Conference Recap

The first full weekend of B1G hockey was this weekend with 3 conference series going on.


Michigan State at Notre Dame. The Irish took 4 of 6 points on the weekend controlling play in a 5-0 victory on Friday. MSU rebounded though earning 2 of 3 points on Saturday with a shoot-out victory after the teams ended OT tied at 1. Jagger Joshua scored the lone goal on the night for MSU and St. Cyr stopped 39 of 40 shots in a nice effort between the pipes. In the shoot-out, MSU earned the extra point by converting both of their opportunities. ND started the shoot-out with a goal by Nick Leivermann. Tanner Kelly for MSU answered. Jack Pierson then missed for ND, and Karsen Dorwart for MSU put the Spartans up 2-1 in the shoot-out, and Ryder Rolston was stopped securing the extra point for MSU.

Overall thought that was a good rebound effort by MSU, and I really think we need to keep our expectations in check with the depth of the conference this season. The conference looks like it is as strong as it ever has been. So we could see a lot of back and forth throughout the season.

Minnesota at Ohio State. #1 Minnesota went to Columbus this weekend and came away with a split. Ohio State earned a 6-4 upset victory on Friday. Ohio State was impressive building a 6-2 lead in the 3rd period. Minnesota responded the next night with a dominating 4-2 victory - out-shooting OSU 32-22 on the night. Minnesota broke a 1-1 tie with under 5 minutes to go in the 2nd period and didn't look back scoring 63 seconds later for a 2-goal lead. They added a power play marker in the 3rd before OSU closed out the scoring. Jimmy Snuggerud earned 3 points for Minnesota. Davis Burnside scored twice in the loss for the Buckeyes.

Penn State at Wisconsin. Coming of a big weekend road sweep, Wisconsin was looking to build momentum in the B1G conference slate, and they fell flat as Penn State swept the Badgers in Madison with a 2-1 victory on Friday and scoring 3 times in the 3rd period to win 4-0 on Saturday. Souliere stopped 63 of 64 shots on the weekend.

Michigan v/at Western Michigan. Michigan faced top-20 Western Michigan this weekend and earned the sweep in the home and home series. Michigan scored with 9:02 remaining in regulation to earn a 5-4 victory at home over the Broncos. The Wolverines won 6-5 in OT on Saturday in Kalamazoo. Western rallied from being down 4-2 and 5-3 in the 3rd period - getting the equalizer with 1:27 remaining. The Broncos also outshot Michigan 45-28. Luke Hughes scored the game winner for Michigan in OT with 1:33 remaining.

Conference Standings



Stu's Power Rankings

1. Michigan (7-1-0). The Wolverines are off to a strong start outscoring teams 42-22 so far this season. They are 3-1 against ranked opponents this season with games against BU and WMU. They are about to enter an interesting stretch - playing back to back road series with PSU and Notre Dame followed by pre-season Big Ten #1 pick Minnesota coming to Yost just before Thanksgiving. 7 of their next 10 conference games are on the road.

2. Minnesota (5-3-0). The Gophers might only be 5-3 on the season, but they have played 6 of their 8 games against ranked teams (4 against then-top 10 teams). They have an interesting stretch of games as well basically playing the reverse of Michigan's schedule hosting Notre Dame and Penn State followed by the trip to Ann Arbor before Thanksgiving.

3. Ohio State (7-2-1). Ohio State gets the nod over PSU right now in these rankings because of their series with Minnesota and split. That gives the Buckeyes a win over a top 10 team. The Buckeyes seem to have figured some things out after a tough mid-October weekend at UConn. They get the weekend off before coming to East Lansing and playing ND at home prior to Thanksgiving.

4. Penn State (8-0-0). PSU looks legit. The question is they haven't really played anyone, so just how legit are they? We will find out for certain over the next two weekends as they host Michigan, go to Minnesota, and then host Michigan State prior to Thanksgiving.

5. Notre Dame (4-2-2). The Irish right now are just looking for consistency. They are 3-1 on the year on Friday night but only 0-1-2 on Saturday (1-0 on Sunday). The Irish head to Minneapolis this next weekend, host Michigan, and heads to Columbus prior to Thanksgiving. They may have one of the tougher Thanksgiving week series as well going to BU and BC over the holiday week.

6. Michigan State (4-3-1). The Spartans are showing some signs of growth, and they will need to continue to do so over the course of the entire conference season - with so many tough match-ups. The good news is the Spartans have a chance to build some momentum at home the next two weekends hosting Wisconsin and Ohio State before going to Happy Valley prior to Thanksgiving. 7 of our next B1G games are at home.

