTION? About 20 years ago, spread-to-pass offenses were in their infancy. Mike Leach, as offensive coordinator at Kentucky and Oklahoma, took the spread concepts of Dennis Erickson and others new levels, leading to Leach’s head coaching success at Texas Tech and Washington State.
Leach and Rich Rodriguez, with the zone read option components at Tulane and then West Virginia, changed college football offense more than any coaches in the last 25 years, along with Chip Kelly, who took uptempo concepts to a new level at Oregon when rule changes altered the play clock and how quickly the referee can set the ball to be snapped.
When watching Washington State’s excessive slanting ON DEFENSE, it occurs to me that I’m watching a style of play that few, if any, others in the major conferences use. And I wonder if these unique defensive concepts will become conventional in the next 10 years, similar to the way Leach’s offense was borrowed and duplicated.
THE ARCHITECT: Washington State defensive coordinator Alex Grinch is one of the most important names of the 2017 Holiday Bowl, possibly a name you’ve never heard but likely a name you’ll want to remember. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page yet. But he’s one of the hottest young coaches in the game.
The native of Grove City, Ohio (why is it that so many transcendent football coaches come from Ohio?) is in his third year as defensive coordinator at Washington State. Leach hired him away from Missouri, where he served as secondary coach for 2012-14 (the Tigers were 23-5 over Grinch’s last two seasons at Mizzou).
Prior to Missouri, he was defensive backs coach at Wyoming.
Grinch played at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio from 1998-2001, playing for a program that won three Division III National Championships while he was there. He was a third-team All-America safety as a senior.
Thursday, he will try to be the Grinch who stole the Holiday Bowl Trophy from Michigan State (sorry, couldn’t resist). And put his name on a list of those to watch for head coaching jobs in the next decade.
There are rumors that Ohio State and Texas A&M want to hire Grinch as their program’s 10th assistant in the coming weeks.
MORE STATS:
WSU ranks No. 3 in the nation in takeaways and No. 5 in the country in tackles for loss.
THE REALITY PART TWO: We’re not here to make Washington State sound like the ’85 Bears. We’re just outlining the unique challenges that Michigan State will have in this game, challenges that have stumped some pretty good opponents.
However, Washington State’s defense isn’t terrific against all opponents. It’s not like they dominate the line of scrimmage with superior human beings, the way Alabama has done in recent years. WSU isn’t in that stratosphere. But if your team’s ground attack has problems with their quickness early on, chances are the problems will remain intact for four quarters.
Two teams had great success on the ground against WSU, with different methods: Washington and Arizona.
Washington managed to bash WSU with conventional powers and zones - variations of which will find in MSU’s playbook every week. (But Stanford had no success with similar plays. It isn’t the x’s and o’s. It’s the Jimmies and Joes AND execution. Stanford’s h-back, for instance, didn’t execute on wham blocks. The Cal Bears, however, had a 5-foot-11, 280-pound mutant of an h-back who was a hammerhead on the plays that Stanford failed to execute. But that’s just one type of play. A victory will require several).
Arizona rushed for 310 yards (and passed for only 8 yards) in a 58-37 victory over the Cougars.
Arizona scored 58 points only only 13 first downs. That has to be the highest point-to-first down ratio in the history of tackle football.
RichRod’s offense used a zone read option QB, Khalil Tate, who rushed for 158 and completed 10 passes for 275 yards.
“There are some teams that have creased them,” Warner said.
Yet, WSU held USC to its lowest yardage output (327) since the Trojans’ 2016 opener against Alabama.
What can Michigan State learn from these games? A mobile QB can be a headache against aggressive, fast-flow teams that play a lot of man-to-man.
Lewerke got loose for some key runs against Michigan last year and this year. And Warner cooked up some throwback screens against the Wolverines this year and in 2015.
It takes great execution and timing to turn a defense’s aggressiveness against itself, but Michigan State has some history in doing that, and will try to pull those levers again.
MSU’S APPROACH: Michigan State isn’t likely to bash a hole in Washington State’s defensive front the way the Washington Huskies did. But the Spartans will try, while staying true to who they are.
The Spartans will probe the run, and see if they can find success with their usual assortment of gap plays and zone runs. (Gap plays, such as powers and counters, might be more likely to work, with down-blocking on the front side of plays, sealing angles from outside-in. In theory). Michigan State MIGHT find some pleasant surprises on the ground, but the Spartans will plan to be balanced, if not more pass-happy than usual.
Michigan State has gone pass-happy at other times this year, including Lewerke’s back-to-back 400-yard aerial games against Northwestern and Penn State. But throwing the ball against WSU won’t be easy, either.
MSU PASSING ATTACK vs WSU PASS DEFENSE
THE STATS: WSU ranks No. 8 in the country in pass defense (167.4) and No. 1 in the Pac-12 in third-down defense (24.8 percent).
