Dantonio is meeting with the players right now

It seems a bit fitting that this weekend was Groundhog day. Not only did the best (don't @ me) Super Bowl Ad pay homage to the classic Bill Murray film, but Saturday's MSU game at Wisconsin had the feel of a movie that we had all seen a few too many times. MSU came out of the gate cold, got blitzed by the home team, went down double digits, slowly fought back, looked like they might steal a victory, but finally failed to execute in the final minutes only to lose by one.

In total, it was one of the more frustrating MSU games in recent memory. At various points in final 7 minutes (during which Wisconsin made exactly ZERO field goals) it seemed like MSU was almost trying to lose. I mean, seriously, how many missed layout, stupid turn-overs, and bad shots can one team make in a row? It was enough to almost make you want to kidnap the opposing team's weasel of a mascot and drive off from a cliff...

But, the good news is that if you are an MSU fan, you have also seen this movie before and you also know that the guy in the Director's chair knows what he is doing. People seem to have short memories, but MSU essentially goes through this phase pretty much every year. Sometimes, it doesn't work out, but MSU had enough banners in the rafters to show that most of the time, it does. MSU has hung at least one banner in 13 of the past 22 years. Betting against this team is betting against history.

Yes, MSU has a "road problem." They need to figure it out. But, we have seen them execute and dominate at a high level at home. They can certainly do the same on the road. It seems to be mostly a question of focus and execution, both of which are correctable. At the end of the day, MSU still has an elite point guard, a very good big man, and a host of role players, any one of which may break out to become a star. The potential is there and the ceiling is still the roof.

That all said, MSU went to Madison and came home with a "L." That is certainly going to impact the Big Ten race. After Sunday's action, here is the updated Big Ten win matrix, followed by the year-to-date trends in expected wins.











What was once a multiple game lead in expected wins has shrunk to less than two tenths of a game over the 2nd best team in the conference, Maryland. Beyond that, the Big Ten pecking order is starting to take shape. Illinois is trailing Maryland a bit after their loss in Iowa City Sunday afternoon and Iowa is now clearly in 4th place just a hair over a half game behind the Illini. Penn State is about a half game behind Illinois and a half game behind that is Wisconsin and Rutgers.

The next five teams (Ohio State, Minnesota, Purdue, Michigan, and Indiana) are between one and two games behind the Badgers. Nebraska and Northwestern continue to hover in very distant 13th and 14th place.

As for the odds to win or share the Big Ten regular season crown, here are the updated odds:





MSU is essentially right back where they were at the end of 2019 and after the Indiana loss: just below 50% (45% to be more precise). Meanwhile, Maryland has made steady ground and now sits just behind MSU at 40%. Illinois checks in at 27% after this weekend's loss while Iowa is now at 14%. The race is officially back on.

As for the projected final record of the Big Ten champ, here is what my latest simulation suggests:

16-4 or better (16%)
15-5: 40%
14-6: 38%

As no team is "expected" to win more than 14 games right now, a team would need to improve and/or play better than expected (i.e. "get lucky.") in order to win the title. But, that is what championship teams do. Speaking of luck, here is the updated expanded Big Ten standings:



While Illinois is currently in good shape at the top, their luck score still leads me to believe that they are due for a cold streak. Considering that their next four games are against Maryland, MSU, Rutgers, and Penn State, I think that stretch is coming. While I still believe Maryland is ultimately the biggest threat to MSU, I will keep an eye on the Hawkeyes. They are the only team in the Top 6 with a negative luck score, which makes me think that perhaps they have a little more to give. I would not be shocked to see Iowa finish the season in third place, ahead of Illinois.

That is all for now. I will mostly likely update the stats again on Friday. Until next time, enjoy and Go Green.

I will do a detailed update on Monday, but as of Sunday morning, the updated Big Ten odds are:

MSU = 44%
Maryland = 38%
Illinois = 35%
Iowa = 10%
Penn State = 7%
Wisconsin = 3%

Today's Illinois at Iowa game is huge. If the Illini win, their odds will certainly go over 50% and they will be +4. If Iowa wins, Illinois would drop to around 30%.

That said, MSU still mows their own grass with 2 games left vs Maryland, 1 versus Illinois and Iowa and 2 vs. Penn State. Even if Illinois wins today, MSU could get back to over 50% if they can win in Champaign in a couple of weeks.

We are in the dog days right now. The team needs to power through and get their crap together.

Regarding Xavier Tillman's shooting yesterday:

X was 2 for 11 for 2-pt baskets (18%) yesterday
For the year, X is 100 for 175 for 2-pt shots (57%)

Based on the binomial distribution, the odds of a 57% shooter going 2 for 11 or worse is almost exactly 1%.

Now, this analysis assumes that X is doing something like rolling a pair of dice and not shooting a basketball in front of hostile crowd. BUT, I think the general idea still holds. He had a highly anomalous shooting game yesterday. That is not likely to continue to be a problem.

My best guess: X has a touch of the flu / cold, just like Gabe and half of the other people that I know in Michigan right now.

MSU clearly needs to figure out the mental aspects of playing on the road. At some point, they need to get tired of losing and decide to do something about it. Focus still seems to be the #1 problem. But, we have all seen this exact same scenario play out almost every year for the past 25. More times than not, it works out OK. Enjoy the ride.

As we move to turn the page on the calendar from January to February, we have reached almost exactly the mid-way point of the Big Ten regular season. MSU observed this milestone by playing and winning perhaps the least anticipated game on the schedule: a home game against doormat Northwestern (no offense, Wildcats). After a somewhat sleepy first half, MSU took care of business in the second act and did exactly what a championship contender should do against a severely outmatched opponent: they blew them off the court.

Good job.

While the win was fun, it didn't exactly move the needle much in the big picture of the Big Ten race. The statistics already had assumed MSU had a 95% chance to win the game, so moving that probability to 100% doesn't change much. Quantitatively, the following table and trend graphs summarize the expected wins total and win matrix for all 14 Big Ten teams following the action on Thursday night.









Not surprisingly, MSU's expected win total held steady at just over 14 wins. Meanwhile, both Maryland and Illinois beat stronger teams midweek (Iowa and Minnesota) and thus got a bigger boost in expected wins to close the gap with MSU to just below a full game.

Farther down the standings has Rutgers and Iowa in a dead heat for 4th place at just below 12 wins, with Penn State and Wisconsin not far behind. Minnesota and Ohio State are hovering just under 10 wins, while Purdue and Indiana are closer to 9 wins. Michigan is solidly in 12th place at 8.5 wins, while Nebraska and Northwestern continue to reside in the basement.

As for the odds to win or share the Big Ten regular season title. The following table and graph summarizes the current numbers and season trends.





MSU's odds did dip a little to 57%, due to the improvements made by Maryland (31%) and Illinois (28%). Iowa and Rutgers are both right a 7.7%, while Penn State is now at 4.6%. No other team has current odds over 2%.

Finally, I have also updated the Big Ten standings as shown here:



In addition to the "plus/minus" values (road wins minus home losses), I have added a new column for a new metric, which here I call "luck." What is "luck"? Good question. Mathematically, this is the difference between the actual number of wins each team has and the expected value of wins predicted for that team based on the spread / Kenpom data.

Basically, teams are "lucky" if they tend to win more toss-ups than they lose. If you flip a fair coin ten time, you would expect to get 5 heads. If you get 6, you are "lucky" by 1.0. The numbers above make the same calculation for all completed Big Ten games using the up-to-date Kenpom efficiencies to retroactively calculate the odds of each team winning those games.

One could certainly argue that "luck" is not the right word. Championship teams are the ones that usually win the toss-up games. That is why they are champions. I actually agree with that. But, that said, Kenpom himself calculates a similar metric and he calls it luck as well. So, I am going to go with that term for now. If nothing else, it a s simple, four-letter word that is easy to fit into a table.

Looking at the above table reveals some interesting things related to "luck". It should come as no surprise that the teams at the top of the standings are luckier than the ones at the bottom. But, about half of the conference has values close to zero. It is the other teams that are interesting.

The most obvious team to point out is Illinois, which a shocking luck score of 2.84. This means that they have won almost 3 more games in Big Ten play than their Kenpom efficiency margin score predicted. Basically, they have won a lot of close games. Rutgers is also pretty lucky, with a score of 1.2. On the flip side, Purdue, Ohio State, and Michigan all have luck scores below negative one.

If we refer back to the Kenpom ratings in the first table, these numbers should not be a surprise. Even though Illinois is sitting in first place in the standings, their Kenpom rating is good for only 5th overall. In contrast, Ohio State's Kenpom rating is 13th, yet they are tied for 11th place in the Big Ten. Lucky teams are outplaying their Kenpom ratings.

There are a couple of things that could be going on here. First, if the Kenpom data is accurate (i.e. if it can be relied on as a good measure of the relative strength of each team) than this does suggest to me that a team like Illinois is actually just "lucky." In other words, they are likely to revert to the mean any day now.

However, the Kenpom data is simply an average of a team's performance over the entire year, and not a true measure of how good the team is right now. So, teams that get relatively better as the season goes on would naturally appear to be "lucky" while teams that are regressing will appear "unlucky." Which explanation is true? Like many things in life, they are probably both true, to some extent.

Either way, the next few games will tell us a lot. Illinois' next five games are @ Iowa, vs. Maryland, vs. MSU, @ Rutgers, and @ Penn State. The data suggests that they will only win 2 of those 5 games. If they do better than that, then perhaps they are just a rapidly improving, championship caliber team. If they don't, then they are likely just regressing to the mean.

As a final note, I should point out that Maryland is essentially equal to MSU so far both in luck and in overall Kenpom efficiency. The most likely outcome is that those will be the two teams that will ultimately face off for the title. The two head-to-head games between those squad will be critical. The first of those games is February 15th at Breslin and there is still a lot of other games to be played in the mean time. MSU needs to continue to rack of wins in order to stay at the top of the standings. The next chances comes tomorrow in Madison.

That is all for today. As always, enjoy, and Go Green.

Life on the road is tough. Coming into the four-game stretch that MSU just completed, I knew that there would be some bumps. I was hoping MSU could escape with a 3-1 record, but a 2-2 record would not be a surprise. Honestly, it was the game at Minnesota that scared me the most. Just looking at the location and timing of the games, the final stop on the 3-out-of-4 game road trip (on only 2 days rest) seemed like the most likely loss to me.

So, once MSU dropped 2 games in the state of Indiana, I was concerned. While there is still a lot of basketball yet to by played, it would have been very disappointing to see this team completely squander the commanding lead in the conference race that they had just a few games ago. Had MSU lost on Sunday, they could no longer consider them the Big Ten favorite, and the team's struggles away from Breslin would be approaching crisis status.

Fortunately, that did not happen. MSU finally showed the same close-to 40 minute domination that they had been displaying at home. As a result, MSU remains in a tie for first place with Illinois. As for the updated win matrix with expected win totals, as of Monday morning it looks like this (followed by the expected wins trend plots):









The win over Minnesota and associated boost in Kenpom efficiency drove MSU's expected win total back up over 14, which is slightly more than a full game ahead of Maryland and Illinois, who are now in a virtual tie for second place with just under 13 expected wins.

