MMQB Notes: from Dantonio's Sunday teleconference
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MMQB: Finley 'winning', Nicholson challenged
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Dennis Finley had some rough moments in the initial snaps of his first foray into quality playing time, during No. 2-ranked Michigan State's victory over Central Michigan on Saturday.
But after the sophomore settled in at left tackle in relief of injured Jack Conklin, Finley gained a rhythm and acquitted himself well, head coach Mark Dantonio said during his weekly teleconference, Sunday evening.
Finley's run-blocking was strong, Saturday.
"Up front, I was impressed with Finley, coming in as he did," Dantonio said as part of his opening statement on Sunday evening, without being asked about Finley initially.
Conklin went out with an undisclosed injury late in the second quarter. Finley started the second half at left tackle and played the rest of the game. Conklin wore civilian clothes on the sideline in the second half.
Conklin's availability for Saturday's game against Purdue is unknown. Dantonio refused to give injury updates on Sunday, as is his usual policy.
Finley (6-6, 304, Detroit Cass Tech) struggled in the opening drive of the second half during Michigan State's 30-10 victory over Central Michigan.
Finley allowed a QB pressure to Central Michigan defensive end Blake Serpa on MSU's second snap of the second half. Serpa beat Finley to the punch on pass rush, making first contact against the offensive tackle with a two-handed shiver to the breast plate. From there, Serpa controlled Finley, disengaged and put strong heat on MSU quarterback Connor Cook, resulting in a scramble gain of one yard.
Then, on third-and-14, Finley was flagged for holding while in pass protection. Central Michigan declined the penalty and MSU had to punt, opening the opportunity for the Chippewas to make a run at tightening the game in the third quarter.
From that point on, Finley was solvent in pass protection and occasionally strong in his run blocking.
"This was his first opportunity with a lot of football plays, and he got better and better as the game went," Dantonio said, having had the opportunity to review the film. "I thought he played winning football. He did exactly what he needs to do."
Finley's best moment of the game might have come when he helped Michigan State convert a third-and-one situation in the second half when his double-team of a CMU defensive tackle, along with left guardBrian Allen, during an inside zone run play resulted in a 13-yard gain by Spartan running back Madre London. Finley finished the double-team block on his own, collecting a pancake block in driving the defender's back to the ground.
"He's a big guy, he was exceptionally sudden and pass-blocked well," Dantoni said. "Had one holding call but other than that I thought played very well."
Finley has served as a second-string left tackle all year, but hadn't yet been trusted to see playing time as a reserve. Conklin's injury forced his insertion into the game.
Finley's solid finish to Saturday's game could help the Spartans' long-term depth on the offensive line, although there is a possibility Finley could be needed as more than a reserve in the games ahead, depending on Conklin's health.
"I think we are deeper as a football team right now than we've been," Dantonio said. "We're inexperienced some at key positions and that's the key to it. But guys like Dennis Finley, and Miguel Machado the week before, got experience, got game experience. And there's nothing more important, I believe, than game experience. You can practice all you want, but once you play in a game, all the sudden the practices mean a lot more because they understand that there is a great probability that they're gonna be playing on Saturday. You know, there are higher stakes."
Machado replaced starting right tackle Kodi Kieler midway through Michigan State's victory over Oregon on Sept. 12. Kieler hasn't dressed for a game since. His status for Saturday is unknown, although Dantonio said a week ago that the Spartans should get Kieler back "in a couple of weeks."
Machado was functional against Oregon, but struggled in less playing time against Air Force. Michigan State opted to move senior Donavon Clark to right tackle and slide reserve Benny McGowan into the playing group at right guard for most of the Air Force game. And MSU went with the McGowan/Clark combination for the entire Central Michigan game. Machado did not see playing time against the Chippewas.
"I think they played pretty well," Dantonio said of McGowan and Clark on the right side. "I haven't had a chance to sit and talk to all the offensive coaches yet but I've watched the film.
"But I would say Miguel Machado is still in the mix there, although he didn't play yesterday. We went with McGowan the whole time. I expect Miguel to play a little bit every game, until he gets better. But I think he's got a lot of talent, he's just got to get experience. The only way to get it is by playing, but he didn't get the opportunity yesterday."
Angry About Third Down
Twenty-four hours after the Spartans' victory over Central Michigan, Dantonio remained bothered by the Chippewas' 7-of-15 efficiency on third down, which included a hot run of success on third-and-long in the first half.
"What was disappointing yesterday is we got them in third and long numerous times, third-and-10-plus, and they were able to convert," Dantonio said. "A lot of those conversions were good execution by Central Michigan, some bad technique by our guys and underneath routes. (Those) are good schematics that were turn routes. Basically it's third-and-seven, they ran up eight yards and turned and the ball was on time a number of times.
"But it was frustrating to be in long-yardage situations and not get out of them more often than we did. In the second half we were much, much better. I think they were two-of-nine in the second half on third and fourth downs. Much, much better in the second half but too many yards given up on third-and-20 and they get 18 or something like that and next thing you know it's fourth-and-two or something like that. Those are the things we need to correct."
There's a reason CMU was regularly in long-yardage situations on third down.
"I thought we played very, very well on first down," Dantonio said.
Central Michigan continually tried to carve out positive yardage with first-down run plays, and the Chips were consistently shut down. The Chippewas rushed for 55 yards on 26 attempts (2.1 per try), with 42 of those 55 yards coming on one run, early in the second half.
"I thought we basically eliminated the run with the exception of the one play which was the result of a missed tackle and one guy filling a gap a little bit wrong," Dantonio said. "Our first down efficiency in terms of stopping them on first down was 18 out of 18, 100 percent."
That means MSU held Central Michigan to three yards or fewer on all 18 first-down plays. Dantonio said he believed that marked the first time a Spartan defense had been 100 percent in that category, on first downs, during his tenure as head coach at Michigan State.
Nicholson 'Needed To Play Better'
Sophomore safety Montae Nicholson received a lot of preseason hype from media and Spartan coaches prior to the season. But Nicholson has struggled at times at field safety, most notably in the tackling department. His angles in pass defense have been shaky at times too.
Nicholson has had some difficult moments as a starting field safety.
Nicholson allowed a 42-yard pass on Central Michigan's first third-down situation of the game, Saturday. Covering the slot receiver, Nicholson came out of balance and bit when the receiver sold a nod fake to the post and then went to the flag. Nicholson had to play catch-up from inside-out while CMU quarterback Cooper Rushwas on-time and on-target with the pass.
Nicholson was also involved on a negative play during CMU's first snap of the second half, when Chippewa running back Devon Spaldingscampered outside for a gain of 42 on a strong-side power.
On that play, defensive end Shilique Calhoun lost outside containment when the CMU fullback stalemated him and turned Calhoun inside. Spalding capitalized on the daylight by bouncing outside of Calhoun and into open space.
From there, Nicholson took an ambitious tackling angle to the inside in chasing Spalding, a banana-shaped trek that made it difficult for Nicholson to get a hand on him.
Nicholson arrived at the edge, trying to get leverage help on Spalding from MSU's play-side cornerback,Arjen Colquhoun. Colquhoun did a good job of getting off the WR's block and was in position to make a play on Spalding, but missed the tackle. The combination of Nicholson and Colquhoun failed to contain the play, and let Spalding get out and down the sideline for CMU's lone positive run play of the game.
Nicholson and Colquhoun were also involved in a pair of pass defense busts a week earlier against Air Force.
Dantonio gave Nicholson a firm talking-to on the sidelines during the Air Force game. This week, he removed Nicholson from the lineup for several plays - choosing to move Demetrious Cox from cornerback to field safety, to play with RJ Williamson.
"Montae needed to play better," Dantonio said, Sunday evening.
Cox's move to safety opened a position at cornerback.
Dantonio settled on junior Darian Hicks to close the game at cornerback for the Spartans, along with Colquhoun - after Jermaine Edmondson struggled in pass defense.
Dantonio indicated that the Spartans might go with Cox and Williamson as the safeties on Saturday. Dantonio also said when Nicholson plays, he might be moved from field (free) safety to the boundary (strong) safety position.
"Montae has played more of a boundary safety-type position (in the past), which may be what he needs to play," Dantonio said.
Nicholson played boundary safety last year, spending most of the season as Williamson's back-up.
This season, with 2014 field safety Kurtis Drummond having graduated, the Spartans kept Williamson at boundary safety and inserted Nicholson into the starting lineup at Drummond's old position.
Cox can play either safety position, and has been comfortable on the field side - making him a natural tag team partner for Williamson.
But if Nicholson is going to start at safety and if Cox is going to remain a starting cornerback, then the other alternative would be to use Williamson at field safety - something the Spartans haven't done in the past.
Dantonio was asked if Saturday's solution of moving Cox to field safety - with Hicks at cornerback - might be the plan for the immediate future.
"I'm not sure, but we will look at that this week," Dantonio said. "We need to have a guy playing better at that (field safety) position in a game, so we went in that direction and gave Darian Hicks a shot at the corner position and he played well. Cox played well at the safety position. We've got guys that can play back there."
But the Spartans continue to be without Mark Meyers, who was MSU's top reserve safety prior to a drinking and driving arrest in early September. But Dantonio feels good about the players in line for a chance.
"We've got some depth and we've got to continue to develop more depth. (True freshman) Khari Willisplayed yesterday and I thought he did a good job. You'll see more of Khari Willis moving forward in some ways. You go from there."
The Final Word
Dantonio said he saw good things out of all three running backs on Saturday, and credited Gerald Holmeswith finishing as the hot guy.
Holmes was noticeably more patient in setting up his blockers on a pair of TD runs than redshirt freshmanMadre London was on a couple of occasions earlier in the game.
"I thought Gerald came in and did some very nice things, sort of gave us a spark, had a great run after a catch and another little bit of patience, very patient on the two touchdown runs," Dantonio said. "Tracked exactly where he needed to go."
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Dennis Finley had some rough moments in the initial snaps of his first foray into quality playing time, during No. 2-ranked Michigan State's victory over Central Michigan on Saturday.
But after the sophomore settled in at left tackle in relief of injured Jack Conklin, Finley gained a rhythm and acquitted himself well, head coach Mark Dantonio said during his weekly teleconference, Sunday evening.
Finley's run-blocking was strong, Saturday.
"Up front, I was impressed with Finley, coming in as he did," Dantonio said as part of his opening statement on Sunday evening, without being asked about Finley initially.
Conklin went out with an undisclosed injury late in the second quarter. Finley started the second half at left tackle and played the rest of the game. Conklin wore civilian clothes on the sideline in the second half.
Conklin's availability for Saturday's game against Purdue is unknown. Dantonio refused to give injury updates on Sunday, as is his usual policy.
Finley (6-6, 304, Detroit Cass Tech) struggled in the opening drive of the second half during Michigan State's 30-10 victory over Central Michigan.
Finley allowed a QB pressure to Central Michigan defensive end Blake Serpa on MSU's second snap of the second half. Serpa beat Finley to the punch on pass rush, making first contact against the offensive tackle with a two-handed shiver to the breast plate. From there, Serpa controlled Finley, disengaged and put strong heat on MSU quarterback Connor Cook, resulting in a scramble gain of one yard.
Then, on third-and-14, Finley was flagged for holding while in pass protection. Central Michigan declined the penalty and MSU had to punt, opening the opportunity for the Chippewas to make a run at tightening the game in the third quarter.
From that point on, Finley was solvent in pass protection and occasionally strong in his run blocking.
"This was his first opportunity with a lot of football plays, and he got better and better as the game went," Dantonio said, having had the opportunity to review the film. "I thought he played winning football. He did exactly what he needs to do."
Finley's best moment of the game might have come when he helped Michigan State convert a third-and-one situation in the second half when his double-team of a CMU defensive tackle, along with left guardBrian Allen, during an inside zone run play resulted in a 13-yard gain by Spartan running back Madre London. Finley finished the double-team block on his own, collecting a pancake block in driving the defender's back to the ground.
"He's a big guy, he was exceptionally sudden and pass-blocked well," Dantoni said. "Had one holding call but other than that I thought played very well."
Finley has served as a second-string left tackle all year, but hadn't yet been trusted to see playing time as a reserve. Conklin's injury forced his insertion into the game.
Finley's solid finish to Saturday's game could help the Spartans' long-term depth on the offensive line, although there is a possibility Finley could be needed as more than a reserve in the games ahead, depending on Conklin's health.