THE STYLE: The Cougars love to play tight, press man-to-man. They aren’t a 100 percent man-to-man team. Like most teams, they will mix in zone and change some pictures. They don’t blitz much; they don’t have to, because their front four usually does a good job of penetrating the backfield and providing heat.
In the secondary, they will grasp and hold and push the envelope and dare the officials to throw flags - similar to the way Michigan plays. Stanford receivers became very frustrated by WSU’s holding.
MSU’s POTENTIAL ANSWER: Lewerke’s ability to tuck and run, turn a covered pass play into an impromptu scramble, could come in handy in this game.
Stanford’s QB, who is much less of a run threat than Lewerke, turned a red zone scramble into an untouched TD run of 14 yards when WSU’s aggressive pursuit (and man-to-man defense in the back) left a vacuum of daylight.
Lewerke has had some big rushing games this year, especially early in the season. Michigan State might NEED that style of chain-moving freelance spice in the offense from Lewerke in this game more so than at any time since the Michigan game.
From a conventional standpoint, Michigan State will likely want to move the pocket with Lewerke. Probe the run, get the defense to react to it and flow to it, then come with simple play-action passing. Roll out the QB in the process. Change his launch point against a WSU team that ranks No. 5 in the country in TFLs.
Michigan State can’t roll out every single play, but some well-timed dosage of counter-boot roll-out passing could open some windows.
Play action passing against WSU is a cute idea, but the Cougars keep charging and charging at you. Against the Cougars, QBs don’t have as much time to throw after a play-action roll as they do against most defenses. And WSU will play tight, handsy, graspy man-to-man in the back end (like Michigan).
They don’t give you many open windows to throw to, and don’t give you much time to find them.
Lewerke is one of the best combinations of pocket-passing, freelance running, and throwing on the run in the country. He’s not great at all of those elements all the time, but he has the potential to wheel and deal at a high level on any given play or any given Saturday (or Thursday). If he is at his best, and finds a rhythm, he could become the latest of a short list of offensive players to find creases against the Cougars.
IN SHORT: Basically, when Washington State’s defense is good, they’re great. They shut out Colorado and Montana State. We mentioned that they held USC to its worst offense day in more than a year.
Oregon entered its game against Washington State averaging 537 yards of total offense and a nation-leading 49.6 points per game, but the Cougars held the Ducks to 277 yards of total offense and 10 points (with three takeways, 11 TFLs, four sacks).
When they’re good, they’re great. If you don’t have them figured out early, chances are you won’t get them figured out on the fly, you haven’t practiced quite right and will have a long night.
POST SCRIPT:
Washington chewed up WSU on the ground and tamed WSU’s offense.
Arizona RichRodded the Cougars to death (although WSU had more than 600 yards of offense that day.
So what went wrong for WSU in its 37-3 loss at Cal on Oct. 14?
Basically this: WSU had seven turnovers, Cal had zero.
WSU was 6-0 and ranked No. 8 in the country at the time, fresh off a victory against USC. Washington State couldn’t handle their success.
Secondly, the game was played amid 20-plus wildfires in the state of California at the time. Air quality index was at 170 at kickoff (151 to 200 is considered “unhealthy” by important people who measure such things). The NCAA wanted the game canceled or postponed if the index rose above 200, to “very unhealthy.”)
So the air quality was a strange backdrop to the game, with many spectators watching while wearing filter masks.
WSU’s first Top 10 ranking since 2003 didn’t help, nor did the hangover from the USC victory.
* Cal played good defense, and sacked WSU quarterback Luke Falk four times in the first half (none on blitzes).
Falk threw an INT on his first pass of the game (giving Cal a free trip to the red zone and a 3-0 lead). And Falk threw an INT in the end zone later in the first half. Both INTs came when Falk didn’t read cover-two cloud coverage along the sideline.
Cal played a lot of press quarters, like Michigan State. The Bears mixed in the cover-two, creating the two pivotal interceptions (he threw five INTs on the night). Michigan State has played more cover-two this year than any time in the Dantonio era, and disguises it well.
* Three of Cal’s first four drives began in WSU territory, including the held of a 30-plus yard punt return.
* WSU fumbled on the second play of its third drive, near midfield.
* Basically, Cal played a sharp game and WSU wanted a do-over.
Total yardage: Cal 365, Washington State 337.
Cal rushed for 106 yards. Other than avoiding mistakes, Cal didn’t do anything all that heroic on offense in order to win the game - other than scoring a TD on the final play of the first half, eschewing a short field goal attempt in order to throw an all-or-nothing 2-yard TD pass at the buzzer (a play-action fake, under center, to the tight end - very Midwestern). That TD gave Cal a 17-3 halftime lead.