As we move down the standings, some separation is starting to emerge. Iowa (11.9) is about a half game up on Rutgers (11.4) who is a half game up on Wisconsin and Penn State (10.8). After that, Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana, and Ohio State are all hovering near 10 expected wins.

Michigan (8.1) is in serious danger. I seriously doubt a Big Ten team will make the tournament with a losing record, and I only give them a 19% chance of getting to 10 wins or more. After that, Nebraska (4.2) is started to get a little separation from cellar-dweller Northwestern (3.4).

As for the odds to win or share the Big Ten, that table and trend chart is updated below:





MSU's odds for a Big Ten title are still tops in the league at just under 60%. Consistent with the expected wins, I project Maryland (27%) to have a slight lead over Illinois (25%), with Iowa (12%) and Rutgers (6%) still hanging around.

Right now, I project there to be only a 24% chance that the eventual Big Ten champ(s) finishes at 16-4 or better. 15-5 (38%) or 14-6 (31%) are much more likely. Also, my simulations suggest that there is currently a ~72% chance that we see a solo champion, a 21% of a 2-way tie, and a 7% chance of a multiple-team tie. MSU is the solo champion in about 40% of my simulations.

As for the updated Big Ten standings, including the +/- ratings (road wins minus home losses) that is show here:





While the road teams have found more recent success (road teams won 8 of the last 13 Big Ten games since 01/20) only Illinois, MSU, and Maryland currently have +/- scores over two. From this point of view, Illinois does have an advantage over MSU being that they have already played (and won) an additional road game. However, MSU is still considered the better team (based on Kenpom efficiencies and the old fashion "eye test") and thus MSU has better numbers overall.

MSU returns home on Wednesday for perhaps the easiest game on the entire Big Ten schedule: Northwestern. After that, however, MSU has a rather nasty 5-game stretch:

2/1 @ Wisconsin (53%) -- 2 days rest
2/4 vs. Penn State (76%) -- 2 days rest
2/8 @ Michigan (53%) -- 3 days rest
2/11 @ Illinois (52%) -- 2 days rest
2/15 vs. Maryland (66%) -- 2 days rest

Each game may not look that scary individually, but but the number of road games and the amount of rest is troubling. MSU is projected to be favored in all of those games, but they are all near toss-ups. The expected number of wins is 3.0. So, in order for MSU to stay "on schedule", they need to win 3 of these 5 games. If MSU can go 4-1 or even 5-0, that would be outstanding. If MSU goes only 2-3, well, the Big Ten race would then almost certainly be a dogfight to the end.

That is all for now. I will most likely give another full update following this week. Until next time and as always, Go Green.

Some days these posts are more fun to write than others. Some days MSU games are more fun to watch than others. I would postulate that those two factors are strongly correlated. For the second time in three games, MSU went on the road in the state of Indiana, got off to a horrible start, and wound up losing.

On a positive note, MSU showed a lot more fight in the second half than they did in West Lafayette and Winston seems to have broken out of his mini-slump in the 2nd half. However, when it came down to "winning time," Indiana was the team that made the keys plays to win the game while MSU did not.

If you think about it, MSU has been in very few games this year where they faced true game pressure late. Most of their wins (and a couple of their loses) have been in blow-out fashion. Last night was a chance to show that this year's version of the Michigan State Spartans could eek out a close game in a hostile environment for the first time since the Seton Hall win in mid-November. They failed to deliver.

In the grand scheme of things, one loss does not matter much. MSU has plenty of chances going forward to rack up quality wins, hang some banners, and make a deep run in March. But, MSU first needs to prove that they can play just as well away from East Lansing as they can inside the Breslin Center. They have yet to do so.

Adversity can be a great teacher, and hopefully the team learned a few lessons last night. If they did, and if they can grow as a team, this group still has the chance to achieve great things. Last year's team did just that. However, the 2018 MSU team with Bridges and JJJ never did learn those lessons, and as a result their March run ended almost before it began. The 2020 MSU season could go either way right now, and the clock is ticking. I still like this team's odds, but they still clearly have a lot of work to do.

Speaking of odds, how did the results of the last few days impact the overall Big Ten race? The table below shows the updated win matrix, followed by the season trends.









Last night's loss clearly put a dent in MSU's expected win total, which at 13.3 is now at its lowest point of the season. The good news is that this is still the highest value in the Big Ten, but MSU's once commanding lead in expected wins is now down to less than a game.

Maryland maintained their position in second place at 12.5, while Illinois and Iowa both made strong moves this week to push their expected win totals over 12 wins as well. Farther down the "standings" we can see a bit of separation starting to appear. Wisconsin and Rutgers' expected wins are right around 11.5, while Penn State, Minnesota, and Indiana are around 10.5. Ohio State, Purdue, and Michigan have sunk below the 10 win mark and are drifting into NIT territory. Nebraska and Northwestern remain in the doormat category.

As for the translation of this data to Championship odds, those are summarized in the following table and figure





MSU's odds to win or share the Big Ten title, by this estimation, have now sunk below 50%. That means that "the field" now has slightly better odds to win the Big Ten. As the expected win table suggests, the biggest threats to MSU remain Maryland (26%), Illinois (19%), and Iowa (17%) with Wisconsin and Rutgers both posting numbers around 10%. MSU is still in the lead, but the field is catching up.

In addition, the Big Ten standings including the road win / home loss plus / minus numbers are shown below:



While MSU is currently in a tie with Illinois in the standings, the Illini now have 2 road wins to their credit (at Wisconsin and at Purdue), while the rest of the contenders all sit at +1. I actually think that this is a fairly big deal. Considering the continued struggles that the road teams have had so far this year, this gives Illinois a nice leg up right now.

MSU can right the ship a bit by getting a road win in Minneapolis this weekend. That in itself would push MSU's odds back up to around 60%. If they lose, I think the odds will drop to around 33%, and the Big Ten race will truly be wide open again. But for now, MSU still controls their own destiny. They just need to grab a hold of the reins.

As we enjoy from the MLK long weekend we are now officially 35% of the way through the Big Ten regular season. At 6-1, MSU has gotten off to almost as good of a start as possible and currently has a full game lead over Illinois and Rutgers in the standings.

Friday's win over Wisconsin was a big. The big story, of course, was Cassius Winston's Big Ten record breaking assist. But, perhaps the most important development was the productivity of the rest of the wings, and the fact that MSU shut down and dominated one of the hottest teams in the conference.

When the dust settled on Sunday evening, here is where the current numbers are for the Big Ten race. As usual, the table gives the projected win matrix and expected win totals for all 14 Big Ten teams, based on a simulation backed by Kenpom efficiency margin data. The visual trends in expected wins are shown below that.









MSU's expected win total is now back slightly above 14, which is still a full 2 games ahead of the 2nd place team, Maryland. Perhaps more of a surprise is the 3rd and 4th place teams, Iowa and Rutgers, who gained a little bit of separation from the pack over the weekend. Still, the difference in expected wins between 3rd place and 12th is still only 2.2 games. This is only slightly larger than MSU's lead over Maryland. A lot can and will change over the next weeks.

As for the most likely final record for MSU, the win matrix suggests MSU has a 22% chance to finish 16-4 or better, a 22% chance to finish at 15-5, a 23% chance to finish at 14-6, and a 33% chance to actually finish at 13-7 or worse. As I said, a lot can certainly change, and it can change in a hurry.

As for the translation of these number to championship odds, the updated numbers and trends are shown below





MSU's odds ticked up to just shy of 70%. Maryland's odds stayed just below 20%, while now both Iowa and Rutgers are posting numbers above 10%.

As good as these numbers look, it is critical to realize how important it is to win on the road in Big Ten play this year and how little success anyone has had. Big Ten teams are currently 42-7 at home (86%) which as others have pointed out, is a pretty crazy stat. While MSU looks to have a comfortable lead, MSU also lacks a truly impressive road win (no offense, Northwestern). Who ever winds up winning the Big Ten is going to need to win some big games on the road.

One way to visualize this is to consider the "plus/minus" rating for each team's road/home performance. This is a simple metric where a team gets 1 point for a road win and loses a point for a home loss. This is a useful took to compare teams when the home/road games are out of balance (like MSU's schedule is now.) The current Big Ten standing, showing the +/- values is shown below:



While MSU does have a lead, no team is better than +1, and six teams are in that category. MSU has the chance to push their value to +3 in the next two games. They need to get to at least +2 before the halfway point of the season or the race is suddenly very wide open. The back half of the schedule is going to be significantly more challenging than the front half.

More quantitatively, if MSU wins the next two, their odds to win (or share) the Big Ten title will surge to ~85%. If MSU splits the two games, they are treading water at right around 70%. If MSU were to lose both at Indiana and Minnesota, their odds project a drop to just below 50% and "the field" becomes the new Big Ten favorite.

MSU can dominate opponents at Breslin. It's time to show that they can do the same on the road.

MSU has not played since the last update, so I will keep this update very brief. Here is the update win matrix with the trend following:






Note that I did update the teams in each of the three graphs above such that it now matches the projected standings

As for the odds:





Not much has changed for MSU, but Wisconsin's odds and wins are now third best in the league and Iowa has edged in front of Ohio State for 4th place in odds.

Obviously, a win over Wisconsin on Friday night is pretty important to get. They might actually be a title threat after all...

Another weekend, another rough set of games for the road teams. After Sunday's action, home teams are now 32-5 overall in Big Ten play. Unfortunately, MSU was one of those road teams on Sunday, and for those that didn't see the game... it didn't go well. As a results, MSU picked up it's first loss in Big Ten play and dropped a bit in the Kenpom rankings as a result. But, how much did this impact MSU's projected final record? The table below shows the updated win matrix and expected win totals for all 14 Big Ten teams, followed by the visual trends back to the start of Big Ten play.









MSU's conference expected win total took a major hit, dropping from over 15.5 games to just a bit above 14. Only about a half game is that is based on the actual loss to Purdue (since in was a near toss-up game) so the other ~full game drop was due to a drop in MSU's kenpom efficiency margin and therefore on the odds for all remaining games.

But, the good news is that both Maryland and Ohio State also had some rough games recently, so MSU still maintained a game and a half lead in expected wins over the next closest team, which is still Maryland (12.2). Purdue jumped up a bit in expected wins, as did Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana. Penn State took a bit of a tumble.

The big picture, however, is unchanged, and that is MSU has a healthy lead, followed by Maryland, and then a half-step back from that is 10 of the remaining 12 teams how all project to win between 10 and 11 games. Nebraska and Northwestern are not even on the lead lap. As always, the trick for all of these teams will be to protect home court and try to steal as many road wins as possible.

As for the actual odds to win / share the Big Ten title, those are updated below:





MSU's odds took a big hit, yet at 66%, they are still clearly the best in the league. As expected, Maryland is 2nd at 21%, and Wisconsin (8.1%) has now surged ahead of Ohio State (7.7%) for 3rd place. It is still somewhat baffling that the Buckeyes odds are still even that high considering their 1-4 record, but with a Kenpom efficiency margin ranked in the Top 10 still, they are still projected to win a lot of games. We shall see.