"I think we are deeper as a football team right now than we've been," Dantonio said. "We're inexperienced some at key positions and that's the key to it. But guys like Dennis Finley, and Miguel Machado the week before, got experience, got game experience. And there's nothing more important, I believe, than game experience. You can practice all you want, but once you play in a game, all the sudden the practices mean a lot more because they understand that there is a great probability that they're gonna be playing on Saturday. You know, there are higher stakes."
Machado replaced starting right tackle Kodi Kieler midway through Michigan State's victory over Oregon on Sept. 12. Kieler hasn't dressed for a game since. His status for Saturday is unknown, although Dantonio said a week ago that the Spartans should get Kieler back "in a couple of weeks."
Machado was functional against Oregon, but struggled in less playing time against Air Force. Michigan State opted to move senior Donavon Clark to right tackle and slide reserve Benny McGowan into the playing group at right guard for most of the Air Force game. And MSU went with the McGowan/Clark combination for the entire Central Michigan game. Machado did not see playing time against the Chippewas.
"I think they played pretty well," Dantonio said of McGowan and Clark on the right side. "I haven't had a chance to sit and talk to all the offensive coaches yet but I've watched the film.
"But I would say Miguel Machado is still in the mix there, although he didn't play yesterday. We went with McGowan the whole time. I expect Miguel to play a little bit every game, until he gets better. But I think he's got a lot of talent, he's just got to get experience. The only way to get it is by playing, but he didn't get the opportunity yesterday."
Angry About Third Down
Twenty-four hours after the Spartans' victory over Central Michigan, Dantonio remained bothered by the Chippewas' 7-of-15 efficiency on third down, which included a hot run of success on third-and-long in the first half.
"What was disappointing yesterday is we got them in third and long numerous times, third-and-10-plus, and they were able to convert," Dantonio said. "A lot of those conversions were good execution by Central Michigan, some bad technique by our guys and underneath routes. (Those) are good schematics that were turn routes. Basically it's third-and-seven, they ran up eight yards and turned and the ball was on time a number of times.
"But it was frustrating to be in long-yardage situations and not get out of them more often than we did. In the second half we were much, much better. I think they were two-of-nine in the second half on third and fourth downs. Much, much better in the second half but too many yards given up on third-and-20 and they get 18 or something like that and next thing you know it's fourth-and-two or something like that. Those are the things we need to correct."
There's a reason CMU was regularly in long-yardage situations on third down.
"I thought we played very, very well on first down," Dantonio said.
Central Michigan continually tried to carve out positive yardage with first-down run plays, and the Chips were consistently shut down. The Chippewas rushed for 55 yards on 26 attempts (2.1 per try), with 42 of those 55 yards coming on one run, early in the second half.
"I thought we basically eliminated the run with the exception of the one play which was the result of a missed tackle and one guy filling a gap a little bit wrong," Dantonio said. "Our first down efficiency in terms of stopping them on first down was 18 out of 18, 100 percent."
That means MSU held Central Michigan to three yards or fewer on all 18 first-down plays. Dantonio said he believed that marked the first time a Spartan defense had been 100 percent in that category, on first downs, during his tenure as head coach at Michigan State.
Nicholson 'Needed To Play Better'
Sophomore safety Montae Nicholson received a lot of preseason hype from media and Spartan coaches prior to the season. But Nicholson has struggled at times at field safety, most notably in the tackling department. His angles in pass defense have been shaky at times too.
Nicholson has had some difficult moments as a starting field safety.
Nicholson allowed a 42-yard pass on Central Michigan's first third-down situation of the game, Saturday. Covering the slot receiver, Nicholson came out of balance and bit when the receiver sold a nod fake to the post and then went to the flag. Nicholson had to play catch-up from inside-out while CMU quarterback Cooper Rushwas on-time and on-target with the pass.
Nicholson was also involved on a negative play during CMU's first snap of the second half, when Chippewa running back Devon Spaldingscampered outside for a gain of 42 on a strong-side power.
On that play, defensive end Shilique Calhoun lost outside containment when the CMU fullback stalemated him and turned Calhoun inside. Spalding capitalized on the daylight by bouncing outside of Calhoun and into open space.
From there, Nicholson took an ambitious tackling angle to the inside in chasing Spalding, a banana-shaped trek that made it difficult for Nicholson to get a hand on him.
Nicholson arrived at the edge, trying to get leverage help on Spalding from MSU's play-side cornerback,Arjen Colquhoun. Colquhoun did a good job of getting off the WR's block and was in position to make a play on Spalding, but missed the tackle. The combination of Nicholson and Colquhoun failed to contain the play, and let Spalding get out and down the sideline for CMU's lone positive run play of the game.
Nicholson and Colquhoun were also involved in a pair of pass defense busts a week earlier against Air Force.
Dantonio gave Nicholson a firm talking-to on the sidelines during the Air Force game. This week, he removed Nicholson from the lineup for several plays - choosing to move Demetrious Cox from cornerback to field safety, to play with RJ Williamson.
"Montae needed to play better," Dantonio said, Sunday evening.
Cox's move to safety opened a position at cornerback.
Dantonio settled on junior Darian Hicks to close the game at cornerback for the Spartans, along with Colquhoun - after Jermaine Edmondson struggled in pass defense.
Dantonio indicated that the Spartans might go with Cox and Williamson as the safeties on Saturday. Dantonio also said when Nicholson plays, he might be moved from field (free) safety to the boundary (strong) safety position.
"Montae has played more of a boundary safety-type position (in the past), which may be what he needs to play," Dantonio said.
Nicholson played boundary safety last year, spending most of the season as Williamson's back-up.
This season, with 2014 field safety Kurtis Drummond having graduated, the Spartans kept Williamson at boundary safety and inserted Nicholson into the starting lineup at Drummond's old position.
Cox can play either safety position, and has been comfortable on the field side - making him a natural tag team partner for Williamson.
But if Nicholson is going to start at safety and if Cox is going to remain a starting cornerback, then the other alternative would be to use Williamson at field safety - something the Spartans haven't done in the past.
Dantonio was asked if Saturday's solution of moving Cox to field safety - with Hicks at cornerback - might be the plan for the immediate future.
"I'm not sure, but we will look at that this week," Dantonio said. "We need to have a guy playing better at that (field safety) position in a game, so we went in that direction and gave Darian Hicks a shot at the corner position and he played well. Cox played well at the safety position. We've got guys that can play back there."
But the Spartans continue to be without Mark Meyers, who was MSU's top reserve safety prior to a drinking and driving arrest in early September. But Dantonio feels good about the players in line for a chance.
"We've got some depth and we've got to continue to develop more depth. (True freshman) Khari Willisplayed yesterday and I thought he did a good job. You'll see more of Khari Willis moving forward in some ways. You go from there."
The Final Word
Dantonio said he saw good things out of all three running backs on Saturday, and credited Gerald Holmeswith finishing as the hot guy.
Holmes was noticeably more patient in setting up his blockers on a pair of TD runs than redshirt freshmanMadre London was on a couple of occasions earlier in the game.
"I thought Gerald came in and did some very nice things, sort of gave us a spark, had a great run after a catch and another little bit of patience, very patient on the two touchdown runs," Dantonio said. "Tracked exactly where he needed to go."
The Latest on MSU's LBs & Shane Jones Ready To Start
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Linebacker Update: Shane Jones Ready To Go
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - Michigan State coaches regret some of the circumstances that will lead to sophomore Shane Jones making his first start as a Spartan on Saturday, but they're confident in deliver.
Jones (6-1, 234, Soph., Cincinnati Moeller) will start at Mike linebacker at noon on Saturday for No. 2-ranked Michigan State against Central Michigan at Spartan Stadium. He will temporarily replace Riley Bullough, who will serve a half-game suspension after his personal foul and ejection for a targeting foul during Saturday's victory over Air Force.
Shane Jones has five tackles on the season.
Bullough will start the second half for the Spartans, Michigan State linebackers coach Mark Snyder said on Wednesday.
"Yes, we've got to keep him going," Snyder said of Bullough, who had 16 tackles against Air Force and seems to be strengthening his role as a blossoming leader. "Got to keep him rolling. And I've got to be smarter at the end of the game, too. There's no doubt."
Smarter in terms of what?
"Just being smarter … we had Shane sitting right there to go into the game and didn't pull the trigger then the penalty happens a play later," Snyder said.
Michigan State was leading 35-14 with about three minutes to go in the game when Bullough hit Air Force Garrett Brown on head-to-head collision.
Bullough was turned away from Brown as Brown made a reception across the middle. Bullough then turned 180 degrees in an instant to locate Brown and the ball, and launched himself for a hit. Bullough's aim was a bit off, and an impact intended for Brown's shoulder ended up behind his head.
"It was not intentional, by no means," Snyder said. "It's a fine line for us on defense. We talk about a strike zone. Hit in the strike zone."
The strike zone, according to Snyder, is the area below the neck.
"But sometimes plays happen, bang-bang, and you hit outside the strike zone," Snyder said. "It was not intentional. But the rule is you cannot launch and he launched. I told him that Sunday, 'This is not getting overturned.' It was an accident, no doubt. But as a defensive player, it's a reactionary deal. He turned and it was right there.
"But we do constantly talk about the strike zone with our guys."
And when a player like Bullough hits outside the strike zone and gets punished for it, the players and coaches accept it. It's on the players to work harder to stay inside the legal limits.
"I guess that means hitting lower," Bullough said after Saturday's game.
Jones will take that knowledge into Saturday's game against the 1-2 Chippewas. And Jones needs that knowledge, because he has shown in recent weeks he can deliver strong blows too.
Jones and 'money' linebacker Jon Reschke met Air Force fullback DJ Johnson in the b-gap for a hard hit during the second quarter of Saturday's game, causing a fumble which was returned 64 yards for a touchdown by RJ Williamson, providing a 14-0 lead.
Jones isn't credited with getting the first lick on Johnson, or creating the fumble, but there is no question he arrived with terrific force.
"He gave us about 12-13 quality reps last week," Snyder said. "Played well. He was in there 12 plays and had three tackles and an assist and the big hit. He gave us some quality reps."
Jones also played several snaps in the Sept. 12 victory over Oregon, marking Jones' first tour of quality playing time as a Spartan.
Jones has lost weight since last year and improved his sideline-to-sideline speed. Those improvements have allowed him to move from the scout team to the two-deep. He simply wasn't fast enough to play for this defense in the past two seasons.
"He has changed his body a little bit, which was the key for him coming out of spring," Snyder said. "He had to change his body some. He is a little bit like his coach. If he goes two weeks without working out, it seems to come on at the wrong places."
Jones' teammates are rallying around him for support this week.
"Riley is out there with him; Riley has been great, and Darien (Harris)," Snyder said. "Those guys are great leaders. They've been encouraging. You hear Shilique (Calhoun) talking to him on the field. RJ Williamson talking to him on the field. That's good stuff now."
Jones will be backed up on Saturday by Riley's brother, Byron Bullough (6-1, 228, Traverse City St. Francis). Reschke will start at 'money' linebacker, but he has extensive practice experience at the Mike, and can move to the middle in a pinch.
"Byron is a smart kid that can get us lined up and can play within our system," Snyder said. "And we threw Jon in there just a little bit to keep him fresh. We've probably got five guys that can run this defense besides Riley, and get us lined up and those kind of things. So obviously Riley brings something to the table, he's a really good football player but (we are) very, very comfortable with Shane. Shane's done a good job."
Dowell Might Be Needed Too
True freshman Andrew Dowell saw more than 45 snaps on Saturday at 'star' linebacker in place of the banged-up Darien Harris. Harris is listed on the official depth chart as the starter for the Spartans for Saturday, but more extended playing for Dowell would not be a surprise.
Andrew Dowell filled in admirably for Darien Harris against Air Force.
Dowell was excellent against Air Force, notching seven tackles, which ranked second on the team. Some observations:
+ He showed good quickness and pursuit in taking good tackling angles to the sideline.
+ He posted a solid tackle on a fullback dive in the first quarter.
+ He provided a good, aggressive, quick spill angle on the QB in defending the dive option for a gain of 1 yard on second-and-goal in the first quarter.
+ He made an excellent tackle on a first-and-10 play in the second quarter, pursuing the alley on a toss play, taking on Air Force's tight end, defeating the blocker with strong hands and upper body shock, disengaging and making the tackle to halt the play for a gain of 1.
"Wasn't that nice?" Snyder said. "That's exactly the stuff, just like that right there."
He didn't look like a freshman on that play.
"No he didn't," Snyder said.
Dowell was a Rivals.com 4-star recruit as part of last February's recruiting class, ranked No. 12 in Ohio.