7. Wisconsin (2-6-0). So which Wisconsin is the real one? The one that swept a top-10 UMD team or the one that hasn't won another game? Wisconsin has been outscored 20-7 in their 6 losses. The Badgers take a break from Big Ten play after next weekend's series in East Lansing as they play LIU & Lindenwood prior to Thanksgiving. Those two series should be able to help Wisconsin fix some things.

Final Thoughts on MSU

Earning any road points in the B1G this year will be tough, and it certainly was a little disappointing to see the result on Friday, but it was encouraging to see the bounce back Saturday. The question for the rest of the conference will be if teams will beat up on each other a little bit - that won't allow any 1 team to pull away in the Standings, or will the teams that people expect to be at the top (i.e. Minnesota/Michigan) run away and hide. I'm not expecting anything higher than 6th place this year in the B1G (keep in mind 5 of the 7 teams are ranked) - which is more a testament to the depth of the conference. MSU certainly has a chance with the home games coming up to build up some points in the bank.

No toughness physically or mentally.

Love the energy and attitude, but the teams play losing football. No discipline. Thorne is exasperated with his teammates not doing the right things. That first drive was total pee wee league crap. No decent kicker? When have we not had a kicker? And no long snapper? How does this stuff happen? 1 injury and the special teams unit is dead? The offense is nervous and tentative.
These things are bad enough, but add to it that Tucker doesn’t get this rivalry. He compared it to other rivalries in his pre game presser. That sent up red flags to me. This is way worse than any other rivalry. This is personal and ugly. It is really not healthy in any way. Dantonio got that and he had his lesser talented players play with great. discipline. I don’t think tuck is capable of having a disciplined team.
As for the tunnel, I could care less. That Michigan kid got lucky. We should not be apologizing to them. Close ranks.
I am afraid that tuck = Brady Hoke/Bobby Williams/Dan Campbell. Love to hear them talk, can’t coach.

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This is a horrible look.

When the two teams had a brush up in EL during a pregame - Harbaugh grabbed the narrative - MSU took the entire fall. It was my first disappointment with Dantonio - he withdrew - saying something about trusting his God.

The way this appears to be going down - has the same smell. What MSU players did wasn’t right, but there are a lot of root cause issues surrounding a larger problem. See Jim’s article.

First and foremost Go Green, Go White. I put on my best Spartan gear before I did my daily errands. I am disappointed the fellas couldn’t restrain themselves but I am not going as far as Comp. As a matter of fact when it was brought up when I was out and about, I responded I think they should take anger management classes next to the Holocaust building Edwards will be visiting. How it is handled internally is MSU business. It was indeed disappointing.
I am putting in the rear view mirror and looking forward. The prior opponent prefers to look back to days long since gone when the outcome of the game was a forgone conclusion. Those days are long gone. So now they chirp and you can’t bite. You have to channel it to motivation. When you do that the wins taste better and the bully has high blood pressure.
I like the rest of you will be looking at where we go from here. I said early in the season that the offense was getting a pass because of poor defensive play. Gradually as the defense began to show improvement, the offensive woes began to reveal themselves. If you are blaming it on the offensive line I question how you watch a game. I ask you to consider how UM defense pounded their prior opponents. The game plan has left a lot to be desired.
I like the young defensive players with the three experienced tackles that will be coming back. I like the returning ball catchers. I like where the team is headed. You know who doesn’t, those other guys. The ones who chirped during the Perles, Saban, Dantonio and now Tucker years who were silent during the Muddy, Bobby and John L. years.
Go State beat the Illinois.

I'm not. I'm legit hoping to be cheered up. Fire away.

True Spartans know how to handle adversity and those who don’t make their way to the ignore feature. It is very effective and does make the board more enjoyable. I currently have 23 (a few more added over the last 24 hours), but many are the same people under different names. Go Green and stay strong Spartans!

Hurts doesn't it.???

Putting insults to players, coaches or other posters
in the title for all to see
should cause a time out.

I did it to you so I will understand if I cannot post either.

DO UNTO OTHERS as you would have them do unto you.

Every spartan fan being defensive this morning needs to check themselves. All of us and the media.

It doesn't matter who is at fault (although some kid #1 went looking for a fight and it appears even into the MSU locker room doorway). The blocking of the team walk, the taunting. It's all the same thing. We have gone on the field between the lines and played hard and never relented to their superiority. So what are they doing? It is obvious.

They want to get us to commit personal fouls. They want to get us off our game. We have an edge and they are trying to eliminate it. (Yes they are the better team this year).

Absolutely just because we are in the age of Twitter and its overstatements of everything doesn't mean we go and defend ourselves, be embarrassed, and run for cover and punish everyone. There are fouls on the field for unsportsmanlike words in extreme cases. For a reason. This doesn't need an investigation. Or for MSU to give it one little bit of attention besides asking what happened.