Up until this weekend, it was starting to look like 16 wins might be needed to hang a banner. But, now, the math says that a record of 15-5 may still be enough. The eventual champ has 16 or more wins in only 22% of my current simulations. In almost half of them (47%) the champ(s) only got to 14 or less. Again, we shall see.

That's all for now. Until next time, enjoy and Go Green.

Another day, another dominating performance by the Spartans. While MSU seemed a bit sluggish and lacked sharpness, especially in the first half against the Gophers, the Spartans still managed to beat Top 40 Kenpom team by 16.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten this week, the homes teams kept racking up wins, including Maryland handing the Buckeyes their 3rd loss, Nebraska upsetting Iowa, Rutgers taking out Penn State, and Michigan surviving 2 OTs against Purdue. The only road win was Illinois' comeback in Madison against the Badgers. In total, Big Ten home teams are now 26-4 through 30 games. For reference, as I check back to last year, at this time home teams were only 19-11. So, the current level of success for the home teams does appear to be notably unusual.

As for the numbers, here is the up-to-date projected win matrix and expected win totals for the Big Ten, followed by the visual trends in expected wins. Once again, these numbers are the results of a simulation of the Big Ten season using point spreads / win probabilities as derived from Kenpom efficiency data.









These numbers reflect the most likely outcome of the season if all teams continue to play at the average level of efficiency that they have displayed so far to this point in the season. MSU's big week has pushed the expected win total into the range where a 16-4 record is now slightly more likely than a 15-5 record. As expected, Maryland's win over Ohio State has now vaulted the Terrapins into 2nd place in expected wins (at 13.16), while Ohio State is now in 3rd at 12.32.

It was a good week for Rutgers and Illinois, whose expected win totals are now approaching 11 wins, along with Michigan. Penn State and Wisconsin are hovering at just over 10 wins, while Iowa and Purdue dropped to below 10 wins, just ahead of Minnesota and Indiana. Nebraska and Northwestern continue to bring up the rear.

As for the translation to the odds to win the Big Ten, those are shown here:





As of today, MSU's odds to at least tie for 1st in the Big Ten are just over 80%, with Maryland at just under 20%, OSU at 8.5%, and no other team over 2.5%.

Once again, this assumes that MSU continues to play at the same level that they are showing now. With the general struggles that road teams have shown so far this year, MSU needs to show that they can be just as dominant away from Breslin as within its confines. With three and the next four on the road, including Sunday's game at Purdue, MSU will get a chance to put even more distance between themselves and the competition.

The game at Purdue projects as the 3rd toughest game on the schedule (after road games at Maryland and Michigan) and road games at Indiana and Minnesota will not be a picnic. I project that MSU only has a 22% chance to win all four. Going 3-1 in that stretch would be just fine. Going 2-2 would be more of a concern. If MSU can find a way to go 4-0, that would be outstanding. If that happens, MSU's shot at a 3-peat would rocket up to roughly 95% and MSU would almost certainly run their conference record to 10-0. That said... one game at a time.

That is all for now. Until next time, enjoy and Go Green!

We are only 6 days into the new decade and it has already been a very positive year for MSU hoops. The Spartans got two big wins since the calendar rolled over against Kenpom Top 40 teams. Furthermore, two of MSU's potential title rivals (Purdue and Ohio State) both took an additional "L" in 2020 so far. This is particularly significant since my preseason analysis suggested that those two teams (Purdue in particular) had a slight schedule advantage.

But, how do the event impact the overall Big Ten race, numerically? The following table gives the update Big Ten w:ins matrix and expected win totals after Sunday's action, using the updated Kenpom efficiency data:



For a more visual representation, here are the trends in expected wins back to the beginning of Big Ten play:







Amazingly, this analysis suggests that MSU has a 2.2 game lead in expected wins after only 4 games played. That is absolutely huge. For now, Ohio State still looks to be the biggest threat, with Maryland just a hair behind. Those two teams will face each other tomorrow night at Maryland, so there is a good chance that Maryland will seize control of 2nd place. That is certainly the current trend.

After those top three, there is a real log-jam in the middle of the conference with 9 teams all projected to win between 9 and 11 games. So far, Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan are all trending towards 11 wins, Purdue, Rutgers, and Illinois project to win 10, and Minnesota and Indiana look to win 9.

Northwestern and Nebraska are currently quite a ways back and are only projected to win 4 games.

As for the odds to win the conference (at least tie for 1st place), those odds are shown here, with the trends below:




As expected based on the previous table, MSU has a big lead in the odds department and now has a 74% chance to hang another banner. OSU and Maryland check in at 19% and 14%, while the rest of the conference is at 5% or below.

While MSU is currently sitting pretty at 4-0, I think that it is important not to get too excited. The math does suggest that a record of 16-4 or so will be enough to win the conference. In fact, there is only a 25% chance that any team finishes at 17-3 or better. In other words, losses are coming. If nothing else, MSU has gotten the luxury of playing 3 of the first 4 conference games at home, and the one road game was against one of the two worst teams in the league. Home teams are still 20-3 so far in conference play. There is going to be a rough patch or two in the next 8 weeks. Don't freak out when it happens.

Fortunately, Kenpom data can also help us rank the remaining games from hardest to easiest. Based on the current data, that list looks like this (with the win probability in parentheses):

1. @ Maryland (47%)
2. @ Michigan (54%)
3. @ Purdue (57%)
4. @ Wisconsin (57%)
5. @ Penn St. (58%)
6. @ Illinois (62%)
7. @ Minnesota (64%)
8. vs. Ohio St. (64%)
9. @ Indiana (65%)
10. vs. Maryland (72%)
11. vs. Iowa (78%)
12. vs. Wisconsin (79%)
13. vs. Penn St. (80%)
14. vs. Minnesota (84%)
15. @ Nebraska (92%)
16. vs. Northwestern (95%)

The toughest 5 road games all have win probabilities between 47% and 60%. MSU will likely win 2-3 of those games. The next 5 games all have win probabilities between 60% and 75%. MSU should win 3 of those games. The final 6 games have win probabilities between 75% and 95%. MSU should win 5-6 of those games. For better or worse, of the toughest 5 games, only the game @ Purdue is coming up in the next few weeks.

For MSU to be a champion, they just need to finish ahead of the curve in those three groups. In other words, win 3 (not 2) of the toughest 5, and lose no more than 2 games in the bottom 10. That gets you to 16-4 and earns you a banner (most likely). That is more wins than MSU is currently expected to win, based on raw probability (15.2, in the original table), but championship teams need to win more toss-ups than they lose.

It's early, but things are looking good so far for MSU. Go Green.

Happy New Year Everyone! I have a little down time tonight and never much cared for New Year's so how about a quick update on the odds of each team to win the Men's Big Ten basketball title?

Once again, I use Kenpom efficiency data to project win probabilities for all remaining Big Ten games and then run a Monte Carlo simulation on the season to project the expected number of conference wins and the odds to finish at least tied for 1st place. Almost all of the non-conference games are in the books and all Big Ten teams have played 2 games. Here is the current win matrix:



Based on this current data, MSU and Ohio State are in an effective dead heat with an expected win total that is within a hundredth of a win of each other. The second tier of teams currently contains Maryland, Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, and Penn State, who are all projected to win between 11 and 12 games. Then, there is a cluster of five additional teams (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Rutgers, and Illinois) who are all projected to win around 9 games. Nebraska and Northwestern are both currently projected to win only around 4 games.

As for the odds to finish in 1st place, those odds are shown below:



As expected, this data mirrors the table above, where MSU's odds (48%) are slightly better than Ohio State's (46%) with no other team with odds over 11%. In general, the Big Ten champ(s) is likely (odds over 75%) to have "only" 15 or 16 wins in conference play.

For reference, the following charts show the trends in expected wins over the month of December. It will be fun to see how these numbers evolve in the next 2 months. MSU has held steady. OSU has literally been up and down, while Purdue's trend is basically just down.







Finally, here is the trend for the odds to win the Big Ten, with only the Top 5 teams showing:





That's all for now. As always, enjoy, and Go Green.

12 minutes to kick off. Spartan marching band is on the field. Sound good too!

An abbreviated version of the Pre-Snap Read.

The Pre-Snap Read: Michigan State vs Wake Forest


By Jim Comparoni
Publisher
SpartanMag.com

NEW YORK CITY - It doesn’t appear that Michigan State will have a problem being motivated for Friday’s New Era Pinstripe Bowl against Wake Forest. The problem will be trying to outscore a quality Wake Forest team that is fired up for a chance to move its program up another rung on the national ladder.

At 6-6, Michigan State doesn't seem like a first-rate scalp for the Deacons to cherish. But Michigan State still has some shine to its national brand after Mark Dantonio's six 10-win seasons and four Top 15 finishes in the last seven years.

For the first time since 1948, Wake Forest has had four straight winning seasons. Wake Forest is going for its third nine-win season in school history.

Wake Forest was 7-1, ranked No. 19 in early November and made its first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff rankings.

Wake Forest lost three of its last four games as injuries knocked the Demon Deacons off course for a possible New Years Six bowl bid, which eventually went to Virginia out of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Now, Wake Forest wants its good season to end on a terrific note by beating Michigan State.

Michigan State wants one last chance to prove to themselves that they were better than their 6-6 record. I’m not sure they’re actually better than 6-6, but that’s their intention.

“Our will is about as high as it can be,” said senior quarterback Brian Lewerke. “I have one more game, the seniors have one more game, and we want to come out of here with a win.

“I didn’t have the best season. I want to show I’ve made improvements since the last game.”

THE OVERVIEW

The ACC has a poor football reputation this year, and it’s been that way for the past handful of seasons. In watching some of Wake Forest’s games, I think the reputation is warranted.

Wake Forest is a quality team which does a lot of good, troubling things on offense. But the defense has been leaky.

In watching Wake Forest’s 39-30 overtime loss at Syracuse in the last game of the regular season, the two teams lacked physicality on defense, didn’t tackle well, and were shaky with assignments. It was months ago, but I can see how and why Maryland destroyed a Syracuse team which began the season ranked in the Top 25 but finished 5-7.

Wake Forest is good in some areas on defense. But in terms of total, 11-man football on that side of the ball, they spring leaks. The question is whether Michigan State was the firepower on offense to do much about it.

Thorne among true freshmen turning heads in bowl practice

Jim Comparoni •
SpartanMag
Publisher

The Spartans are winding down their bowl preparations in New York City this week in advance of Friday’s New Era Pinstripe Bowl game against Wake Forest.

But before the Spartans left East Lansing, MSU’s freshmen and assorted underclassmen had a chance to show out in front of the coaches.

During the first two days of the bowl practice season, on Dec. 6 and 7, periods were held to showcase young players against one another.

Many of MSU’s true freshmen spent the fall season on the scout team. But the bowl practices gave them a chance to work within the MSU system for a change. True freshmen were gradually integrated into the practice playing groups.

“The first two practices were like everyone thrown in,” said senior quarterback Brian Lewerke. “We weren’t running a ton of crazy stuff. Try to keep it mellow for the young guys so they know what they’re doing.”