"He's still a work in progress," Snyder said. "He's still got a lot of learning to do but he's a talented kid. Once he gets going and knows what he is doing and starts on his way to the ball, that's when he becomes a really good football player. He has exceptional speed, good tackler, good ball skills, still a work in progress, though."
Harris is helping Dowell through the process.
"That's his job," Snyder said of Harris. "That's his role, to coach him up. When I'm not coaching him, he has him over there. When the second team is in, he is coaching him up. And that helps because Darien knows this defense very well."
Special Teams Fixed?
Snyder serves as Michigan State's special teams coordinator. Wednesday marked the first time Snyder has been available to media since the Spartans allowed a punt return for a touchdown against Oregon, and two long kickoff returns in the season opener at Western Michigan, including a TD.
Air Force notched a punt return for a TD against Morgan State, but the Spartans' coverage units seemed to be better against the Falcons.
"No doubt," Snyder said. "We had a little bit of a scouting report, thank goodness, this past week as we get going. So yeah, we feel comfortable with our coverage units. We've got to get our return units going. We haven't had a lot of opportunities, just haven't. So half of our special teams has not really had an opportunity to make something happen."
True freshman Grayson Miller made his debut as a Spartan last week, and was a noticeable addition to the kickoff coverage team.
"He's on every special teams because he's a big guy that can run and he's a good tackler," Snyder said. "We need bodies. You go through a season like we're getting ready to go through, as we've already seen, things are going to happen and young guys that are talented are going to have to play."
The Rest Of It
Snyder on:
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - Michigan State coaches regret some of the circumstances that will lead to sophomore Shane Jones making his first start as a Spartan on Saturday, but they're confident in deliver.
Jones (6-1, 234, Soph., Cincinnati Moeller) will start at Mike linebacker at noon on Saturday for No. 2-ranked Michigan State against Central Michigan at Spartan Stadium. He will temporarily replace Riley Bullough, who will serve a half-game suspension after his personal foul and ejection for a targeting foul during Saturday's victory over Air Force.
Shane Jones has five tackles on the season.
Bullough will start the second half for the Spartans, Michigan State linebackers coach Mark Snyder said on Wednesday.
"Yes, we've got to keep him going," Snyder said of Bullough, who had 16 tackles against Air Force and seems to be strengthening his role as a blossoming leader. "Got to keep him rolling. And I've got to be smarter at the end of the game, too. There's no doubt."
Smarter in terms of what?
"Just being smarter … we had Shane sitting right there to go into the game and didn't pull the trigger then the penalty happens a play later," Snyder said.
Michigan State was leading 35-14 with about three minutes to go in the game when Bullough hit Air Force Garrett Brown on head-to-head collision.
Bullough was turned away from Brown as Brown made a reception across the middle. Bullough then turned 180 degrees in an instant to locate Brown and the ball, and launched himself for a hit. Bullough's aim was a bit off, and an impact intended for Brown's shoulder ended up behind his head.
"It was not intentional, by no means," Snyder said. "It's a fine line for us on defense. We talk about a strike zone. Hit in the strike zone."
The strike zone, according to Snyder, is the area below the neck.
"But sometimes plays happen, bang-bang, and you hit outside the strike zone," Snyder said. "It was not intentional. But the rule is you cannot launch and he launched. I told him that Sunday, 'This is not getting overturned.' It was an accident, no doubt. But as a defensive player, it's a reactionary deal. He turned and it was right there.
"But we do constantly talk about the strike zone with our guys."
And when a player like Bullough hits outside the strike zone and gets punished for it, the players and coaches accept it. It's on the players to work harder to stay inside the legal limits.
"I guess that means hitting lower," Bullough said after Saturday's game.
Jones will take that knowledge into Saturday's game against the 1-2 Chippewas. And Jones needs that knowledge, because he has shown in recent weeks he can deliver strong blows too.
Jones and 'money' linebacker Jon Reschke met Air Force fullback DJ Johnson in the b-gap for a hard hit during the second quarter of Saturday's game, causing a fumble which was returned 64 yards for a touchdown by RJ Williamson, providing a 14-0 lead.
Jones isn't credited with getting the first lick on Johnson, or creating the fumble, but there is no question he arrived with terrific force.
"He gave us about 12-13 quality reps last week," Snyder said. "Played well. He was in there 12 plays and had three tackles and an assist and the big hit. He gave us some quality reps."
Jones also played several snaps in the Sept. 12 victory over Oregon, marking Jones' first tour of quality playing time as a Spartan.
Jones has lost weight since last year and improved his sideline-to-sideline speed. Those improvements have allowed him to move from the scout team to the two-deep. He simply wasn't fast enough to play for this defense in the past two seasons.
"He has changed his body a little bit, which was the key for him coming out of spring," Snyder said. "He had to change his body some. He is a little bit like his coach. If he goes two weeks without working out, it seems to come on at the wrong places."
Jones' teammates are rallying around him for support this week.
"Riley is out there with him; Riley has been great, and Darien (Harris)," Snyder said. "Those guys are great leaders. They've been encouraging. You hear Shilique (Calhoun) talking to him on the field. RJ Williamson talking to him on the field. That's good stuff now."
Jones will be backed up on Saturday by Riley's brother, Byron Bullough (6-1, 228, Traverse City St. Francis). Reschke will start at 'money' linebacker, but he has extensive practice experience at the Mike, and can move to the middle in a pinch.
"Byron is a smart kid that can get us lined up and can play within our system," Snyder said. "And we threw Jon in there just a little bit to keep him fresh. We've probably got five guys that can run this defense besides Riley, and get us lined up and those kind of things. So obviously Riley brings something to the table, he's a really good football player but (we are) very, very comfortable with Shane. Shane's done a good job."
Dowell Might Be Needed Too
True freshman Andrew Dowell saw more than 45 snaps on Saturday at 'star' linebacker in place of the banged-up Darien Harris. Harris is listed on the official depth chart as the starter for the Spartans for Saturday, but more extended playing for Dowell would not be a surprise.
Andrew Dowell filled in admirably for Darien Harris against Air Force.
Dowell was excellent against Air Force, notching seven tackles, which ranked second on the team. Some observations:
+ He showed good quickness and pursuit in taking good tackling angles to the sideline.
+ He posted a solid tackle on a fullback dive in the first quarter.
+ He provided a good, aggressive, quick spill angle on the QB in defending the dive option for a gain of 1 yard on second-and-goal in the first quarter.
+ He made an excellent tackle on a first-and-10 play in the second quarter, pursuing the alley on a toss play, taking on Air Force's tight end, defeating the blocker with strong hands and upper body shock, disengaging and making the tackle to halt the play for a gain of 1.
"Wasn't that nice?" Snyder said. "That's exactly the stuff, just like that right there."
He didn't look like a freshman on that play.
"No he didn't," Snyder said.
Dowell was a Rivals.com 4-star recruit as part of last February's recruiting class, ranked No. 12 in Ohio.
"He's still a work in progress," Snyder said. "He's still got a lot of learning to do but he's a talented kid. Once he gets going and knows what he is doing and starts on his way to the ball, that's when he becomes a really good football player. He has exceptional speed, good tackler, good ball skills, still a work in progress, though."
Harris is helping Dowell through the process.
"That's his job," Snyder said of Harris. "That's his role, to coach him up. When I'm not coaching him, he has him over there. When the second team is in, he is coaching him up. And that helps because Darien knows this defense very well."
Special Teams Fixed?
Snyder serves as Michigan State's special teams coordinator. Wednesday marked the first time Snyder has been available to media since the Spartans allowed a punt return for a touchdown against Oregon, and two long kickoff returns in the season opener at Western Michigan, including a TD.
Air Force notched a punt return for a TD against Morgan State, but the Spartans' coverage units seemed to be better against the Falcons.
"No doubt," Snyder said. "We had a little bit of a scouting report, thank goodness, this past week as we get going. So yeah, we feel comfortable with our coverage units. We've got to get our return units going. We haven't had a lot of opportunities, just haven't. So half of our special teams has not really had an opportunity to make something happen."
True freshman Grayson Miller made his debut as a Spartan last week, and was a noticeable addition to the kickoff coverage team.
"He's on every special teams because he's a big guy that can run and he's a good tackler," Snyder said. "We need bodies. You go through a season like we're getting ready to go through, as we've already seen, things are going to happen and young guys that are talented are going to have to play."
The Rest Of It
Snyder on:
- The combination of Reschke and Chris Frey playing 'money' linebacker:
"We kind of knew after spring ball and a little bit of fall camp that those guys had a different skill set. Ed (Davis) was a really good player and they both bring something different to the table and depending on who you're playing we felt like, if you could keep those guys healthy that we could play our schedule, if you will."
- When Drake Martinez returns fro his undisclosed injury, will he return to 'star' linebacker or remain at 'money' linebacker?
"We'll see. We didn't get a chance to see much of Drake. Our third-down package would be a place that Drake might be able to excel because you don't have to have a lot of knowledge of what to do. In certain situations that guy does one thing and one thing only. And then special teams will be a big deal for him.
"We'll start him in our third-down package at the 'money,' to the boundary where Ed was."
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From Dantonio's Sunday teleconference:
Monday Morning QB: Copeland out for year
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - On a day in which Michigan State rose to its highest ranking since 1966, the Spartans began moving forward with some of the more extensive injury troubles of the Mark Dantonio era.
Dantonio confirmed on Sunday during his weekly teleconference that freshman cornerback Vayante Copeland has been lost for the season, due a fractured vertebrae. He suffered the injury late in the Oregon game on Sept. 12.
Copeland played strong in the season opener at Western Michigan.
The No. 2-ranked Spartans now have lost two starting defensive players to season-ending injuries. Senior 'money' linebacker Ed Davis was lost for the year to a knee injury during training camp.
With these injuries having taken place prior to two games being played, the Spartans have already lost more defensive starts to injury than in MSU's 2013 Rose Bowl and 2014 Cotton Bowl seasons combined.
The Spartans didn't lose a defensive starter to injury for any games last year - although situational starterMylan Hicks was lost for four games with a broken arm.
Michigan State lost only three defensive starts to injury in 2013, when defensive tackle Tyler Hoover was sidelined for three weeks.
"It's very unfortunate," Dantonio said of Copeland's injury. "He's a good player, he's a great person. But he's handling it very, very well. You cannot mess with that kind of thing.
"He'll heal fine. He'll be back for spring but right now it's too iffy of a situation."
MSU has now lost two of its top six defensive backs. In addition to Copeland's injury, the Spartans are without junior safety Mark Meyers, who was suspended indefinitely after a drinking and driving arrest earlier this month.
Privately, Dantonio may be lamenting the losses. Publicly, he claims the Spartans will be able to move on successfully.
"I do think we have depth," he said. "We have good football players on this team and that will not be an excuse not to win. In football, injuries are going to occur and you're going to have to handle them."
"I feel like we can handle that situation. I feel we have good players. We played a lot of defensive backs in the Oregon game."
But some of them struggled - especially Copeland's replacements.
Senior Arjen Colquhoun was picked on, late in the Oregon game. He allowed a touchdown pass on a fade to the corner of the end zone in which he briefly lost his footing and looked over the wrong shoulder. Later, he stumbled during a go route down the left sideline in the final two minutes, leaving an Oregon receiver wide open for what could have been the go-ahead touchdown for the Ducks. But Oregon's quarterback over-threw the receiver.
Colquhoun started against Air Force on Saturday. Although he was involved in two coverage busts that went for long gains, it's unclear whether he was the primary culprit. Dantonio seemed to be more upset with safety Montae Nicholson than Colquhoun when an Air Force receiver was allowed to run uncovered down the sideline for a 44-yard pass play in the fourth quarter.
Arjen Colquhoun is regarded as a sound tackler, but needs to prove himself in coverage.
Earlier in the game, Colquhoun and Nicholson were both guilty of allowing receivers to run wide open during a 32-yard TD pass. The Air Force QB happened to choose the receiver Nicholson was supposed to cover, but he just as easily could have gone with the receiver Colquhoun was supposed to cover, as the Falcons had two wide open receivers to choose from on that side of the field while Colquhoun and Nicholson were sucked upfield by the thread of the option.
On Sunday, Dantonio expressed faith in Colquhoun (6-1, 202, Windsor, Sr.), whose start against Air Force was the first of his career.
"Vayante is out, so Arjen Colquhoun is a guy who had a great spring, a very good summer camp in competition (with Copeland)," Dantonio said.
Colquhoun exited spring practice as a first-string cornerback, along with Jermaine Edmondson. But juniorDemetrious Cox began August camp as a No. 1 cornerback after moving from safety.