You walk into another team's locker room taking shi&$t? You expect to get physically removed.

I am not going to even post about our team or program in the next few days. It's a waste of time. We all know where we are and Michigan is the better team right now. To allow them to take their victory into the next days and week is us taking the bate. Handle it internally, and consider the circumstances.

Twitter will move on to something else and another thing for bored people to post about. Calling for our players to be suspended for pushing someone around who gets in their grill in their lockerroom. Let him learn his lesson and not look for it next time. Move on.

I'd like to know out of the last 10 or so altercations in big ten football games, how may involved UofM.

Who would have thought a Long-Snapper was key loss for our special teams....I think part of the reason we went for it on the 4 and 1 on the goal line is because our long-snapper is inconsistent.

Bryce Barringer because of the pace of the snap coming back to him was never comfortable punting the entire night as U-M was on top of him. 2 bad snaps cost us dearly.

Need to get our Specials Teams unit together before next week at Illinois...

35 points already, no defense being played by either team.

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someone please tell him his sport coat is 3 sizes to small.

+22.5

LFG!

I've noticed some posters here, Comp, and even the announcers say negative things about UM keeping their starters in and doing a trick play late in the game. I am of a different mind about that kind of stuff: it's MSU's job to stop UM from scoring, not UM's. If a team wants to continue to score when the game is in hand, so be it. The margin of victory will help UM if they are undefeated and trying to get into the playoff. There is nothing immoral about the late game trick play.

That said, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. We saw that afterward with the fools who went in to taunt 85 football players alone. What a foolish decision. Sure you can go in there and trash talk 85 large people, but it's not something anyone using their brain would do...or anyone with a degree of sportsmanship would do.

A good coach who is thinking of the team, the players, the challenges ahead, the goal for the season, well they would NEVER keep their starters in that long after the game was in hand. Why? Because of the risk of injury. That alone is coaching malpractice. On his last carry less than two minutes to play, what if their running back badly sprains an ankle or received a severe concussion or worse? JH didn't make a mistake with the fancy play (I mean, who cares what play they run). The mistake he made was not thinking about the welfare of the players, the season and their team goals.

We have to take a QB, Thorne's a Mid America Conference QB. He's taken a big step backwards this year.

Umich won last night because they dominated in the trenches, in particular on the offensive line. I thought they were very impressive. That leads me to the question of why has msu struggled so mightily on the Oline for what seems like years now? There have been years where the Oline has been serviceable, but not being able to pick up one yard or less on 4th down has been going on for a long time (despite questionable play calling). Football is won and lost in the trenches. I tip my cap to what umich has finally done in that area. MSU needs to do the same.

Seriously, I’m not sure I fully understand what the issue on offense is. And I’m not sure it’s any one thing too.

Last year I felt Jay Johnson was a great OC. Dialed into ways to scheme guys open and in general his offenses put up big plays and averaged lots of points. Could it have been more methodical, slower and more efficient? Yes of course, but we scored enough points to win most games.

Fast forward to this year and 80% of the starters are back. We have better RB depth and TE/WR depth. We obviously lost K9 and he was a huge aspect of the offense doing well (understatement of the century). But are we 1 player away from having a competent offense? I don’t think so…

So what’s the issue overall? In the beginning of the year I felt the issue was the defense, that once we got in a hole and the offense had to pass only that our offense fell apart. That theory has sort of gone away as we’ve been in games and unable to score points here.

So circling back on the first question, what’s the issue on offense? I’m not sure how this thing gets fixed. If it’s all Xs and Os like many want to say l, or is it more Jimmie’s and Joe’s?

I’m sort of torn between the two.

SOLD

Gather 'round.

Most are talking 49-7 or something in that neighborhood

They are all talking about how the players and coaches want to embarrass MSU on national tv

Are others hearing the same things from UM fans

I am not sure who runs it but a Spartan stadium I often see a rope being used to keep the teams separated or to only allow one team in the tunnel for at least a minute or two at the half and after the game. And the rope is yellow in color to boot. Michigan can’t do this?

Several players seem confused, dumb penalties, how many arm tackles did Mallory miss? Can’t get plays in, offense lineman not staying on their blocks, generally undisciplined. I do think the running backs are doing better and d back play was decent except their tight end was open all night. But that is what happens when you play a d-end at linebacker, apparently we don’t have a field goal kicker or long snapper either. Our frequent going for it on 4th down seems like an act of desperation rather than having confidence we will score again. Did not like the coaches halftime comments that “they can’t cover our receivers” 7 points speaks to the contrary.