Those two days culminated on Dec. 7 with a special pair of periods in which the freshmen and rookies squared off solely against one another while upper classmen cheered on the sidelines.

“That was fun,” said senior tight end Matt Seybert. “We got real excited for them.”

In past years, with the regular season ending earlier and bowl games played later, there was time for more than a single period or two of freshman scrimmaging. But only four weeks between the regular season (Nov. 30) and the bowl game - with final exams and some time off mixed in - Michigan State wasn't able to have the kind of extended bowl season that used to be commonplace in college football.

But they got the most out of it.

“The bowl season is fun because all the young players get to come in and get reps,” Lombardi said. “Although I’m not necessarily a young player anymore, it’s good to see some of those guys get in and get with the team and improve. Through that, you can see the older guys getting fired up and bringing more energy because of them."

The freshman scrimmage period served as a highlight of the early portion of bowl season for the Spartans.

“Both sides are hype, the offense and the defense," Lombardi said. "You get a good run and everybody is hyped up. So it’s good for team bonding, too.”

The periods aren’t as long as an actual football game quarter. A period is more like a series of 10 or 15 plays. But it was enough for some freshmen to turns heads.

Coaches weren’t available to comment about the freshman scrimmage periods, prior to leaving for New York. But seniors such as Lewerke and tight end Seybert were interested spectators and came away with some opinions.

“Obviously Peyton (Thorne) is a dude,” Seybert said of the true freshman quarterback.

“He’s very shifty, very smart and he’s got a very consistent arm with great accuracy. He is very confident out there already, which I saw during that scrimmage period.

“(Wide receiver) Jayden Reed is not a freshman because he was at Western (Michigan) last year, but that man is going to be a problem for people and he showed it.

“Jalen Hunt on the d-line was making plays during that period. (Linebacker) Luke Fulton was playing pretty physical in that period. They were showing out and it was fun to watch them.”

Hunt (6-2, 305, Belleville) saw a little bit of playing time in November, but not enough to lose freshman eligibility. He will be listed as a redshirt freshman next fall and is emerging as a strong favorite to be in the playing group and compete for a starting job, along with Naquan Jones and Jacob Slade.

Hunt was a late addition to last year’s recruiting class. He committed to Iowa, but didn’t sign. MSU stuck with him through the late spring and summer, and added him to the program prior to August camp.

“I think he's on the cusp,” Mark Dantonio said last week. “He’s a guy who is going to be a great player for us. He came in about 320 or so, now he's about 305. He was a Dream Team selection at Belleville. Explosive, great change of direction, had a great year academically as well. He's traveled the last half of the season, may play a little bit in the bowl game as well.”

Fulton (6-2, 230, True Fr., Youngstown Cardinal Mooney) is an inside linebacker who is likely to compete with redshirt freshman Ed Warinner and walk-on junior Dante Razzano for second-string duty behind Noah Harvey at Mike linebacker in the spring. Incoming freshman Cal Haladay, a mid-year enrollee from Catawissa, Pa., will also be in the picture.

THORNE PRODUCTIVE IN FRESHMAN PERIODS


Payton Thorne, shown here during August camp, has had a constructive redshirt year.


Many eyes will be on the quarterback position next spring. Thorne will go into winter sessions with some momentum, coming out of bowl practice.

“He learned a lot,” Lewerke said. “Even though he wasn’t in the room, he still knows what he’s doing, the signals and all that stuff, where his read is. So I think he has definitely grown since he came here.”

Seybert noticed it too.

“With Peyton, his intelligence has really stood out to me,” Seybert said. “I haven’t been able to play much with him because I’ve been with the offense and he’s been with the scout team. With him being the youngest guy in the room, he has a bright future.”

Most upper classmen make sure to spread their compliments around. Seybert is no different.

“I love Theo (Day),” Seybert said. “He is also very intelligent. He makes smart decisions, he’s tall and a good, athletic guy.

“Rocky has the grit. He’ll go and run someone over.

“They’re all intelligent, you have to be smart as heck to play quarterback.”

Thorne is the intriguing x-factor of the group. He is a 6-foot-2, 197-pounder from Naperville, Ill. He was a three-star recruit, ranked the No. 1 QB in Illinois by Rivals.com and the No. 24 player overall in Illinois. He committed to MSU in December of 2018 after originally being committed to Western Michigan.

Thorne enjoyed the competitiveness of the freshman periods, early in bowl practice.

“It was fun to be in a live situation again, to be able to play with those guys and be able to throw the ball around,” Thorne said. “It felt good to be able to just go out there and play, just roll the ball out there and let’s see what you got.”

Reed, the transfer from Western Michigan, was Thorne’s favorite receiver during the freshman scrimmage. That's no surprise.

Reed, a 6-foot, 185-pound sophomore, caught 56 passes in 2018 at Western Michigan. He was a FWAA Freshman All-American, and then transferred to Michigan State.

Reed attended Naperville (Ill.) Central High School with Thorne. In 2017, when Thorne was a junior at Naperville Central and Reed was a senior, Reed hauled in 60 receptions for 1,792 yards and 20 touchdowns.

After Reed signed with Western Michigan, he was a factor in helping Thorne commit to the Broncos the following year. But then when MSU flipped Thorne, Reed soon followed his former quarterback to East Lansing.

Those two hooked up nicely a few times in the freshman scrimmage periods on Dec. 7.

“I think I threw Jayden a bubble or something and he made a guy miss,” Thorne said. “It was a short period, so nothing crazy.”

Thorne hooked up with other receivers during the freshman scrimmage periods, too.

“Javez (Alexander), I think is a very good player too,” Thorne said. “It’s been fun to get relationships going with other guys. Andre Welch is fun to play with.”

Redshirt freshmen and sophomores tried to take advantage of bowl practice scrimmage reps, too.

“It’s good to get in there and build some of that chemistry and rep with the ones that I don’t always get to rep with,” Lombardi said. “It’s such a long season that the team wears down. The bowl practice is good in that it brings everybody back together for one purpose.

“Everybody got back after a couple of days off and everybody’s body feels good and it’s just a completely different atmosphere.”

Day, who will compete with Lombardi and Thorne for the starting quarterback job in 2020, was fired up about it too.

“Bowl practice is almost like a new start from the season,” Day said. “We can look at what we did well during the season and what we did poorly. We can kind of learn from that and build off that.”

Some true freshmen who crept into the playing group late in the fall have continued to gain momentum in December. True freshman running back Brandon Wright is in that category.

“Brandon Wright’s been thrown in there a little bit more,” Lewerke said. “He’s been playing well.”

Wright saw his role sneakily increase in the last month of the season.

Wright had 18 carries on the year for 48 yards. He had five carries in each of the last two games, and he was the go-to ball carrier on MSU’s final drive for a game-winning field goal against Maryland. He didn’t pick up first-down yardage against the Terrapins in that situation, but with Elijah Collins slowed by a minor lower body injury, coaches turned heads by going with Wright at crunch time.

“Brandon has been doing really good,” Seybert said. “He’s been playing so it’s not like he is out of nowhere, but he has been getting better and better every day. But everybody knows that guy is a big body and he is going to be a load to bring down.”

During freshman scrimmage time, offensive linemen like Nick Samac, D.J. Duplain and Devontae Dobbs probably felt like old veterans. Samac and Duplain became emergency starters in the second half of the season, for better or worse.

Bowl practices gave them a chance to step back and gather themselves.

“They’re still growing, still learning,” Lewerke said. “They are by no means a finished product yet. That’s why these practices are good for them - to develop and get better.”

I caught up with Lockett's high school coach Chris Goodwin this afternoon and we talked about his star wide receiver and what we should expect from Terry Lockett when he gets to MSU.

That's a darn good co-op football team and Lockett is a dynamic player. The big thing that stands out to me is obviously the production despite double teams. 53 catches for 1030 and 14 touchdowns. Two of those TD's were one-handed grabs.

23 yards plus per average is impressive. But the 17 yards per gain on bubble screens is telling.

Coach Goodwin says that Lockett has the best hands he's seen in 23 years of coaching. He's a guy that has won a couple of state titles too.

Here's the story. I hope you learn something. I always do when I have a good conversation with a knowledgeable high school coach.

Lockett gives MSU a much-needed big-play threat at WR

With football season starting to wrap up, it is time to start to turn my mathematical focus to the hardwood. While I have developed my own methods for predicting the point spreads of football games, I believe that the efficiency-based methods used and refined by Ken Pomeroy are the current gold standard in basketball analytics. Over the past few years, I have developed my own methodology using Kenpom data to try to answer interesting questions regarding college basketball.

As this weekend marks the beginning of Big Ten basketball, it seems like a good time to take a closer look at what the current Kenpom data can tell about which team(s) might be hoisting a Big Ten championship banner at the close of the regular season.

I use the following method. The current Kenpom efficiency margins can be used to project point spreads for all future Big Ten games. These point spreads can be used to generate the probability that either team will win any given future contest. I actually use a different formula than Kenpom does, but they give the same result to within a percentage point, from what I can tell. (I use the Normal / Gaussian distribution while Kenpom seems to use the "ELO" or "Log5" method which uses the simplified Logistic Distribution. Based on my analysis of the data, my method is more accurate based on historical data, thank you very much.)

Once you have the probabilities of series of events, it is possible to set up a "Monte Carlo" simulation. This is essentially a very large set of weighted coin flips, using a random number generator as the coin. Basically, I can use this "coin" to simulate the entire Big Ten season, based on the current Kenpom ratings of all 14 Big Ten teams and the projected point spreads of all 140 Big Ten conference games. Using a simple Excel macro, I can run this simulation 120,000 times and generate a good set of statistics on the likelihood that each team will win "x" games and the likelihood that each team will at least tie for first place.

With these tools in place, I pulled the Kenpom data from late this week before any of the Big Ten games were played and simulated the season. The key outputs of this simulation are the expected value of conference wins for each team as well as the win probability matrix. That first set of data is shown here:



As of Thursday night (12/05), Ohio State, by virtue of their big win over UNC in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, is currently the highest ranked Big Ten team, and as a result has the highest projected expected win total of 15.16. This translates an a most probable record of 15-5. MSU is currently sitting at #4 with a slightly lower expected value of 14.39., which translates to record of 14-6.

While this gives us some information about what to expect, it is more useful to look at the probabilities that each team will actually finish at least in a tie for first place. Fortunately, my simulation gives me that data as well, which is summarized below:



In this case, the probability matrix gives the odds that each team will win/tie for first with the number of wins given in the column heading. For example, there is a 0.7% chance that MSU wins the Big Ten by going 19-1, a 3% chance MSU wins with a record of 18-2, and about a 8% chance MSU wins with a record of 17-3, and so on. Note that the win totals here are higher than the win totals shown in the previous table. This simply implies the obvious point that in order to win a Championship, you usually need at least a little bit of luck, or at the very least be able to "beat the odds." It is necessary to be able to win more toss-up games than you lose.

Based on the current Kenpom rankings, Ohio State has basically 50-50 odds to at least tie, MSU's odds are about 1 in 3, Purdue's odds are 23%, Maryland's are 15%, and Michigan's are less than 5%.