Colquhoun and Edmondson were then beaten out by Copeland for the starting job opposite Cox. An upper body injury hampered Colquhoun's ability to compete with Copeland in August.
"He was out with a shoulder for about a week and a half or two weeks," Dantonio said. "He has bounced back and is playing now.
"He is a guy with a lot of experience. He has great skill. Big. Physical."
Edmondson struggled as a tackler in the Oregon game. During the 80-yard Oregon drive which cut the lead to 31-28 in the final minutes, Edmondson missed two tackles on completions to the man he was covering that went for 51 yards. Thirty-one of those 51 yards on the 80-yard drive came after Edmondson's missed tackles.
Edmondson saw brief playing time against Air Force, Dantonio said, because the head coach wanted to keep the primary defenders on the field against the Falcons' tricky option offense. Reserve DBs didn't see as much time against Air Force as they did against Oregon.
"He (Edmondson) did not play as much (against Air Force), based on the option," Dantonio said. "I really didn't want to switch people up, based on the variations we were seeing. So once guys understood what was going on, not that we stopped it all the time, but I just thought change in the middle of the game or toward the end of the game might not be much of a positive."
Air Force rolled up 279 yards rushing. But sophomore cornerback Darian Hicks played a handful of downs and made a forceful tackle in taking the pitch man for a loss of 2 during a successful MSU goal-line stand against Air Force.
Hicks started the first 10 games of last season, but lost his starting job after a series of beatings on deep balls. He attempted to compete for the starting job last spring, but headed into August camp as a second-stringer. He was then lost for a few weeks to mononucleosis.
Hicks has made a gradual return to the practice field and playing group as he has worked to replenish his conditioning level. Saturday's tackle in the goal-line situation was a step in the right direction for him.
"Darian needed to get back in the flow there and I thought that was a big play in that goal line stand," Dantonio said. "So that was a positive. He's working himself back into the rotation. He has a lot of starting experience. We've got him back now, and think he's healthy."
MSU is expected to go into Saturday's game against Central Michigan with Cox and Colquhoun as starting cornerbacks, with Edmondson and Hicks as back-ups.
Dantonio says true freshmen are likely to get activated, namely Josh Butler.
Butler (5-11, 170, Mesquite, Texas) was a Rivals 4-star recruit for 2015, ranked the No. 31 player in Texas and the No. 241 player overall. He was the No. 5-ranked cornerback to sign with a Big Ten school.
"Josh Butler is one of those corners that we would talk about," Dantonio said. "He has played extremely well in practice. Whether we take the redshirt off of him or not; not sure.
"David Dowell is another (true) freshman that has shown a lot of things."
The Spartans activated two true freshmen in the Air Force game. Safety Grayson Miller saw time on special teams. Wide receiver Felton Davis also played, and was targeted or one pass, which fell incomplete on a short out route. Davis also played on the punt return squad.
Dantonio indicated that Miller won't be the last freshman to get activated - especially due to the loss of Copeland and questions surrounding Meyers.
Dantonio likes what he sees in Miller (6-3, 200, Georgetown Ky.)
"He's a big, physical guy that runs extremely well and is explosive," Dantonio said. "He's a good tackler. He was on every special team (Saturday). That's how we evaluated it. We just felt like we needed to play him.
"He's also probably the fifth safety or the fourth safety, possibly, as he continues to work forward. He's a quick learner and he's got football IQ.
"We are going to play the guys that are going to help us win. We don't want to take redshirts from guys unless they are going to play significantly on special teams, or significantly on offense or defense."
Miller and Butler might not be the only true freshman DBs to see time this year.
"We did recruit six defensive backs last year," Dantonio said. "We need to play some of those guys because we don't want six redshirted freshmen, either. So if they are capable of playing and there is a need - which we thought there was a need, because that's why we took them - then we will play them.
"You can't get three ready at one time. Grayson Miller was the first one up. So we will probably try to work one every week or see where it goes. But we are not going to play a guy just to play him a couple of plays.
"We are working with some freshmen in various places, whether it's on special teams or a little bit on offense or defense. It's pretty much a week-to-week process. It takes time. We are just making those decisions week-to-week.
"Possibly Khari Willis. (He) has been working with us. He is in that situation like Josh - do we take the redshirt or not? But if you can help us win, and win now, we will."
Redshirt freshman safeties Jalen Watts-Jackson and Matt Morrissey have gotten on the field in the past two weeks. Watts-Jackson has seen brief playing as part of the safety rotation, as a second-stringer.
"Jalen Watts-Jackson is playing on all the special teams and played in the Oregon game," Dantonio said. "Matt Morrissey is playing on all of our special teams.
"I think that we've got guys. Obviously, we still miss Vayante. He was a great tackler and a great player. He'll be back. We'll look forward to his return in the spring."
"We've got guys that can run and tackle and play the ball in the deep part of the field, and they have size and speed for their position. There is a depth there."
And it will need to be quality depth, if the Spartans are going to hang onto their No. 2-ranking for a long period of time.
What About The Ranking?
When Michigan State earned a No. 2 ranking in the Associated Press poll on Sunday night, it marked MSU's highest ranking by AP since the final vote of the 1966 season.
Dantonio stopped short of viewing it as an accomplishment when asked about it on Sunday night.
"I don't think there's any finished product here yet," Dantonio said. "We will evaluate this program at the end of the season, much like we have the last two seasons.
"These rankings, a lot of it is based on how you ended up last season. A lot of things happened yesterday that shakes up the rankings and those things will continue to happen, I'm sure. We need to keep our mind on our business and focus on the moment, and the next one up is Central (Michigan).
"We certainly have opportunities moving forward but it's a long road in front of us."
Riley's Hit
Dantonio said he would look into the possibility of appealing Riley Bullough's suspension for the first half of the Central Michigan game. Bullough was disqualified due to a targeting personal foul on Saturday. Because the foul took place in the second quarter, Bullough is required to sit out the first half of the next game, per NCAA rules.
"I'm not sure if there is a review process in place or not," Dantonio said. "I heard there was, but I'll check with the Big Ten office and see if there is."
"I don't think it was an intentional thing," Dantonio said of Bullough's hit. "You're playing football. He's trying to get the guy down. They made the call, they reviewed it.
"We play by the rules. Whatever the rules are, that's what we'll do."
"There are some things you can change. There are some things you cannot. So we'll see what we can do."
MSU Didn't Retaliate
Air Force players were penalized several times for personal fouls on Saturday, including three illegal chop block calls, a hand-to-the-face during a pass rush, and roughing the quarterback. The Spartans seemed to stop short of seeking retaliation.
"We wanted to play the game in regard to respect and integrity and we didn't get involved in those," Dantonio said. "I think those things helped us because they had some big penalties. They were legitimate penalties. They were called the correct way. I thought the officials probably did a pretty good job throughout the game."
Replacing Riley
If Riley misses the first half of Saturday's game, the Spartans will choose either second-string MLB Shane Jones or swing linebacker Jon Reschke as the replacement starter.
This is not the hit that resulted in Bullough's ejection, but was one of his 16 stops on the day.
Reschke has been a second-string Mike linebacker in the past. He moved to 'money' linebacker to help MSU replace Davis. He beat out Chris Frey for the starting job. Frey plays extensively as a back-up.
Jones saw the most playing time of his career in the Oregon game, and followed up with even more duty against Air Force.
When Bullough went to the bench briefly with a lower body ailment, Jones checked in and promptly helped force a fumble with a hard hit on an Air Force ball carrier, resulting in RJ Williamson's 64-yard scoop-and-score.
Jones saw duty on special teams, and also replaced Bullough after his ejection.
"Shane went in there and was productive," Dantonio said. "Reschke has played in there before. And Byron Bullough has played in there as well and worked a lot throughout fall camp. He's got knowledge of the position, too. There's three guys that, right off the bat, can step in there and play."
Run Game Problems?
The Spartans rushed 42 times for an anemic 77 yards against Air Force.
The Falcons loaded the defensive front with a safety as an extra defender in the box, and sometimes two safeties. Additionally, Air Force often came forward with blitzes - and did so with quickness and disciplined gap integrity.
MSU missed its share of blocks up front, but sometimes the run stoppages were due to numbers deficiencies, or problems elsewhere than on the offensive line.
"It goes beyond the running game," Dantonio said. "It goes to the back, it goes to play selection, or structure of it, and it goes to the tight ends and the fullbacks. Everybody on the field is involved in making a running play work.
"They (Air Force) did have everybody up there pretty close. Give Air Force credit. I thought they played square. I thought they tackled well. I thought they had a good plan.
"But with that in mind, we have to at least crease them some and bust out, which we weren't able to do. Usually that has happened with a 50-yard run or a 40-yard run, and you feel a lot better if those things happen two or three or four times.
"I don't think the consistency was there in terms of what we wanted. So you have to look and say is that mental errors by our players? Some. Is it physical errors by our players? Some. Is that structural - meaning they had the right play called or we don't have the right play called, or structurally what we were asking them to do based on what we were going to see. There was some of that too.
"We need to be results oriented and just move forward.
"We have always been a balanced offense. We need to continue to be that. We need to be able to run the football. Regardless of the situation, regardless of the score, we need to feel like when we want to run the football that we are capable of at least running it some, and effectively.
"We have to have different ways to attack it. Every play is not going to work every week, nor is every player going to play his best game every week. We're going to make some mistakes.
"All I ask is that we evaluate and try to correct the things that we did this week."
Co-offensive coordinator Jim Bollman said after Saturday's game that the Spartans sought to grind out the run partly as a means of resting the Spartan defense, which was getting taxed by Air Force's tricky option attack, which often went with an uptempo pace.
"In the second half, basically we ran the clock," Dantonio said. "They had a long drive. It was 35-7. They had a long drive to make it 35-14.
"Probably the biggest disappointment was when we didn't get it on third-and-two, and then fourth-and-one."
On the third-and-two stoppage, MSU tried to run power to the left with right guard Benny McGowanpulling. However, right tackle Donavon Clark didn't squeeze inside tightly enough to seal the area vacated by McGowan, as an Air Force defensive tackle shot through that daylight and chased down MSU's running back before he could turn the corner on a run to the left.
On forth-and-one, a Connor Cook QB sneak was stopped short of first-down yardage. MSU might argue the spot on the play, or the strength of Cook's surge, but there didn't seem to be much fault in the blocking up front on that play.
"We responded on defense and got an interception (after that), so that did not hurt us," Dantonio said.
But he would have preferred to continue to drive on offense and put a sixth TD on the board and break 40 points.
"We hit big plays pretty much throughout the first half, and in the third period as well," Dantonio said. "We hit big plays to Aaron Burbridge and had a couple to RJ Shelton as well. So we threw the ball pretty effectively."
Would Dantonio have preferred to see Cook check out of run plays and go to the pass in some of those situations when Air Force stacked the box?
"Certain situations are sort of defined for our players as a run/pass type of thing. Others are not," Dantonio said. "I would say for the most part, most of those plays were not."
Dowell Played Fast
MSU sat senior linebacker Darien Harris for most of Saturday's game with an undisclosed injury. He is expected to recover soon.
Meanwhile, his back-up, true freshman David Dowell turned in a strong performance. He was more decisive and forceful than in his debut against Oregon. Dowell basically served as MSU's every-down 'star' linebacker, as Harris took a seat.
"He (Dowell) played 49 snaps," Dantonio said. "He played extensively.
"He's only going to get better. He had five tackles, and he had a fumble recovery. He played fast. He's going to make some mistakes but he plays fast and he is going to learn and get much better as he moves forward.
"We'll get Drake Martinez back at some point, maybe in the next two weeks. That'll help as well."
Martinez, a junior college transfer who is regarded as possibly the fastest player on the team, has been unavailable due to an unknown ailment.
Martinez spent the first portion of August camp at 'star' linebacker. He moved to 'money' backer to provide depth and competition at the position after Davis' injury.
Special Teams Progress?
The Spartans didn't allow a long return in the kicking game on Saturday against Air Force. Perhaps that's progress, considering that MSU allowed two long kickoff returns against Western Michigan, including one for a touchdown, and a punt return for a TD against Oregon.
"We got solid punting from Jake (Hartbarger); no returns," Dantonio said. "No big kickoff returns. The wind was a factor on kickoffs, so we squibbed a couple."
As for the coverage units, Dantonio made it clear that several coaches share those duties.
"Collectively, our entire coaching staff coaches the special teams, so I'm involved from the outset as well as basically all of our coaches," Dantonio said. "And then we split up our special teams relative to somebody having punt, somebody having kickoff, etc. And then they have a small staff that works directly with them in those areas and plans it.