Baked into this analysis is the idea that each team will continue to play at exactly the same level for the next 2 and a half months, and that the current Kenpom ratinngs are an accurate snapshot of how good each team actually is and will continue to be. We know that this is not true, but it is the best set of tools that we have short of a crystal ball.

In the face of this uncertainty, I find that it is interesting to take a look at the overall schedule to see which teams may be at a specific advantage or disadvantage. In general, the calculation of "strength of schedule" is a tricky one, but I have a couple of methods that I believe make sense.

The first thing to do is simply to try to visualize the Big Ten schedule. Even with a 20-game season, it is impossible for each Big Ten team to play a full double round robin, and as such the schedule is unbalanced. The matrix below shows the double and single play games for all 14 Big Ten teams.



At first glance, it is interesting that Ohio State, MSU, and Purdue each only play each other once. That would seem to be a major advantage for all three teams. In contrast, the next two highest ranked teams, Maryland and Michigan play each of those teams twice with the exception of Maryland and Purdue. That seems significant, but how do we quantify that?

The method that I have developed is to use the Kenpom data to simulate each team's season using the same assumed strength of the team in question. In this case, I assumed that each team had a Kenpom efficiency equal to that of a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten team, which for this year's analysis is Penn State. I can run my simulation to calculate the expected number of wins each team would have if they are all only as good as the Nittany Lions. When I do this, I can generate the following graph of normalized expected conference wins:



Based on this data, Purdue is the team with the easiest Big Ten road. Looking again at the single play matrix shows why, as 4 of their 6 single play opponents are among the Top 6 other teams in the conference. In the next tier are Ohio State, MSU, and Iowa, who are about 0.3 of a game back. The schedule strength gets increasingly harder as we move to the right, with teams like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Northwestern almost a full game back in expected value. I should also note that based on this analysis, MSU has a roughly 0.7-game advantage on Michigan right out of the gate.

While this analysis is pretty good, in my humble opinion, there is one thing that bothers me a bit. That is the fact that the expected win values above clearly correlate to the strength of each team. On one hand, this makes sense. After all, MSU has an easier schedule than Northwestern, in part because MSU does not have to play a team as good as MSU and Northwestern doesn't get the benefit of playing a team as bad as Northwestern. So, I think the chart above is a pretty good reflection of reality.

That said, I was still curious if I could correct for this "bias," and I think that I found a way to do that. My strategy is to run the same simulation as before where each team takes on the strength of Penn State only I also adjust Penn State's rating to be equal to the team in question. For example, when making the calculation for MSU, I map Penn State's Kenpom efficiency onto MSU, but I also map MSU's efficiency onto Penn State. In this way, the overall strength of the conference is not affected. When I perform this analysis, the results are no longer correlated to the current Kenpom efficiencies.

Those results of this final calculation are shown below:



This plot perhaps gives us a feel for how the strength of schedule might change based on the uncertainly and potential inaccuracy of the current Kenpom efficiencies. There is no major change in the relative ratings. In this case, Purdue and Iowa still have 2 of the easiest schedule in the conference, while it is clear that Rutgers and Nebraska would also have a pretty good schedule if they weren't so bad.

MSU and Ohio State sit at 5th and 6th by this measure, roughly a half game behind Iowa and Purdue. Meanwhile, no matter how you slice it, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois seem to have the toughest schedules overall with almost a full game disadvantage based on this analysis.

That all said, there is nothing in this analysis that can account for things such as leg stress reactions, personal tragedies, or road games on short rest. Ultimately, probability is not destiny. But, I think this analysis gives us an initial look at what to expect. My goal is to continue to update some of this data throughout the season.

That is all for now. Until next time, enjoy, and Go Green.

This post was originally a reply to a post in another thread. But I got a little carried away with the detail and decided I needed to bring it out front.

Lewerke only has one game left as a Spartan. Why am I bothering to analyze him so deeply at this stage, when there's not much left to learn about him? Well, mainly because I can't remember ever seeing a 342-yard performance by an Michigan State QB that has drawn equal doses of compliments and criticism, maybe of the latter.

So I had to cut into it again, just to look around, put it on paper and see if we learned anything.

In the end, I thought Lewerke was worthy of being pulled in the third quarter, but the coaches were correct to leave him in. He was excellent in the fourth.

In all, whether you saw Lewerke's performance as a plus or a minus is kind of like your perception of THE DRESS in 2015 whether it was blue or black.


What I saw in Lewerke was a roller coaster of inconsistency, which has pretty much become the m.o.


This is the way I saw it (boiled down to the key moments, positive or negative, in each drive):

(red is negative, green is positive, for faster perusal):

1H

First Drive: Field Goal, score: 3-0.
Red Zone:
- 1-10: Bad zone read exchange. Not sure whom to blame. Loss of 1.

+ Nice back shoulder throw to Nailor. Called back, illegal man downfield.

Second Drive:
+ 3-3: Pump, keep, gain of 6.
[Drive ended with fourth-and-one stoppage].

Third Drive
Red Zone:
- 1-10: INT intended for Gillison on underthrown corner route.

Fourth Drive
- 1-10: INT on slant intended for Barnett. Telegraphed pass? Or great defensive play? Dantonio said it was the latter. Barnett took his route too long. I confirmed with sources that he was supposed to break it off shorter.

Fifth Drive: Field Goal, score: 6-7
+ Nice pass to Cody White for 27 yards into the cover-two hole.
Red Zone:

+ Nice pass to Seybert on a curl vs zone for 13 yards. Good read, throwing to Nailor on a comeback vs press coverage for gain of 9.

* After two runs failed (Including: Duplain and Reid beaten on a zone read give for loss of one. Wrong read by Lewerke? Possibly.) Then on 3-9, Lewerke threw into the cover-two hole again, but Nailor ran an in route. The ball bounced into the cover-two hole with no receiver near it. Probably the receiver's fault). [The end result is a red zone failure. Lewerke's fault? I don't think so. Looked like a good read to me, would it have been an accurate throw if Nailor had run the correct choice route? I don't know. That red zone failure is not chalked up to Lewerke, in my estimation.]

Sixth Drive: TD, score: 13-7
+ 16-yard pass to a diving Tre Mosley on 3-6.

- 24-yard pass to White on a square-in, but the ball should have been intercepted by a Maryland linebacker. Passed right through his hands.

- INC pass for White on a slot corner fade. A well-thrown touch pass would have resulted in a TD. White had some leverage to open space on the receiver. Lewerke threw it on a line, uncatchable.

+ on 3-5 in the red zone: 10-yard pass to Elijah Collins on a wheel in the flat for a gain of 10. Good read.

(NOTE: The TD was scored on a QB power read option from 1 yard out. It should be noted that on first-and-goal at the 4-yard line, Michigan State gained 3 yards on a split zone run by Collins. On that play, Samac, Duplain and Arcuri all had good blocks against a heavy front. That was the key to MSU's lone red zone TD conversion. They got good run blocking inside the 5 on first-and-goal).

2H:

Seventh Drive: 3 and out
- INC pass, on a scramble, thrown at Adam Berghorst's feet. Good job to scramble and stay alive, created an opening, but missed him.
- Gain of 2 on a zone read keeper into a slot corner blitz. Had to be the wrong read. As the result of the slot blitz, he wasn't optioning just one player, there were two unblocked players there. Had to be the wrong read.

Eighth Drive: 3 and out
- on 2-9, pass batted and dangerously deflected high in the air for an INC.
- on 3-9, pass intended for Barnett batted INC.

[At this point, I was thinking it's the proper time to try a back-up QB, if you had a back-up QB you trusted. I'm not saying they have one better than Lewerke. I'm just saying THIS was the time to make the move. But they didn't, and they made the right decision.]

Ninth Drive: Missed Field Goal
+ Sprint out pass to White, complete for 16.

+ Pass to Barnett for 32 yards into the cover-two hole on the short side. This was essentially the same route that Nailor messed up in the first half. Both were to the short side of the field and called for a skinny corner route, almost a fade. This time, Lewerke trusted his receiver and made the throw.

+ 3-1 at the +41: zone read keep for gain of 10.

* How the drive ended:

On 1-10 at the +31, Michigan State ran a reverse designed for White to throw to Lewerke or another receiver. No one was open. White threw it away. On 2-10

On 2-10: Anthony Williams gained 4 on an inside zone.

On 3-6: Pass INC, thrown behind Barnett on a slant. Arcuri flagged for hand to the face. Locksley amazingly declined the personal foul. Coghlin missed the field goal. Bad on bad on bad on bad. That's four bads.

10th Drive: FG, 16-16
+ 3-2: at the -30: Speed option pitch to Williams for gain of 11. Major darn play in the game. 5 yards after contact by Williams. Gutsy play call, gutsy choice by Lewerke, great job by Williams. Williams' best play as a Spartan so far. Also, this was against that slot blitz again. Michigan State might have anticipated the slot blitz and influenced it based on formation. But instead of zone read with the RB going inside, Michigan State went speed option with the RB going outside. And this time Lewerke made the right read and got rid of the ball.)

+ Nice pass to Seybert on a crosser for about 16 yards, but he was hit and fumbled on the play, losing yardage. Michigan State recovered it for a net gain of 4.

+ 3-1: QB sneak. Have to give him credit on that. They couldn't trust the run game.

+ Short wheel route pass to Collins for a gain of 13.

+ Nice pass to Barnett for a gain of 12 on a corner route to the wide side of the field.

= 3-10 at the +19: Check down to Mosley on a curl for short gain, after a time out. (At pre-snap, Michigan State sent a receiver in motion. A Maryland defender ran with the motion man, declaring man-to-man and showed blitz. Lewerke then audibled to max seven-man protection. By the time he got that aligned, Maryland had checked to a three-man rush and an eight-man zone. With eight covering three, the two downfield routes were coveraged. He had to check it down. Rushing three works more than you think. See Minnesota's game-winning INT against Penn State, and Oklahoma's game-winning defensive play against Baylor).

11th Drive: Field Goal, 19-16
+ Nice accuracy on a short wheel route vs man-to-man, giving Williams a chance for yards after the catch. Gain of 12.

+ Good choice on a shallow cross to Seybert on a late release route for a gain of 5.

+ Another short wheel route to Wiliams, this time vs zone, for gain of 13.

+ Out route to Mosley for gain of 19 (Cody White erred in running and out and getting in the way, when he should have ran something else).

+ Back shoudler fade to Mosley for a gain of 13 vs blitz press man.

+ Curl to Seybert for gain of 6 set up third and manageable.

+ Good choice on a curl at the sticks as part of a snag concept vs bailing zone for gain of 4 to the +17 on 3-4.

Then the drive stalled in the red zone:
- 1-10: No gain on a man-blocking isolation play. Brandon Wright should have followed his lead blocker for maybe a yard or two. No gain. Maryland got away with a facemask on the tackle. That's an uncommon blocking scheme for Michigan State, but the freshman probably shouldn't have tried to bounce it. It was man blocking, 7 blockers vs an 8-man front. Not much room. But I think coaches wanted Wright to stay inside and try to break a tackle downhill rather than outside.

- 2-10: Wright no gain on outside zone. Gain of 2. Carrick tried to initially double-team with Samac and then get out to the LB. But the angle wasn't right for him. Maybe he shouldn't have committed to the initial double team, based on the angle and the direction of the zone, Samac might have been able to seal his guy without any help. But Carrick helped and then couldn't get to the LB to finish the combo. That LB bounced the play. Wright eluded him but by that time the defense was able to string it out. Seybert could have done a better job getting off of his double-team to block the cornerback, who made the tackle.

- 3-8: INC. Sprint out to another snag concept for Mosley. He was open at 6 yards, but wouldn't have gotten the first down. Lewerke, on the run to his left, a difficult direction for a right-hander, attempted a sidearm pass. Good read, good decision but it was inaccurate. The other choices were White in the flat and CJ Hayes headed for the corner. Both were covered.

Field goal. Then defense for the win.

**

The takeaway: Lots of alternating red and green for three quarters, and then a lot of green at the end. If you were a fan of neither team and just tuned in for the fourth quarter, you would think Lewerke was a stud. I didn't see a lot of open receivers that he missed, as one of the posted claimed. Lewerke only threw 11 INCs in 41 pass attempts. But there were spills and messes along the way. Inconsistent? Yes. But Maryland would have liked to have had that kind of inconsistency in the pass game on their side all year. Iowa? Iowa might not have the play-making ability at QB in Stanley that Lewerke has, but fewer messes, and a much tighter overall operation.

Is Michigan State any closer now to being an 8-4 type of team than they were against ASU and Illinois? No.

Gather 'round.

I took a very different slant on this week's Pre-Snap Read. It's 80 to 85 percent about Michigan State and its returning players for next year, how they looked last week, and what we need to see out of them this week, and going forward:




The Pre-Snap Read: Michigan State vs Maryland


By Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com

EAST LANSING - Some of the biggest questions surrounding Michigan State football this week are: Why to watch? Why to care?

If you’re clicked onto this site and this story, then your heart and mind are already 80 percent there. You’re a good Spartan.

As for the rest:


1. It starts with getting to 6-6 and gaining bowl eligibility.

It’s been a terribly disappointing season, but we’ve seen worse. That shouldn’t make anyone feel better, but we’ve seen lower days. And this season can get lower if the Spartans don’t finish with a win.

Michigan State needs to get this victory, and perhaps look forward to a date with a name opponent such as Florida State, possibly in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit on Dec. 26.

That’s not Pasadena, but it’s enough to merit continued attention from most of its fans.


2. For me, it’s all about the future. Michigan State could have, should have, been an 8-4 team this year. That’s not great, but 8-4 will usually get you into the Top 25, with a chance to win a bowl game and break the Top 20. Even with blowout losses to your best four opponents, that’s not a bad place to end up in a “down” year.

The bottom line is: Even with all the injuries on the offensive line and wide receiver, there was enough on the roster to go 8-4. That’s not enough to make anyone ecstatic, but there’s reason to aspire to 8-4 or better next year, even with a tougher schedule and the need to replace a lot of talent on defense.

To that end, I’ll have a close eye on returning players, Saturday, when the Spartans play host to Maryland.

The game is pitched as Senior Day. Fans will applaud the seniors who will play their final game at Spartan Stadium. But I’ll be watching these players and these storylines, looking for signs of player development or lack thereof. All players returning for 2020 are in bold in the rest of this article:


3. The left side of the offensive line has become a curiosity. Michigan State started three true freshmen last week at left tackle, left guard and center last week with DeVontae Dobbs, J.D. Duplain and Nick Samac.

Samac and Duplain have been solid to functional. They look good for the future. Samac is a strong, cerebral, square-bodied guy who matches strength well for a teen-ager, but he needs to improve his mobility.

Dobbs struggled in pass protection last week, was replaced by sophomore Mustafa Khaleefah, who also struggled. They were replaced by junior A.J. Arcuri in the second half.

Coaches and trainers wanted to limit Arcuri to half the game because they weren’t sure he could go all four quarters on a nicked-up ankle.

When Arcuri entered the game, MSU’s pass protection problems on the left side against Rutgers were fixed.

Then Arcuri sat out the final two possessions, and Dobbs had further problems.

This week, I would expect Arcuri to play again, and continue to climb. Arcuri moves well, has a good frame, plays with strength. He just needs to gain a level of good health, now that he has gained a half-season of playing experience. I think he is setting up for a good senior year, although he’s still not a proven plus-player. We’re still watching and learning with him. Michigan State needs a good game from him on Saturday, a healthy December and a good bowl performance from the left tackle.

As for Dobbs, Dantonio indicated on Tuesday that he is likely to start again. However, Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal reported that Dobbs sustained an injury in practice this week and isn't likely to play.

Based on Dantonio's Tuesday comments, Arcuri likely would have been on a pitch count. Now, if Dobbs is out, Arcuri might have to go as long as he can. From there, who is the next left tackle? Chewins hasn't played all year and is out. Kevin Jarvis has been out since the Arizona State game and is expected to be back at some point but there was no indication that it could be this week. Tyler Higby, who was the emergency starter earlier this season, has been out for four weeks and isn't expected to be active this week.

Khaleefa, who struggled in pass protection last week but was solid in run blocking in 24 snaps, will need to be ready to take on a bigger role this week.


4. Michigan State beat Rutgers 27-0 last week, but red zone offense remains a problem.

Michigan State crossed the Rutgers 35-yard line on nine of MSU’s first 10 possession. But Michigan State scored TDs on only three of those nine opportunities.

Maryland isn’t any good, but if you fail to finish scoring opportunities against the Terps, they have the ability to make you pay, like Illinois - although Maryland isn’t likely to have the level of commitment and enthusiasm that Illinois had, nor the quarterback play.

I realize the 35-yard line isn’t considered the red zone, but the point remains the same. Michigan State conked out in scoring territory.

Michigan State was stopped on downs at Rutgers’ 16- and 33-yard lines on fourth-and-short failures in the first half.

Michigan State attempted three field goals (making two) and had an interception in the end zone, which wasn’t Brian Lewerke’s fault. But still, this team’s inability to finish in the red zone has been a problem for more than two years and it would be nice for Spartan fans to see the offense finish against lesser competition.

On MSU’s final touchdown, Lewerke threw behind Cody White, but the junior WR made a terrific catch.

Lewerke and White are MSU’s main battery in the red zone. Combined, they were one-for-three in clutch scoring situations last week:

+ Lewerke was on target for a nice 21-yard TD pass in the first half.

+/- Lewerke was on target again on a slot fade in the second quarter, but White failed to secure a catch in traffic (the ball was knocked out of his hands for an interception).

+/- And then on the third one, Lewerke was off-target but White bailed him out.

That kind of inconsistency is a emblematic of Michigan State being in line to go 6-6 rather than 8-4.


5. As for the fourth-down stoppages last week, future players had a hand in the shortcomings.

* On the first stoppage, fourth-and-1 at the Maryland 16-yard line on the opening drive:

Michigan State tried to play hurry-up ball for that snap. Michigan State hurried to the line and ran a zone read hand-off.

Rutgers got set in time and brought a run blitz from an eight-man front against six blockers. Michigan State was beaten on the chalkboard prior to the snap.

Meanwhile, Samac and Duplain allowed penetration (getting two-gapped at the line, with run blitzers behind them).

An RPO was sewn into that play. Julian Barnett was available for a short screen to the left. Does Lewerke have the freedom to pull the ball and throw that pass? Probably. Does he have enough confidence and experience in the RPO game to throw the ball on a fourth-and-short? Maybe not.

Would an RPO pass to Barnett have worked better than the run decision? I don’t know for sure and didn’t get a chance to ask offensive coaches this week.

Decision-making for the QB position isn’t solely about making coverage reads and throw decisions. It’s also about reading the defensive front and deciding whether to keep, give or throw. Lewerke has had plenty of struggles in terms of passing accuracy this year. His struggles have also included more than a few poor decisions in the zone read/RPO game. It’s a difficult part of the job. Michigan State needs to improve in that area in the future.

Theo Day and Rocky Lombardi are decent runners. They don’t have the acceleration of Lewerke but they are pretty good athletes with some ruggedness. If Michigan State is going to continue with the zone read and RPO as part of the offense next year, which is expected to be the case, Day or Lombardi (or Payton Thorne) will need to be better with their zone read decisions.

The best case scenario for Michigan State on Saturday is to get a big lead and play two back-up quarterbacks, and let them run some zone reads and RPOs. Michigan State shouldn’t worry about hurting coach Mike Locksley’s feelings by running up the score after seeing what his Terps did to Howard and Syracuse early in the season. Michigan State has some players who need real-time work. Day and Thorne are among them.

* On the second stoppage, fourth-and-one at the Rutgers 33:

- Elijah Collins ran an inside zone left which looked like it was designed for a cutback to right tackle. Collins didn’t have any room behind the right tackle and had to bounce it outside further to the right. He was brought down by an ankle tackle inches short of the line of gain.

It looked like Collins might have had a better chance to get the first down if he had planted a foot and tried to get north rather than angling to the outside. So some of the negative on that play is chalked up to Collins. The rest of it:

- Jordan Reid allowed a half-yard of movement to Rutgers’ best defensive end. Reid has been MSU’s best offensive lineman over the last month of the season. He’s been a plus as a run blocker and pass blocker, but he didn’t get movement on this play.

= Tight end Matt Seybert got enough of his man as the inside guy on a tight bunch formation.

= Trenton Gillison got enough of his man as the point man in the tight bunch formation, but probably got away with holding. His blocking isn’t as bad as it used to be, but he still has a lot of work to do.

- CJ Hayes blocked down from his outside position as the outer-most player in the tight bunch. He didn’t get enough of the play-side LB, which caused Collins to bounce outside at a wider angle than he wanted.

+ Matt Carrick got enough of his man at right guard, but Collins couldn’t wait patiently inside as the ball carrier because Reid lost.

Samac began with a double-team with Carrick, and they would have carved out more than enough room inside, but Samac had to leave the double-team in order to pick up a run-blitzing linebacker. That’s what happens when you have eight blocking vs 10 defenders. The 10th defender, the first unblocked guy, ended up making the tackle on Collins as he tried to make a cut on the perimeter.

* So who lost on that play? Reid, although that hasn’t been his m.o. lately. And Hayes didn’t get enough of his man, and Hayes has only played two games in the past month.

Was this a case of Michigan State being too predictable in short-yardage? Yes, to an extent. Mark Dantonio is still a believer that you should be able to get a single yard, even when predictable, if everyone blocks well and the ball is run correctly. That being said, if a team is playing zero-coverage run blitz, you need to have confidence that your QB can make a read, throw it accurately, and the receiver will catch it. If you’re the play caller for Michigan State, I’m not sure you have that trust in the QB and the receivers.

(As a side note, that fourth-and-one was set up by a 19-yard completion to Julian Barnett on third-and-20. For those of you who think Barnett erred in failing to get beyond first-down yardage, step off. He ran a good route into the cover-two hole, and the cover-two hole is usually at about 15 to 17 yards. He ran to the open space and Lewerke was on target.