"But I'm involved in every one of those. And those are the only meetings that I sit it on extensively, day-in and day-out in this program. I may go in a defensive meeting or a quarterback meeting or a different position meeting every now and then, but I'm always going to be in every special teams meeting."
First-year Spartan assistant Mark Snyder is listed as linebackers coach and special teams coordinator.
"That means he sort of sets it all in motion and he is either active as one of the driving members of a specific special team, or he is on that staff (of a certain special team)," Dantonio said. "For example, Mike Tressel has punt, and he (Snyder) is on that small staff relative to the punt.
"That's how we've done it and that's how we'll always do it. We've been good special teams-wise. We'll continue to understand that special teams wins championships.
"Our specialists, they need to make their plays, and they will. All I ask is that our guys compete. I thought other than the field goal, I thought our special teams played pretty well."
The field goal Dantonio referred to was a 35-yarder which Spartan place kicker Michael Geiger missed badly with a low kick which was blocked.
Dantonio barked some feedback to Geiger during the game on Saturday.
"Obviously, I told him to get it up," Dantonio said.
Dantonio was also bothered that Geiger didn't check in with Dantonio prior to the field goal attempt.
"I said, more importantly, I just want the guys to compete," Dantonio said. "I don't care if you miss the kick, I don't care if we don't punt right, I don't care. I care that we compete. That's all I'm concerned about. You come and you compete. Stand down by me when we're getting ready to go into the kick. Don't stand down at the end and come on the stage. Get down by me and let's go kick the ball through the uprights. That's all I said."
Enoch Smith 'Played Firm'
Redshirt freshman Enoch Smith broke into the rotation at defensive tackle for the first time in his career, Saturday. The rotund defensive tackle from Chicago missed much of August camp and the first two games while recovering from off-season hernia surgery.
"He played nine plays and I thought he was firm," Dantonio said of Smith. "A little heavy on his techniques - in other words lining up a little too head-up on a guy."
They prefer d-linemen to line up shaded more toward an o-lineman's shoulder, threatening a specific gap.
"I think he's a good football player," Dantonio said. "He is waiting his time. The hernia surgery in the summer put him back. He missed all of camp. He's been in football now two or three weeks and I think you will see more of him as we move forward.
"He has to do the job week-to-week. I do think that he played all right."
Monday Morning QB: Copeland out for year
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - On a day in which Michigan State rose to its highest ranking since 1966, the Spartans began moving forward with some of the more extensive injury troubles of the Mark Dantonio era.
Dantonio confirmed on Sunday during his weekly teleconference that freshman cornerback Vayante Copeland has been lost for the season, due a fractured vertebrae. He suffered the injury late in the Oregon game on Sept. 12.
Copeland played strong in the season opener at Western Michigan.
The No. 2-ranked Spartans now have lost two starting defensive players to season-ending injuries. Senior 'money' linebacker Ed Davis was lost for the year to a knee injury during training camp.
With these injuries having taken place prior to two games being played, the Spartans have already lost more defensive starts to injury than in MSU's 2013 Rose Bowl and 2014 Cotton Bowl seasons combined.
The Spartans didn't lose a defensive starter to injury for any games last year - although situational starterMylan Hicks was lost for four games with a broken arm.
Michigan State lost only three defensive starts to injury in 2013, when defensive tackle Tyler Hoover was sidelined for three weeks.
"It's very unfortunate," Dantonio said of Copeland's injury. "He's a good player, he's a great person. But he's handling it very, very well. You cannot mess with that kind of thing.
"He'll heal fine. He'll be back for spring but right now it's too iffy of a situation."
MSU has now lost two of its top six defensive backs. In addition to Copeland's injury, the Spartans are without junior safety Mark Meyers, who was suspended indefinitely after a drinking and driving arrest earlier this month.
Privately, Dantonio may be lamenting the losses. Publicly, he claims the Spartans will be able to move on successfully.
"I do think we have depth," he said. "We have good football players on this team and that will not be an excuse not to win. In football, injuries are going to occur and you're going to have to handle them."
"I feel like we can handle that situation. I feel we have good players. We played a lot of defensive backs in the Oregon game."
But some of them struggled - especially Copeland's replacements.
Senior Arjen Colquhoun was picked on, late in the Oregon game. He allowed a touchdown pass on a fade to the corner of the end zone in which he briefly lost his footing and looked over the wrong shoulder. Later, he stumbled during a go route down the left sideline in the final two minutes, leaving an Oregon receiver wide open for what could have been the go-ahead touchdown for the Ducks. But Oregon's quarterback over-threw the receiver.
Colquhoun started against Air Force on Saturday. Although he was involved in two coverage busts that went for long gains, it's unclear whether he was the primary culprit. Dantonio seemed to be more upset with safety Montae Nicholson than Colquhoun when an Air Force receiver was allowed to run uncovered down the sideline for a 44-yard pass play in the fourth quarter.
Arjen Colquhoun is regarded as a sound tackler, but needs to prove himself in coverage.
Earlier in the game, Colquhoun and Nicholson were both guilty of allowing receivers to run wide open during a 32-yard TD pass. The Air Force QB happened to choose the receiver Nicholson was supposed to cover, but he just as easily could have gone with the receiver Colquhoun was supposed to cover, as the Falcons had two wide open receivers to choose from on that side of the field while Colquhoun and Nicholson were sucked upfield by the thread of the option.
On Sunday, Dantonio expressed faith in Colquhoun (6-1, 202, Windsor, Sr.), whose start against Air Force was the first of his career.
"Vayante is out, so Arjen Colquhoun is a guy who had a great spring, a very good summer camp in competition (with Copeland)," Dantonio said.
Colquhoun exited spring practice as a first-string cornerback, along with Jermaine Edmondson. But juniorDemetrious Cox began August camp as a No. 1 cornerback after moving from safety.
Colquhoun and Edmondson were then beaten out by Copeland for the starting job opposite Cox. An upper body injury hampered Colquhoun's ability to compete with Copeland in August.
"He was out with a shoulder for about a week and a half or two weeks," Dantonio said. "He has bounced back and is playing now.
"He is a guy with a lot of experience. He has great skill. Big. Physical."
Edmondson struggled as a tackler in the Oregon game. During the 80-yard Oregon drive which cut the lead to 31-28 in the final minutes, Edmondson missed two tackles on completions to the man he was covering that went for 51 yards. Thirty-one of those 51 yards on the 80-yard drive came after Edmondson's missed tackles.
Edmondson saw brief playing time against Air Force, Dantonio said, because the head coach wanted to keep the primary defenders on the field against the Falcons' tricky option offense. Reserve DBs didn't see as much time against Air Force as they did against Oregon.
"He (Edmondson) did not play as much (against Air Force), based on the option," Dantonio said. "I really didn't want to switch people up, based on the variations we were seeing. So once guys understood what was going on, not that we stopped it all the time, but I just thought change in the middle of the game or toward the end of the game might not be much of a positive."
Air Force rolled up 279 yards rushing. But sophomore cornerback Darian Hicks played a handful of downs and made a forceful tackle in taking the pitch man for a loss of 2 during a successful MSU goal-line stand against Air Force.
Hicks started the first 10 games of last season, but lost his starting job after a series of beatings on deep balls. He attempted to compete for the starting job last spring, but headed into August camp as a second-stringer. He was then lost for a few weeks to mononucleosis.
Hicks has made a gradual return to the practice field and playing group as he has worked to replenish his conditioning level. Saturday's tackle in the goal-line situation was a step in the right direction for him.
"Darian needed to get back in the flow there and I thought that was a big play in that goal line stand," Dantonio said. "So that was a positive. He's working himself back into the rotation. He has a lot of starting experience. We've got him back now, and think he's healthy."
MSU is expected to go into Saturday's game against Central Michigan with Cox and Colquhoun as starting cornerbacks, with Edmondson and Hicks as back-ups.
Dantonio says true freshmen are likely to get activated, namely Josh Butler.
Butler (5-11, 170, Mesquite, Texas) was a Rivals 4-star recruit for 2015, ranked the No. 31 player in Texas and the No. 241 player overall. He was the No. 5-ranked cornerback to sign with a Big Ten school.
"Josh Butler is one of those corners that we would talk about," Dantonio said. "He has played extremely well in practice. Whether we take the redshirt off of him or not; not sure.
"David Dowell is another (true) freshman that has shown a lot of things."
The Spartans activated two true freshmen in the Air Force game. Safety Grayson Miller saw time on special teams. Wide receiver Felton Davis also played, and was targeted or one pass, which fell incomplete on a short out route. Davis also played on the punt return squad.
Dantonio indicated that Miller won't be the last freshman to get activated - especially due to the loss of Copeland and questions surrounding Meyers.
Dantonio likes what he sees in Miller (6-3, 200, Georgetown Ky.)
"He's a big, physical guy that runs extremely well and is explosive," Dantonio said. "He's a good tackler. He was on every special team (Saturday). That's how we evaluated it. We just felt like we needed to play him.
"He's also probably the fifth safety or the fourth safety, possibly, as he continues to work forward. He's a quick learner and he's got football IQ.
"We are going to play the guys that are going to help us win. We don't want to take redshirts from guys unless they are going to play significantly on special teams, or significantly on offense or defense."
Miller and Butler might not be the only true freshman DBs to see time this year.
"We did recruit six defensive backs last year," Dantonio said. "We need to play some of those guys because we don't want six redshirted freshmen, either. So if they are capable of playing and there is a need - which we thought there was a need, because that's why we took them - then we will play them.
"You can't get three ready at one time. Grayson Miller was the first one up. So we will probably try to work one every week or see where it goes. But we are not going to play a guy just to play him a couple of plays.
"We are working with some freshmen in various places, whether it's on special teams or a little bit on offense or defense. It's pretty much a week-to-week process. It takes time. We are just making those decisions week-to-week.
"Possibly Khari Willis. (He) has been working with us. He is in that situation like Josh - do we take the redshirt or not? But if you can help us win, and win now, we will."
Redshirt freshman safeties Jalen Watts-Jackson and Matt Morrissey have gotten on the field in the past two weeks. Watts-Jackson has seen brief playing as part of the safety rotation, as a second-stringer.
"Jalen Watts-Jackson is playing on all the special teams and played in the Oregon game," Dantonio said. "Matt Morrissey is playing on all of our special teams.
"I think that we've got guys. Obviously, we still miss Vayante. He was a great tackler and a great player. He'll be back. We'll look forward to his return in the spring."
"We've got guys that can run and tackle and play the ball in the deep part of the field, and they have size and speed for their position. There is a depth there."
And it will need to be quality depth, if the Spartans are going to hang onto their No. 2-ranking for a long period of time.
What About The Ranking?
When Michigan State earned a No. 2 ranking in the Associated Press poll on Sunday night, it marked MSU's highest ranking by AP since the final vote of the 1966 season.
Dantonio stopped short of viewing it as an accomplishment when asked about it on Sunday night.
"I don't think there's any finished product here yet," Dantonio said. "We will evaluate this program at the end of the season, much like we have the last two seasons.
"These rankings, a lot of it is based on how you ended up last season. A lot of things happened yesterday that shakes up the rankings and those things will continue to happen, I'm sure. We need to keep our mind on our business and focus on the moment, and the next one up is Central (Michigan).
"We certainly have opportunities moving forward but it's a long road in front of us."
Riley's Hit
Dantonio said he would look into the possibility of appealing Riley Bullough's suspension for the first half of the Central Michigan game. Bullough was disqualified due to a targeting personal foul on Saturday. Because the foul took place in the second quarter, Bullough is required to sit out the first half of the next game, per NCAA rules.
"I'm not sure if there is a review process in place or not," Dantonio said. "I heard there was, but I'll check with the Big Ten office and see if there is."
"I don't think it was an intentional thing," Dantonio said of Bullough's hit. "You're playing football. He's trying to get the guy down. They made the call, they reviewed it.
"We play by the rules. Whatever the rules are, that's what we'll do."
"There are some things you can change. There are some things you cannot. So we'll see what we can do."
MSU Didn't Retaliate
Air Force players were penalized several times for personal fouls on Saturday, including three illegal chop block calls, a hand-to-the-face during a pass rush, and roughing the quarterback. The Spartans seemed to stop short of seeking retaliation.
"We wanted to play the game in regard to respect and integrity and we didn't get involved in those," Dantonio said. "I think those things helped us because they had some big penalties. They were legitimate penalties. They were called the correct way. I thought the officials probably did a pretty good job throughout the game."