(Barnett secured the catch. However, he caught the ball with his body. They will work to improve his hand selection and stress the importance of catching with the hands out away from the body. Bennie Fowler went through the same process).


6. Getting back to the main point, of MSU’s six red zone (or near red zone) failures last week, two were fourth-and-short stoppages. This week, if Michigan State gets into a fourth-and-short, will the Spartans opt for a play action pass?

Scattered showers and 36 degree temperatures could have a hand in play calling, but we will continue to monitor MSU’s blocking.


7. Elijah Collins is a reason to watch on Saturday. He needs 149 yards to become MSU’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Jeremy Langford in 2014.

Collins is averaging 4.6 yards per carry on the year.


8. Maryland’s run defense is a little bit puzzling and will offer an interesting match against Michigan State. The Terrapins allowed 305 yards rushing last week to Nebraska, 383 the week before to Ohio State. However, Maryland was pretty solid one game earlier against Michigan. Michigan rushed for 155 yards but outgained the Terps “only” 331-233.

Michigan is one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten, and Maryland seems to be losing interest in the sport. But the Terps rose up and battled pretty good at the line of scrimmage that day, although the score got away from them due to a kickoff return for a TD, and failure to finish opportunities. First downs were equal that day, 16-16.

Maryland had some heat with Michigan prior to that game (heat is a pro wrestling term for bad blood), dating back to social media barbs exchanged between Maryland coach Mike Locksley and Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis as to which cook led the kitchen last year when they were at Alabama. So that might explain why Maryland got up for that game, comparatively speaking.

But Maryland seemed to quit midway through last week’s game against Nebraska on Terps’ Senior Day. Now, they have to play a second straight bad-weather game, this time on the road, as part of MSU’s Senior Day. Michigan State will likely have an advantage in the enthusiasm and commitment department. This could manifest itself in a healthy day of run offense for the Spartans and perhaps the 1,000-yard barrier for Collins.

From an athletic standpoint, Maryland’s defensive front is not at a disadvantage against Michigan State. Run blocking is not a strength for Michigan State. Maryland is capable of stymying Michigan State and holding the Spartans under 150 yards rushing as a team. The question is whether Maryland is going to care enough to try to win collisions all day. Meanwhile, Michigan State has young players trying to learn their craft and earn their keep. In short, Michigan State is more likely to play hard for four quarters than Maryland.


9. Adam Berghorst, what’s his future? The true freshman defensive end has gotten into the playing group the past two games as the No. 3 tight end.

Berghorst (6-6, 260, Fr., Zeeland, Mich.) signed with Michigan State as a defensive end. He also plans to begin a baseball career with Michigan State this spring. Playing tight end wasn’t necessarily expected to be the first way he got onto a playing field in the green and white, but that’s been the necessity, with Matt Dotson injured and Noah Davis having left the team to join the transfer portal.

Michigan State might have more need at defensive end than tight end next year, but there is a more pressing need at tight end right now. Berghorst has the frame and athleticism to rep at both positions. He didn’t play much last week, but he looked serviceable as a blocker.

“We’re going to see down the road what he is, but we moved him to tight end probably about four weeks ago or so,” Dantonio said. “He's responded. He was a tight end in high school. He's got soft hands. He runs pretty good routes for a guy that size.”

He weighed in at 250 prior to the season. Dantonio says he is up to about 262.

“I just tell our coaches, use them or lose them, and so we've used them on the offensive side of the ball and he's given us depth there and he's played himself into a situation where we will play on Saturday,” Dantonio said. “We're not playing guys just for fun. He gives you a big guy that can be on the line of scrimmage and control the line of scrimmage to some degree, even as a freshman.

“So I'm not sure where his future is, but I know he has a great future, a big-time future as a football player and probably as a baseball player, too.”

Berghorst isn’t in danger of losing redshirt status. He has played in two games this year. He saw nine snaps of action against Maryland.


10. Last week, Naquan Jones was the most active and energized that I’ve seen him all year. The junior defensive tackle has been mostly quiet this season. But he caught my eye with forceful plays against Rutgers.

I checked the Pro Football Focus grades for the game and sure enough, Jones ranked No. 2 on the team in terms of overall defensive score. He was an 86, easily his highest of the year. Only Josiah Scott was higher, at a 90.9.

Rounding out the top five:

3. Xavier Henderson, 83.0

4. Kenny Willekes, 76.7

5. Jacob Slade, 70.9.

Slade and Jones will be the starting defensive tackles next year. They were good last week. They need to finish the regular season continuing their surge. They played 16 snaps last week.

In only 16 snaps, I had Jones with five plus plays. That’s a high, high rate:

+ Third drive of the game: zone read keeper. Jones with good quickness, slanted across center’s face, stopped, read, disengaged, got in on the tackle. Gain of 3.

+ Showed some life on the play in which Josiah Scott forced a fumble. He looked active, quick ,strong with a shoulder club while slanting to the B gap, stunting with Willekes. He gained penetration into the pocket.

+ Jones ripped inside the LT to penetrate the backfield to help disrupt a zone read on third-and-two. QB ended up keeping it, optioning Jacub Panasiuk but Panasiuk made the tackle for no gain, with 12:00 to go in the game.

+ On third-and-seven, gave effort pressing the pocket, then got off the block when QB scrambled out. Jones hustled to the sideline in pursuit and got in on the tackle with force, after a five-yard gain with 7:40 to play. The play was called back due to Rutgers holding.

+ Jones looked quick on a stunt to the outside on a “you” game. He turned the corner, and got into the backfield but Jacub Panasiuk already had a sack, 3:38 to play.


11. As for Josiah Scott, it seems pretty likely to me that the junior is planning to turn pro after this season. Last year, he played in the bowl game rather than preserving a redshirt year. This year, he has been excellent when healthy.

I asked him after practice on Tuesday if this will be his last game at Spartan Stadium. He gave the answer that players usually give when they’re planning to leave. He said he’s just focusing on the game ahead and isn’t thinking about those decisions at this time. So, he’s probably gone. My next question would be whether he plans to play in the bowl game, if Michigan State earns a bid.

Interestingly, senior Josh Butler played his fewest snaps of the season, last week. He played five snaps. Fellow back-up cornerback Kalon Gervin, a redshirt freshman, also played five snaps.

Last week, Tre Person played 11 snaps, mostly as part of the nickel defense. Interestingly, we didn’t see Michael Dowell in the playing group. However, I noticed one player staying on the field longer after practice, putting himself through extra tackling drills, on his own, and it was … Michael Dowell.


12. As for C.J. Hayes, I mentioned the 6-foot-1 sophomore earlier, regarding a fourth-and-short stoppage. But there’s a reason Hayes was on the field as part of a tight bunch formation on that play: He is MSU’s best blocker, among wide receivers.

PFF listed Hayes as MSU’s most proficient run blocker last week, overall. He rated at 88.7 in run blocking. He played 33 snaps.

MSU’s next best run blockers:

2. Julian Barnett, 77.5

3. Jordan Reid, 69.5

4. Matt Seybert, 67.5

5. Tre Mosley, 61.2

6. Mustafa Khaleefah, 60.9.

The worst: Dobbs at 45.9.

Hayes turned in a 24-yard reception in the third quarter. It was his first catch since the Wisconsin game.

MSU ran a new concept on that play, and took advantage of Hayes’ reputation as a blocker.

On this play, Hayes faked like he was blocking to the inside, and then released vertically. This is called a crack-and-go, as in a crack block

Michigan State had two RBs on the field for that play, with Collins and Anthony Williams in a split backfield. Michigan State had shown that formation earlier in the game on a run play for little or no gain.

The second time, they faked a power and ran the crack-and-go for Hayes.

Meanwhile, Williams released on a deep wheel route.


13. Brandon Wright is one of the most interesting players to watch this week. He has played four games. One more, and his redshirt comes off.

He has played a total of 16 snaps.

He played six snaps lats week and looked good.

Frankly, he is better, more productive than Williams as the No. 2 RB.

Wright (6-2, 223, Euclid, Ohio) is playing up to his size. He has some burst and some leg drive.

Wright rushed five times for 25 yards last week. He had a nice 10-yard gain late in the game, including five yards after contact. On each of his carries, he picked up at least one yard after contact.

He can help this team as the No. 2 RB this week and in the bowl game. But is it worth losing the redshirt year?

Wright, Dobbs, Mosley and special teams guy Tate Hallock have each played four games. If any of them play one more game, they lose the redshirt.

Dantonio said Hallock will redshirt. He didn’t travel to Rutgers.

Mosley has nine catches on the year and is firmly in the playing group as one of MSU’s top five or six receivers.

“My perspective, if you're playing 30 plays, if you're in the mix of playing, then you play on,” Dantonio said. “But you have discussions with your players to see what they want to do. We have had discussions with two of the three guys and that's what they want to do, they want to play on.

“So in the case of Dobbs, he's slated to start. In the case of Tre Mosley, he's played 30 plays a game here the last number of games, so he's an integral part of our offense, as well. So I see them playing on.

“Brandon Wright, now he's either a two or a three, depending on how much he's playing, but again, a guy that we don't hesitate to put him in the game.

“We’re trying to deal with them as individual decisions and let it play out.”


14. Sophomore LB Noah Harvey is playing well, with a high ceiling of potential. He has to shore up his tackling and pass defense, but he is showing plus “shock,” as Dantonio would call it, as a pass rusher.

On two occasions as a pass rusher against Rutgers, Harvey blasted through an attempted pass block from a running back to get to the quarterback - once for a half-sack, and once to disrupt the QB’s arm for a near interception.

I’ve seen Harvey blow up an offensive guard as a pass rusher this year. At 6-3, 229, Harvey plays with a lot of force when coming forward on the pass rush.

Harvey has the rare ability to play all three linebacker positions. He’s tough and forceful enough to play inside backer, and runs well enough to play in the slot. The slot might not be his best position, but it says something about his quickness and athleticism that coaches have deployed Harvey at slot, or “star,” linebacker early in his career whereas Joe Bachie was never entrusted to that type of assignment.


15. So what is Antjuan Simmons going to be next year? He was a slot linebacker prior to Bachie’s ineligibility. He played Mike linebacker for three games, and then moved back out to “star” linebacker for the Rutgers game, to give Michigan State more quickness on the perimeter.

Dantonio says the opponent’s strengths will dictate where Michigan State plays Simmons, and therefore where it plays Harvey and Tyriq Thompson in the latter stages of the season.

As for next year, Chase Kline and Jeslord Boateng have emerged as the top two linebackers off the bench. Last week, Kline played four snaps and Boateng played three.

Boateng is getting reps in the slot. Kline is an inside backer, who also has some ability to play d-end in pass rush situations.

With the versatility of Simmons and Harvey, you could see a trio next year with those two players inside and Boateng in the slot. Or if Kline is deemed to be the third-best LB on the team, then Kline is more likely to be an inside linebacker, which means Harvey or Simmons could bump out to the slot. There will be options. In the meantime, their development will be interesting to watch.


THE BOOK ON MARYLAND

We won’t go deep on the opponent this week. I think there is some fatigue on behalf of the readers in that area.