Replacing Riley
If Riley misses the first half of Saturday's game, the Spartans will choose either second-string MLB Shane Jones or swing linebacker Jon Reschke as the replacement starter.
This is not the hit that resulted in Bullough's ejection, but was one of his 16 stops on the day.
Reschke has been a second-string Mike linebacker in the past. He moved to 'money' linebacker to help MSU replace Davis. He beat out Chris Frey for the starting job. Frey plays extensively as a back-up.
Jones saw the most playing time of his career in the Oregon game, and followed up with even more duty against Air Force.
When Bullough went to the bench briefly with a lower body ailment, Jones checked in and promptly helped force a fumble with a hard hit on an Air Force ball carrier, resulting in RJ Williamson's 64-yard scoop-and-score.
Jones saw duty on special teams, and also replaced Bullough after his ejection.
"Shane went in there and was productive," Dantonio said. "Reschke has played in there before. And Byron Bullough has played in there as well and worked a lot throughout fall camp. He's got knowledge of the position, too. There's three guys that, right off the bat, can step in there and play."
Run Game Problems?
The Spartans rushed 42 times for an anemic 77 yards against Air Force.
The Falcons loaded the defensive front with a safety as an extra defender in the box, and sometimes two safeties. Additionally, Air Force often came forward with blitzes - and did so with quickness and disciplined gap integrity.
MSU missed its share of blocks up front, but sometimes the run stoppages were due to numbers deficiencies, or problems elsewhere than on the offensive line.
"It goes beyond the running game," Dantonio said. "It goes to the back, it goes to play selection, or structure of it, and it goes to the tight ends and the fullbacks. Everybody on the field is involved in making a running play work.
"They (Air Force) did have everybody up there pretty close. Give Air Force credit. I thought they played square. I thought they tackled well. I thought they had a good plan.
"But with that in mind, we have to at least crease them some and bust out, which we weren't able to do. Usually that has happened with a 50-yard run or a 40-yard run, and you feel a lot better if those things happen two or three or four times.
"I don't think the consistency was there in terms of what we wanted. So you have to look and say is that mental errors by our players? Some. Is it physical errors by our players? Some. Is that structural - meaning they had the right play called or we don't have the right play called, or structurally what we were asking them to do based on what we were going to see. There was some of that too.
"We need to be results oriented and just move forward.
"We have always been a balanced offense. We need to continue to be that. We need to be able to run the football. Regardless of the situation, regardless of the score, we need to feel like when we want to run the football that we are capable of at least running it some, and effectively.
"We have to have different ways to attack it. Every play is not going to work every week, nor is every player going to play his best game every week. We're going to make some mistakes.
"All I ask is that we evaluate and try to correct the things that we did this week."
Co-offensive coordinator Jim Bollman said after Saturday's game that the Spartans sought to grind out the run partly as a means of resting the Spartan defense, which was getting taxed by Air Force's tricky option attack, which often went with an uptempo pace.
"In the second half, basically we ran the clock," Dantonio said. "They had a long drive. It was 35-7. They had a long drive to make it 35-14.
"Probably the biggest disappointment was when we didn't get it on third-and-two, and then fourth-and-one."
On the third-and-two stoppage, MSU tried to run power to the left with right guard Benny McGowanpulling. However, right tackle Donavon Clark didn't squeeze inside tightly enough to seal the area vacated by McGowan, as an Air Force defensive tackle shot through that daylight and chased down MSU's running back before he could turn the corner on a run to the left.
On forth-and-one, a Connor Cook QB sneak was stopped short of first-down yardage. MSU might argue the spot on the play, or the strength of Cook's surge, but there didn't seem to be much fault in the blocking up front on that play.
"We responded on defense and got an interception (after that), so that did not hurt us," Dantonio said.
But he would have preferred to continue to drive on offense and put a sixth TD on the board and break 40 points.
"We hit big plays pretty much throughout the first half, and in the third period as well," Dantonio said. "We hit big plays to Aaron Burbridge and had a couple to RJ Shelton as well. So we threw the ball pretty effectively."
Would Dantonio have preferred to see Cook check out of run plays and go to the pass in some of those situations when Air Force stacked the box?
"Certain situations are sort of defined for our players as a run/pass type of thing. Others are not," Dantonio said. "I would say for the most part, most of those plays were not."
Dowell Played Fast
MSU sat senior linebacker Darien Harris for most of Saturday's game with an undisclosed injury. He is expected to recover soon.
Meanwhile, his back-up, true freshman David Dowell turned in a strong performance. He was more decisive and forceful than in his debut against Oregon. Dowell basically served as MSU's every-down 'star' linebacker, as Harris took a seat.
"He (Dowell) played 49 snaps," Dantonio said. "He played extensively.
"He's only going to get better. He had five tackles, and he had a fumble recovery. He played fast. He's going to make some mistakes but he plays fast and he is going to learn and get much better as he moves forward.
"We'll get Drake Martinez back at some point, maybe in the next two weeks. That'll help as well."
Martinez, a junior college transfer who is regarded as possibly the fastest player on the team, has been unavailable due to an unknown ailment.
Martinez spent the first portion of August camp at 'star' linebacker. He moved to 'money' backer to provide depth and competition at the position after Davis' injury.
Special Teams Progress?
The Spartans didn't allow a long return in the kicking game on Saturday against Air Force. Perhaps that's progress, considering that MSU allowed two long kickoff returns against Western Michigan, including one for a touchdown, and a punt return for a TD against Oregon.
"We got solid punting from Jake (Hartbarger); no returns," Dantonio said. "No big kickoff returns. The wind was a factor on kickoffs, so we squibbed a couple."
As for the coverage units, Dantonio made it clear that several coaches share those duties.
"Collectively, our entire coaching staff coaches the special teams, so I'm involved from the outset as well as basically all of our coaches," Dantonio said. "And then we split up our special teams relative to somebody having punt, somebody having kickoff, etc. And then they have a small staff that works directly with them in those areas and plans it.
"But I'm involved in every one of those. And those are the only meetings that I sit it on extensively, day-in and day-out in this program. I may go in a defensive meeting or a quarterback meeting or a different position meeting every now and then, but I'm always going to be in every special teams meeting."
First-year Spartan assistant Mark Snyder is listed as linebackers coach and special teams coordinator.
"That means he sort of sets it all in motion and he is either active as one of the driving members of a specific special team, or he is on that staff (of a certain special team)," Dantonio said. "For example, Mike Tressel has punt, and he (Snyder) is on that small staff relative to the punt.
"That's how we've done it and that's how we'll always do it. We've been good special teams-wise. We'll continue to understand that special teams wins championships.
"Our specialists, they need to make their plays, and they will. All I ask is that our guys compete. I thought other than the field goal, I thought our special teams played pretty well."
The field goal Dantonio referred to was a 35-yarder which Spartan place kicker Michael Geiger missed badly with a low kick which was blocked.
Dantonio barked some feedback to Geiger during the game on Saturday.
"Obviously, I told him to get it up," Dantonio said.
Dantonio was also bothered that Geiger didn't check in with Dantonio prior to the field goal attempt.
"I said, more importantly, I just want the guys to compete," Dantonio said. "I don't care if you miss the kick, I don't care if we don't punt right, I don't care. I care that we compete. That's all I'm concerned about. You come and you compete. Stand down by me when we're getting ready to go into the kick. Don't stand down at the end and come on the stage. Get down by me and let's go kick the ball through the uprights. That's all I said."
Enoch Smith 'Played Firm'
Redshirt freshman Enoch Smith broke into the rotation at defensive tackle for the first time in his career, Saturday. The rotund defensive tackle from Chicago missed much of August camp and the first two games while recovering from off-season hernia surgery.
"He played nine plays and I thought he was firm," Dantonio said of Smith. "A little heavy on his techniques - in other words lining up a little too head-up on a guy."
They prefer d-linemen to line up shaded more toward an o-lineman's shoulder, threatening a specific gap.
"I think he's a good football player," Dantonio said. "He is waiting his time. The hernia surgery in the summer put him back. He missed all of camp. He's been in football now two or three weeks and I think you will see more of him as we move forward.
"He has to do the job week-to-week. I do think that he played all right."
Trends, Schemes & Analysis: What went wrong with 4-minute offense?
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September 17, 2015
Trends, Schemes & Analysis: 4-Minute Offense
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Michigan State topped the 30-point mark for the 10th straight time last weekend against Oregon, but the Spartans' 8-minute and 4-minute offenses weren't successful.
The "eight-minute" and "four-minute" offenses come into play when a team is leading and needs to run clock to protect the lead. Michigan State failed, with a pair of three-and-out drives in the final 7:53, giving Oregon a chance to stage a comeback from a late 31-21 deficit and nearly steal victory.
Spartan offensive players were not happy with themselves about this aspect of the game following the victory over No. 7 Oregon. And they continued to stew about it during practice preparation for Saturday's game against Air Force, bent on improving in some of the aspects that failed them in the final minutes against the Ducks.
So what went wrong during those six plays?
Warner said improvements are necessary from game-planning on down to execution.
"It's a total … starting from us, from the staff, all the way down through our offense," offensive coordinator Dave Warner said during mid-week interviews on Wednesday. "We just need to do a better job, evidently of game planning and then executing. I'm not sure there's any secret to it. But we just have to get in that mindset. And I think, again, you go back a couple years, that thing sort of materialized and grew as the season went on, and I expect that to happen again."
Saturday's inability to close came down to six plays.
Two runs on the first drive led to a third-and-4 incompletion intended for R.J. Shelton.
Then on the second drive, a loss of 5 yards on a first-and-10 run led to incompletions on second-and-15 and third-and-15.
"The loss of five put us behind the ball a little bit, eight ball a little bit," said head coach Mark Dantonio. "I made the decision to throw it because we wanted to play to win the football game at that point. Getting a first down is going to win the game.
"But we didn't hit it for whatever reason. A little low throw, drop on a 50/50 catch, however you want to look at it. Ball sails on one. Did enough to score 31 points, doing enough to make it happen.
"You always want to close it out. There is no perfect game. You're always talking about what you could do differently and make it a little bit better."
Breaking Down The First 3-and-Out
Let's rewind and break down what went right and wrong on those six crucial plays:
On the first drive, MSU had it first-and-10 at the MSU 43-yard line, after stopping Oregon QB Vernon Adams short on a fourth-and-1 power read keeper.
1-10 -42: LJ Scott carried for a gain of 5 on a counter handoff behind pulling guard Brian Allen to the strong, unbalanced side.
MSU faked a fly sweep to RJ Shelton before handing to Scott. (Faking the fly sweep had influenced a linebacker out of the box as part of a gain of 10 late in the third quarter, on a zone play to the strong/unbalanced side. MSU went back to that action on this play).
[Unbalanced meaning a tight end and split end were on the same side of the formation, making the TE an ineligible receiver. Why have the TE covered up? Partly to mobilize the flanker for the fly sweep fake to the play side.]
Running the play to the right also allowed MSU to run the ball away from defensive end DeForest Buckner, easily Oregon's best defensive lineman. Buckner played right DE most of the night.
Connor Cook and Brian Allen are among those who need to improve their execution in future 4-minute situations.
Play-calling, scheming and functional blocking put MSU nicely on schedule with this first-down play.
But MSU would net -3 yards on its next five plays.
2-5 -47: Scott ran for a gain of 1 on an inside zone run. Brian Allen was not happy with himself after this play. He and Jack Allen were assigned to double-team the nose guard. Both Allens engaged the nose guard, and then the nose guard slanted to his left, away from Brian.
Rather than releasing the nose guard, knowing that Jack had the area controlled, and climbing out to the linebacker level, Brian stayed with the double-team too long, ended up lunging forward and wasting himself as a blocker.
That left Oregon's MLB unblocked. That MLB came forward and tackled Scott for no gain.
Scott was also upset with himself for not running the ball harder into the line. He tip-toed a bit toward the smoke.
3-4 -48: Connor Cook threw incomplete for Shelton.
MSU schemed a good play. For the first time all night, flanker Macgarrett Kings came in motion to the two-WR side, stopped and went back, and then stopped and went back in motion to the two-WR side again. Oregon defenders didn't go with him, signifying to Cook and the receivers that it was zone coverage.
Shelton ran a zone-beater sticks route as the No. 2 receiver as part of a three-man route combination. He sat down in an open area.
Cooks was rolling to the field on the play. He threw on the run, and threw inaccurately, low for an incompletion.
Dantonio called it a 50-50 ball, indicating the QB and WR were both responsible.