In short, this is what you need to know about the Terrapins:

* Maryland is 3-8 and at the bottom of a 24-month roller coaster.

* Maryland went 5-7 last year and was 5-3 when they lost to Michigan State at home in 2018. Maryland went through an emotional, tragic 2018, with former player Jordan McNair passing away after a practice. Former coach D.J. Durkin was fired as a result.

* Mike Locksley was hired during the off-season. He has a bad record as a head coach in his previous stops. He was 2-26 in three years at New Mexico. He surfaced as an analyst, and then offensive coordinator at Alabama, and was hired at Maryland.

He previously went 1-5 as an interim coach at Maryland in 2015 after Randy Edsall was fired.

Locksley has been a strong recruiter in the past, including a stop at Illinois as offensive coordinator for Ron Zook’s Rose Bowl team. Maryland is hoping he can repair some of the wounds from the McNair tragedy and help the Terps start to reach their potential in Mid-Atlantic recruiting. But he’s off to a bad start.

Actually, he got off to a great start with Maryland winning its first two games 79-0 (vs. Howard) and 63-20 vs. then. No. 21 Syracuse.

Then came a 20-17 loss to a decent Temple team.

Then they lost 59-0 to Penn State, and they’ve been terrible ever since, other than a 48-7 victory over Rutgers.

Maryland has lost six straight:

Purdue 40, Maryland 14

Indiana 34, Maryland 28

Minnesota 52, Maryland 10

Michigan 38, Maryland 7

Ohio State 73, Maryland 14

Nebraska 54, Maryland 7


* Maryland was hoping to show a pulse against Nebraska, a program that is undergoing similar self-examination. But the Terps didn’t show up last week. They were beaten 531-206 in yardage and 31-9 in first downs.

“We are better than what we show on Saturdays,” Locksley said after the game. “The things that sits in my craw is it’s us hurting us. We had four turnovers. You don’t win games when you beat yourself. Our defense played well enough early in the game, but the other two phases weren’t good enough.”

“When we stop beating ourself that’s when we’ll turn the corner.”

Maryland gave good effort three weeks ago against Michigan. If they give good effort this week, they can stay within 16 points of Michigan State. That’s up to them.

* Maryland has explosive running backs, and an enigmatic quarterback situation. Their defense can slug for a few rounds, but eventually suffers errors in containment or pursuit angles, and the whole thing collapses.


MARYLAND PLAYERS TO KNOW

RB 20 JAVON LEAKE (6-0, 206, Jr., Greensboro, NC)

* Was a 5.7 three-star recruit, ranked No. 15 in North Carolina. He was a summer commitment and didn’t take any other official visits.

* Has rushed for 716 yards, averaging 65.1 per game.

* No. 2 in the nation in yards per carry at 7.8 among power five school players with at least 60 carries.

* Terrific kickoff returner.

* Rushed for 158 yards in a 34-28 loss to Indiana on Oct. 19.

* Had 107 yards on just seven carries in a 63-20 victory over then-No. 21 Syracuse on Sept. 7.

* Last week he rushed for 80 yards on eight carries, including a 58-yard TD.

* Fumbled twice last week.

* Allowed a sack in pass protection, failing to identify a blitzing linebacker .



RB 5 ANTHONY McFARLAND (5-8, 193, Hyatsville, Md/DeMatha Catholic)

* Was a four-star recruit, ranked No. 142 in the nation and No. 2 in Maryland.

He also visited Miami and Penn State.

* Rushed for 1034 yards last year as a freshman (7.9 per carry).

* Has 480 yards this year (4.5 per carry).

* Rushed for 132 yards in a 20-17 loss to Temple in September.

* Last week he rushed 10 times for 35 yards.

* Leake has eight rushing TDs and Anthony McFarland has 7. Maryland and Boston College are the only teams in the power five with two RBs who have seven or more TDs.

* Maryland uses run schemes similar to Michigan State, with some pistol formation, zone read and an inconsistent offensive line. But Leake and McFarland are faster and much more explosive than MSU’s running backs.


QUARTERBACK: Musical Maryland Chairs

Maryland has used four different QBs this year, and things haven’t gone well since September.

We’re most likely to see junior Josh Jackson on Saturday, with back-up Tyrrell Pigrome also in the mix.

“The inability to throw the football continues to piss me off a little bit,” Locksley said. “We just can’t execute, whether it’s protection, quarterback decision making, pitching and catching. We had a drop on a big play down the field, we had late balls, high balls with people open. The passing game is where we need to make our biggest improvement.”

Maryland’s passing yardage in its last four games:


131 vs Minnesota

104 vs Michigan

77 vs Ohio State

57 vs Nebraska (rain game)


QB 17 JOSH JACKSON, 6-2, 18, R-Jr., Saline, Mich/Ann Arbor Huron)

* Was a 5.7 three-star recruit, ranked No. 13 in the state by Rivals.com.

* Last week he was 4 of 12 for 33 yards against Nebraska. He rushed six times for 9 yards.

* His accuracy and completion percentage has been horrific. He is completing 48 percent of his passes on the year, which is a stat out of the 1950s for a starting QB.

* He has thrown 11 TDs and five INTs.

* His father, Fred Jackson, was a long-time assistant coach at Michigan, but Jim Harbaugh did not regain him. Michigan State and Michigan did not recruit Josh Jackson.

* But he has had a lot of quality outings in his career.

* On Sept. 7, against Syracuse, he completed 21 of 38 for 296 yards. When coupling that with an explosive, talented run game, the Terps offense looked excellent and legit.

A week earlier, he threw for four TDs in the first half of his first game at Maryland, in a 79-0 victory over Howard.

Where has that part of the pass game gone? I have no idea.

* He is a grad transfer from Virginia Tech. He missed most of last year with Virginia Tech after going down with a fractured left fibula on Sept. 25 of 2018.

In his first two games last year, he was 12 of 16 for 217 yards against William & Mary. He was 16 of 26 against Florida State.

He started all 13 games for Virginia Tech in 2017 as a redshirt freshman. He threw for 2,991 yards and 20 touchdown and rushed for 324.

He led all power five freshmen in passing yards.

* Jackson operated the offense well in September, and briefly made Maryland one of the hot topics of the early season. But that all fizzled. Can he regain any of that form? We don’t know.

* Jackson went down with an ankle injury during the Oct. 5 victory over Rutgers. He didn’t play against Purdue or Indiana.

He returned to throw only two snaps in a relief effort against Minnesota, four games ago. But his passing ability seems to have been compromised.


QB TYRRELL PIGROME (5-10, 209, Jr., Birmingham, Ala.)

* Was a 5.6 three-star recruit, unranked in Alabama by rivals.com or ESPN.

* He started three games at mid-season after Jackson went down with an injury.

* He has completed 58 percent of his passes with 3 TDs and 6 INTs.

He has gained 244 yards rushing this year (lost 100 for a net of 144).

* Last week he was 3-of-7 for 24 yards against Nebraska. He rushed two times for a net of -5 yards.

Pigrome’s stats as a starter this year:


17 of 27 for 210 yards with 2 TDs and 1 INT vs Indiana.

21 of 39 for 218 with 0 TDs and 2 INTs vs Purdue.

6 of 9 for 43 yards with 0 TDs and 2 INTs vs Minnesota.


* Pigromme started two games at QB last year. For the year, he was 23 of 44 for 376 yards.


* Last year’s starting QB, Kasim Hill, transferred to Tennesssee during the summer.

* Last week, there was some interest in true freshman QB Lance Legendre of New Orleans. But he left with a dislocated shoulder while fumbling and Jackson had to come back into the game.

Josh “has been nicked up but he finished the game for us,” Locksley said.

* No. 3 QB Tyler DeSue is in the picture. He has played four games. He was 4 of 12 for 88 yards against Minnesota. DeSue was a 5.6 three-star recruit in 2018.


ON DEFENSE

* They run a two-gapping 30, which sometimes one-gaps. Similar to Rutgers.

* Last week, they were hurt by two fumbles (one on special teams) deep in their own territory in falling behind 17-0. Adherence to discipline and team concepts deteriorated rapids.

Some negatives in the first half of last week’s game:

- Outside LB loses leverage/contain and a run play gets outside for 11 yards.

- LB lets the TE run free on a delayed release for a 25-yard reception.

- Defense looked misaligned and they were out-flanked for a 12-yard run in the 2Q.

- Linebacker Isaiah Davis (No. 22) misses a tackle and Nebraska runs for 16 yards.


Personnel Of Note:

S 25 ANTONIE BROOKS (5-11, 210, Latham, Md.)

* Was a 5.5 three-star recruit

* Was second-team All-Big Ten by the coaches last year.

* Runs and hits well as a single-safety deep pursuer.

* Leads the Big Ten in solo tackles at 5.9 per game.


LB 4 KEANDRE JONES (6-3, 220, Sr., Olney, Md.)

* Was a five-star recruit, ranked No. 30 in the nation and No. 1 in Maryland.

* He saw action in 34 games in three seasons at Ohio State, but never earned as starting job.

* Leads Maryland in sacks with 7.0, No. 10 in the Big Ten.

* Has 45 tackles and eight TFLs in the last six games.

* had eight tackles and two sacs and forced a fumble against Syracuse.


MARYLAND SPECIAL TEAMS: Careful

D.J. Turner had a 40-yard punt return for a touchdown against Howard in week one.

Javon Leake has two kickoff returns for touchdowns (100 yards vs Rutgers and 97 yards vs Michigan.)

Only two schools in the power five have a kickoff and punt returns for TDs in 2019: UCLA and Maryland.

Maryland leads the Big Ten in punt return average (13.5 per).

* Nebraska went with pooch kickoffs and had success. Leake fumbled one of them last week, resulting in a short-field TD for the Huskers.

“Most teams don’t want to kick the ball to No. 20,” Locksley said.

Teams have kicked to open spaces and covered the ball.

* Maryland’s kicker has attempted only four field goals and has made only one. I’ve never seen a stat like that, this late in a season. That’s like something from the 1940s.


ADD IT ALL UP

This reminds me of December of 2001 when a sub-.500 Missouri visited Michigan State with no hopes of the postseason, and Michigan State needed a win to secure a bowl bid. That game was rescheduled due to 9/11.

Michigan State destroyed Missouri 55-7 on a cold afternoon. That Michigan State team was brimming with talent with sophomore Jeff Smoker, Charles Rogers and TJ Duckett part of the attack under Bobby Williams.

This year’s Spartans don’t have that type of talent at the skill positions, but Michigan State genuinely seems engaged and motivated to get to 6-6 this week. Against a teetering Maryland team with attention problems on defense and severe questions in the pass game, Michigan State should be able to win comfortably if there are no problems on special teams, the Spartans build a run game, Lewerke doesn’t throw any pick-sixes, connects with open receivers on the short throws, and red zone offense shows a pulse.

Best case scenario: Michigan State builds on last week’s game, plays better in the red zone, gets a comfortable lead, and we see some back-up players at QB and on defense. As for the o-line, they’re already playing back-up players.

Gather 'round.

Dantonio talking about recruiting right now, living in the present, but also talking in terms of the future. Sounds very much like he isn't planning to go anywhere.

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Gather 'round.