Cook blamed himself, and said he was "pissed at myself" while watching Oregon drive for a touchdown in the minutes that followed.
Warner was asked if Shelton was to blame.
"That one? Yeah, tough catch (to make)," Warner said. "Tough catch. No problem with him."
Oregon then received a punt, drove 80 yards in nine plays to cut the lead to 31-28.
The Second 3-and-Out
Then the Spartans took over with another crack at the four-minute offense, first-and-10 at their 22 with 3:19 to play.
1-10 -22: Madre London was stopped for a loss of 5 on a counter sweep to the short side.
On this play, MSU shifted the line from left to right, resulting in Brian Allen moving from left guard to center, and moving Jack Allen from center to right guard.
MSU utilized this radical shift several times during the game, with a mixture of success and failure. The first time MSU showed this unique shift, the Spartans passed the ball, on a 12-yard comeback to Aaron Burbridge.
Later, London had a 6-yard gain on a power to the strong side after the center shift. MSU missed a field goal at the end of that drive.
Ironically, MSU tried to run a counter to the weak side out of this look earlier in the game, and lost three yards. That loss stalled a drive in the red zone and led to a field goal which gave MSU a 31-24 lead.
It was a surprise that MSU would go back to a counter to the weak side off of that look when it failed earlier in the game. But MSU believed in it. The problem was Oregon wasn't surprised, or fooled.
After the first time MSU showed the center shift, Oregon caught onto it and began shifting its defensive line to match up with the strength of MSU's offensive front.
HOWEVER, on this ill-fated play that began MSU's second three-and-out, Oregon's defensive line stood pat in the face of the shift and DID NOT SHIFT WITH THE SPARTANS.
MSU likely expected a shift, expected Oregon to load up to the unbalanced tight end side. MSU sought to counter Oregon back the other way and get the Ducks outflanked.
As it turned out, Oregon had more defenders waiting for the ball carrier on the weak side, foiling the play before it got started.
Secondly, when Oregon opted not to shift when the Spartans shifted, this led to MSU tight end Josiah Price matching up with Buckner at the eventual point of attack. Price essentially becomes the left tackle after the shift takes place. Price vs. Buckner was a horrible matchup for MSU.
LJ Scott rushed for 76 yards on 11 carries against Oregon.
Buckner gained two yards of penetration against Price, upsetting Brian Allen's trek to the perimeter as a pulling center as part of the counter action.
Because Price was beaten, Oregon's outside LB was able to come forward and engage Allen two yards behind the line of scrimmage, further foiling the play.
MSU pulled Benny McGowan from the back side. Because Allen and Price were bottled-up behind the line of scrimmage, McGowan was never able to turn the corner and hunt an inside linebacker. Instead, that inside linebacker surged forward behind Buckner and helped tackle London for the loss.
The negative play call was devastating to MSU's chances of holding the ball and run clock. From there, Dantonio's decision to play aggressively with the pass resulted in two incompletions and clock stoppages, serving to Oregon's delight.
"They got players too," Dantonio said in reference to Oregon's defensive front. "We talk about inches, we talk about a throw being high or a little low. We talk about a guy with possible 50-50 catches. We come up a little bit short."
2-15 -17: Cook rolled out to the field and threw incomplete to a well-covered Kings at the sideline against two-deep/man-under.
Could Cook have carried that for half of the yardage? Difficult to say. He was getting pressure from inside-out and would have had to make a strong open-field run to do damage on a keeper there, but that's certainly something the coaches and quarterbacks reviewed and considered in the film room.
3-15 -17: Cook threw incomplete for Burbridge on a square-in against two-deep coverage at 14 yards. Even if Burbridge had caught it, he likely would have been tackled short of first-down yardage.
Warner said there were no open windows for Cook to throw to on that play.
After volunteering blame from the coaches on down at the outset of the interview, Warner agreed with Dantonio about Oregon's talent level.
"They're on scholarship too and they're good," Warner said. "Our guys played well but sometimes we're not going to make the block, just like sometimes you're not going to make the throw or the catch. But it comes down to execution. When it comes down to the fourth quarter, that's when you've got to step it up a little bit and make sure we're getting things done."
On MSU's last possession, after stopping Oregon in the final minute, the Spartans needed one more first down to clinch victory. A 5-yard penalty against the Ducks made things easier.
Then on second-and-two, London gained four yards on an inside zone, with all four yards coming after contact as he powered ahead with a second-effort.
'We Need To Be Greedy'
Cook has been critical of himself through the first two weeks of the season. Earlier in the Oregon game, he threw an interception when a pass intended for Kings sailed high.
"I think there is a lot on his shoulders through the publicity and so forth," Warner said. "You're always going to miss throws, you're going to miss reads. That's part of it. And he's hard himself. He's very hard on himself and he expects a lot of himself so I'm sure it's part of why he's saying that. But he's like everybody else, we're all looking to be a little bit better."
The Spartans are ranked No. 4 in the country, averaged more yards per play than the vaunted Oregon offense, and yet are striving to make corrections and improvements.
"We've done OK but we certainly haven't achieved the way we want to," Warner said. "We're taking strides and we're looking to improve.
"I tell our offense we need to be greedy. We need to want more yardage. We need to want more points. We need to want more of everything. So that's the way we're approaching it."
Dantonio was pleased with the way the Spartans answered Oregon's first two touchdowns with strong TD drives of their own.
"Part of this game is about handling adversity," Dantonio said. "Every time they made a drive and they cut the score a little bit, offensively, we had a drive where we answered the bell, had a drive where we came back down the field and scored.
"For the most part I feel like our offense played very, very well."
But the four-minute offense - an area of astounding strength in 2013 and '14 - needs some work.
Trends, Schemes & Analysis: 4-Minute Offense
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Michigan State topped the 30-point mark for the 10th straight time last weekend against Oregon, but the Spartans' 8-minute and 4-minute offenses weren't successful.
The "eight-minute" and "four-minute" offenses come into play when a team is leading and needs to run clock to protect the lead. Michigan State failed, with a pair of three-and-out drives in the final 7:53, giving Oregon a chance to stage a comeback from a late 31-21 deficit and nearly steal victory.
Spartan offensive players were not happy with themselves about this aspect of the game following the victory over No. 7 Oregon. And they continued to stew about it during practice preparation for Saturday's game against Air Force, bent on improving in some of the aspects that failed them in the final minutes against the Ducks.
So what went wrong during those six plays?
Warner said improvements are necessary from game-planning on down to execution.
"It's a total … starting from us, from the staff, all the way down through our offense," offensive coordinator Dave Warner said during mid-week interviews on Wednesday. "We just need to do a better job, evidently of game planning and then executing. I'm not sure there's any secret to it. But we just have to get in that mindset. And I think, again, you go back a couple years, that thing sort of materialized and grew as the season went on, and I expect that to happen again."
Saturday's inability to close came down to six plays.
Two runs on the first drive led to a third-and-4 incompletion intended for R.J. Shelton.
Then on the second drive, a loss of 5 yards on a first-and-10 run led to incompletions on second-and-15 and third-and-15.
"The loss of five put us behind the ball a little bit, eight ball a little bit," said head coach Mark Dantonio. "I made the decision to throw it because we wanted to play to win the football game at that point. Getting a first down is going to win the game.
"But we didn't hit it for whatever reason. A little low throw, drop on a 50/50 catch, however you want to look at it. Ball sails on one. Did enough to score 31 points, doing enough to make it happen.
"You always want to close it out. There is no perfect game. You're always talking about what you could do differently and make it a little bit better."
Breaking Down The First 3-and-Out
Let's rewind and break down what went right and wrong on those six crucial plays:
On the first drive, MSU had it first-and-10 at the MSU 43-yard line, after stopping Oregon QB Vernon Adams short on a fourth-and-1 power read keeper.
1-10 -42: LJ Scott carried for a gain of 5 on a counter handoff behind pulling guard Brian Allen to the strong, unbalanced side.
MSU faked a fly sweep to RJ Shelton before handing to Scott. (Faking the fly sweep had influenced a linebacker out of the box as part of a gain of 10 late in the third quarter, on a zone play to the strong/unbalanced side. MSU went back to that action on this play).
[Unbalanced meaning a tight end and split end were on the same side of the formation, making the TE an ineligible receiver. Why have the TE covered up? Partly to mobilize the flanker for the fly sweep fake to the play side.]
Running the play to the right also allowed MSU to run the ball away from defensive end DeForest Buckner, easily Oregon's best defensive lineman. Buckner played right DE most of the night.
Connor Cook and Brian Allen are among those who need to improve their execution in future 4-minute situations.
Play-calling, scheming and functional blocking put MSU nicely on schedule with this first-down play.
But MSU would net -3 yards on its next five plays.
2-5 -47: Scott ran for a gain of 1 on an inside zone run. Brian Allen was not happy with himself after this play. He and Jack Allen were assigned to double-team the nose guard. Both Allens engaged the nose guard, and then the nose guard slanted to his left, away from Brian.
Rather than releasing the nose guard, knowing that Jack had the area controlled, and climbing out to the linebacker level, Brian stayed with the double-team too long, ended up lunging forward and wasting himself as a blocker.
That left Oregon's MLB unblocked. That MLB came forward and tackled Scott for no gain.
Scott was also upset with himself for not running the ball harder into the line. He tip-toed a bit toward the smoke.
3-4 -48: Connor Cook threw incomplete for Shelton.
MSU schemed a good play. For the first time all night, flanker Macgarrett Kings came in motion to the two-WR side, stopped and went back, and then stopped and went back in motion to the two-WR side again. Oregon defenders didn't go with him, signifying to Cook and the receivers that it was zone coverage.
Shelton ran a zone-beater sticks route as the No. 2 receiver as part of a three-man route combination. He sat down in an open area.
Cooks was rolling to the field on the play. He threw on the run, and threw inaccurately, low for an incompletion.
Dantonio called it a 50-50 ball, indicating the QB and WR were both responsible.
Cook blamed himself, and said he was "pissed at myself" while watching Oregon drive for a touchdown in the minutes that followed.
Warner was asked if Shelton was to blame.
"That one? Yeah, tough catch (to make)," Warner said. "Tough catch. No problem with him."
Oregon then received a punt, drove 80 yards in nine plays to cut the lead to 31-28.
The Second 3-and-Out
Then the Spartans took over with another crack at the four-minute offense, first-and-10 at their 22 with 3:19 to play.
1-10 -22: Madre London was stopped for a loss of 5 on a counter sweep to the short side.
On this play, MSU shifted the line from left to right, resulting in Brian Allen moving from left guard to center, and moving Jack Allen from center to right guard.
MSU utilized this radical shift several times during the game, with a mixture of success and failure. The first time MSU showed this unique shift, the Spartans passed the ball, on a 12-yard comeback to Aaron Burbridge.
Later, London had a 6-yard gain on a power to the strong side after the center shift. MSU missed a field goal at the end of that drive.
Ironically, MSU tried to run a counter to the weak side out of this look earlier in the game, and lost three yards. That loss stalled a drive in the red zone and led to a field goal which gave MSU a 31-24 lead.
It was a surprise that MSU would go back to a counter to the weak side off of that look when it failed earlier in the game. But MSU believed in it. The problem was Oregon wasn't surprised, or fooled.
After the first time MSU showed the center shift, Oregon caught onto it and began shifting its defensive line to match up with the strength of MSU's offensive front.
HOWEVER, on this ill-fated play that began MSU's second three-and-out, Oregon's defensive line stood pat in the face of the shift and DID NOT SHIFT WITH THE SPARTANS.
MSU likely expected a shift, expected Oregon to load up to the unbalanced tight end side. MSU sought to counter Oregon back the other way and get the Ducks outflanked.
As it turned out, Oregon had more defenders waiting for the ball carrier on the weak side, foiling the play before it got started.
Secondly, when Oregon opted not to shift when the Spartans shifted, this led to MSU tight end Josiah Price matching up with Buckner at the eventual point of attack. Price essentially becomes the left tackle after the shift takes place. Price vs. Buckner was a horrible matchup for MSU.
LJ Scott rushed for 76 yards on 11 carries against Oregon.
Buckner gained two yards of penetration against Price, upsetting Brian Allen's trek to the perimeter as a pulling center as part of the counter action.
Because Price was beaten, Oregon's outside LB was able to come forward and engage Allen two yards behind the line of scrimmage, further foiling the play.
MSU pulled Benny McGowan from the back side. Because Allen and Price were bottled-up behind the line of scrimmage, McGowan was never able to turn the corner and hunt an inside linebacker. Instead, that inside linebacker surged forward behind Buckner and helped tackle London for the loss.
The negative play call was devastating to MSU's chances of holding the ball and run clock. From there, Dantonio's decision to play aggressively with the pass resulted in two incompletions and clock stoppages, serving to Oregon's delight.
"They got players too," Dantonio said in reference to Oregon's defensive front. "We talk about inches, we talk about a throw being high or a little low. We talk about a guy with possible 50-50 catches. We come up a little bit short."
2-15 -17: Cook rolled out to the field and threw incomplete to a well-covered Kings at the sideline against two-deep/man-under.
Could Cook have carried that for half of the yardage? Difficult to say. He was getting pressure from inside-out and would have had to make a strong open-field run to do damage on a keeper there, but that's certainly something the coaches and quarterbacks reviewed and considered in the film room.
3-15 -17: Cook threw incomplete for Burbridge on a square-in against two-deep coverage at 14 yards. Even if Burbridge had caught it, he likely would have been tackled short of first-down yardage.
Warner said there were no open windows for Cook to throw to on that play.
After volunteering blame from the coaches on down at the outset of the interview, Warner agreed with Dantonio about Oregon's talent level.
"They're on scholarship too and they're good," Warner said. "Our guys played well but sometimes we're not going to make the block, just like sometimes you're not going to make the throw or the catch. But it comes down to execution. When it comes down to the fourth quarter, that's when you've got to step it up a little bit and make sure we're getting things done."
On MSU's last possession, after stopping Oregon in the final minute, the Spartans needed one more first down to clinch victory. A 5-yard penalty against the Ducks made things easier.
Then on second-and-two, London gained four yards on an inside zone, with all four yards coming after contact as he powered ahead with a second-effort.
'We Need To Be Greedy'
Cook has been critical of himself through the first two weeks of the season. Earlier in the Oregon game, he threw an interception when a pass intended for Kings sailed high.
"I think there is a lot on his shoulders through the publicity and so forth," Warner said. "You're always going to miss throws, you're going to miss reads. That's part of it. And he's hard himself. He's very hard on himself and he expects a lot of himself so I'm sure it's part of why he's saying that. But he's like everybody else, we're all looking to be a little bit better."
The Spartans are ranked No. 4 in the country, averaged more yards per play than the vaunted Oregon offense, and yet are striving to make corrections and improvements.
"We've done OK but we certainly haven't achieved the way we want to," Warner said. "We're taking strides and we're looking to improve.
"I tell our offense we need to be greedy. We need to want more yardage. We need to want more points. We need to want more of everything. So that's the way we're approaching it."
Dantonio was pleased with the way the Spartans answered Oregon's first two touchdowns with strong TD drives of their own.
"Part of this game is about handling adversity," Dantonio said. "Every time they made a drive and they cut the score a little bit, offensively, we had a drive where we answered the bell, had a drive where we came back down the field and scored.
"For the most part I feel like our offense played very, very well."
But the four-minute offense - an area of astounding strength in 2013 and '14 - needs some work.
In The Crosshairs: Darien Harris Will Be Key vs Ducks
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In the crosshairs: Harris will be key vs Ducks
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - In today's era of spread option football, no defensive player gets stretched by run-pass conflicts more than the slot-area linebacker.
Michigan State refers to this player as the 'star' linebacker. At other programs that institute a 4-2-5 defense, the player in the slot area might be a safety or basically a third cornerback.
Some programs, such as Virginia Tech, opt to play press man-to-man on the slot receiver with a cornerback.
MSU opts to keep a third linebacker on the field, and play several steps off of the slot receiver. This makes MSU susceptible to short hitches to the slot, as Baylor showed in the Cotton Bowl. And MSU must cover ground quickly versus bubble screens to that area, something the Spartans did exceedingly well against Western Michigan last week, but almost paid for its post-snap aggression against bubbles on one occasion when WMU faked the bubble and then released the slot receiver on a deep wheel route against 'star' linebacker Darien Harris. The receiver was wide open but dropped the pass inside the 10-yard line.
MSU prefers to go relatively heavy at 'star' linebacker with the 6-foot, 220-pound Darien Harris. In addition to being a first-responder to bubble screens, he also has an interior gap responsibility on inside running plays. Basically, that 'star' linebacker in MSU's system is asked to be two places at once. Offenses will stretch him with run-pass conflicts, showing a run action to get him sucked in, and then delivering a pass to his perimeter area. Or offenses may send a slot receiver to the sideline to threaten the bubble, and get Harris to move in that direction, and instead hit MSU inside with a running play, challenging Harris to close the daylight.
Sometimes, offenses like Oregon read Harris and decide whether the play is going to be a run or a pass several beats after the snap, depending on Harris' positioning.
Harris will be a key player at 8 p.m. on Saturday when No. 5 Michigan State plays host to No. 7 Oregon at Spartan Stadium.
A year ago, Harris started 11 of 13 games for the Spartans at 'star' linebacker. But Michigan State started pseudo defensive back Mylan Hicks in the slot linebacker position against Oregon and Baylor. Hicks wasn't great in those games, but his role revealed an evolution within MSU's system, to opt for more of a pure nickel back against some teams rather than keeping three thump-oriented linebackers on the field at all times.
Defenses have gone to nickel backs in passing situations for more than 30 years. Increasingly, nickel defenses have become base defenses in the modern game. Under Mark Dantonio and Pat Narduzzi,MSU resisted the idea of playing a 4-2-5 as a base defense, in first-and-10 situations. But, the use of Hicks in place of Harris as a starter against Oregon and Baylor signaled the beginning of a change.
With Hicks having graduated, MSU sought to improve Harris' versatility and speed for 2015, in anticipation of having him play more snaps against tempo-based spread teams such as Oregon.
Harris has dropped nearly 10 pounds since last year and is capable of playing faster, but seemed to be a bit winded a few times in patrolling the flat in the fourth quarter last week against Western Michigan.
Dantonio talks about the importance of maintaining knee-bend at pre-snap. Don't become a statue. Don't react late. Harris seemed to be one of the players guilty of becoming a bit straight-legged at times last week. Last year against Oregon, he was noticeably winded in failing to sprint to the sideline as a late fourth-and-two play broke to the outside for a touchdown.
As for last week's victory over Western Michigan in which the Spartans allowed 365 yards passing, co-defensive coordinator Mike Tressel felt the Spartans unnecessarily sagged midway through the second half.
"We gave up our first touchdown drive of the entire game came in the third quarter and all of the sudden we thought the sky was falling," Tressel said. "We need to keep our swag about ourselves and we would have been fine."
In terms of a speed and strength package, there might not be a more gifted player on the team than Harris - who has a 400-pound bench and can break 4.6 in the 40. But can he play down-after-down with the quickness and endurance needed to keep Oregon hemmed in at the slot area? That will be a key area of evaluation as Saturday's game progresses.
During his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Dantonio seemed to be challenging Harris.
"Darien is in his fifth-year, he's been elected captain, with that comes an added responsibility in terms of how you play and perform on the field as well," Dantonio said. "He's got tremendous speed. We clocked him under 4.5, and he needs to play like a 4.5 player.
"So sometimes you're trying to do everything right and it slows you down a little bit. You've got to be a reactionary player out there, especially at the starting linebacker position.
"So I think he's right on the money in terms of what he's got to do. He understands what he has to do. These are opportunities, and these are things he'll talk about with his children at some point in time. Games like this, opportunities like this, that's what this is about."
What About The Back-Up?
Does Harris have a quality back-up, like he did at times in 2014?
Well, last year at this time, Hicks wasn't a proven player at 'star' linebacker, or anywhere else. He had gotten on the field a handful of times on special teams and in mop-up duty heading into his senior year. Then, in 2014, MSU elevated him to a specialized role as a nickel back of sorts against uptempo spread teams.
Hicks was a surprise starter against Oregon, and registered a pass break-up on the second play of the game. Later, there were struggles when he didn't get adequate reroutes on receivers. He was a solid contributor. He provided depth. He was lost for five games at midseason to a broken arm, and returned to post a career-high four tackles in the Cotton Bowl against Baylor.
MSU was in the process of trying to develop Jalyn Powell as a DB-type option at 'star' linebacker for 2015, '16 and '17, in moving Powell from safety to linebacker last spring. However, Powell didn't like the move and allowed redshirt freshman T.J. Harrell to edge ahead of him in the depth chart by the end of spring practice. Powell then transferred to Youngstown State, saying he did not want to play linebacker.
Harrell was regarded as a riser at the 'star' linebacker position heading into August camp. But he was overtaken by true freshman Andrew Dowell for second-string status by the end of camp. Among other things, coaches said Harrell needed to show better tackling ability.
Now, Dowell (6-0, 216) is seen as a rising talent in the program. However, his only playing time last week came on special teams.
Against Oregon, the Spartans want to play a two-deep, or more, at every position on the field. MSU came out of 2014 believing that one of the keys to being able to contain the best uptempo spread teams is to play more players.
That seemed like a fine idea when Harris had a back-up like Hicks, or the possibility of a guy like Powell or Harrell, or even former Nebraska player and junior college transfer Drake Martinez.
But Powell is gone, Harrell went south on the depth chart, and Martinez missed the Western Michigan game for undisclosed reasons. In addition, Martinez moved from 'star' linebacker to 'money' linebacker midway through camp in order to give MSU options at the position after starter Ed Davis went down with a season-ending injury.
So Martinez wouldn't be properly soaked with reps at 'star' linebacker, even if he were available. His status for Saturday's game is unknown.
That brings us back to the true freshman, Dowell.
Can Dowell provide quality snaps in the key run-pass conflict area of 'star' linebacker? MSU needs it. Harris needs it.
The strong play of redshirt freshman Vayante Copeland as a starting cornerback last week could result in more trust being given to a rookie like Dowell.
Harris had eight tackles and one TFL against Western Michigan, but MSU needs him to play faster and more consistently on Saturday.
Copeland was solid all day against bubble screens and the occasional deep test. He cinched victory by jamming and stacking WMU's standout receiver Corey Davis on a fade route in the end zone, and intercepted the pass with less than two minutes to play.
"Vayante handled what we put on his plate last week very well," Tressel said. "We feel now like we can put a little bit more on his plate. And we also came out of the game realizing you can't call plays to protect players; you need to let them play."
Sounds like they're talking about guys like Dowell.
"They're here at Michigan State for a reason," Tressel said, of young players who have yet to make an impact. "These are good football players. We need to let them do what they do. Whether it's Oregon or Western Michigan, whether it's at home or on the road, we need to let our guys do what they do."
If Dowell plays, and plays well, it could give Michigan State a fresher, more effective Harris rather than the worn-down Harris we saw last week, and at times in 2014 against Oregon.
A quick question & answer session with Harris regarding this game and the challenges MSU will face:
Q: What did you learn after last year's loss at Oregon?
Harris: That the little things matter. Coach D is always talking about the little things and we saw last year, a step here, a step there can be the difference between an incomplete pass and a touchdown. So we're really focusing on the little things, playing our game and playing to the moment. Just doing the things that we know how to do. We always have a great plan going into a game, we're practicing really hard and we're really confident in what we do.''
Q: What are some of the key elements necessary when playing a team such as Oregon?
Harris: You've got to be able to line up when you're tired. And sometimes, that's one of the hardest things you have to do because your mind is racing with a whole bunch of different things, you feel tired out there, you've been running a lot and you don't necessarily think that you can get into the right position. So that's why we've practiced fast this week. We practiced with a no huddle coming at us and we practiced getting back into our own positions.
Q: Your defense had some missed tackles against Western Michigan. What will you do to correct that against a team like Oregon, who could make you pay for a missed tackle
Harris: Western had a lot of athletes that made a lot of plays for them but we've got to go back to the fundamentals this week. A lot of tackling drills, leveraging the ball, tackling in space, like Coach D always talks about. Obviously, that will be a real key for this game because Oregon does have a lot of athletes that can get free and create on the perimeter. So our project is going to be, getting back to the fundamentals, getting back to the basics and really focusing on the details.''
Specifically for linebackers, do you have to take a differing approach when playing Oregon than you would in other games?
Harris: Yeah, definitely. We can't be downhill thumpers, like we like to be. There's a lot of Big Ten teams that kind of line up in I-Pro and run the ball downhill. But we're going to have to be able to play in space out there and we saw that a lot last year but I feel like we have the athletes to do that in the linebackers room. The game's changing and we've got to be more of cover linebackers rather than run-stopping linebackers and I think everyone's up for the challenge.'
What is your role and your message, on and off the field for this game, as a linebacker and captain for a game like this. Does your role change somewhat?
Harris: I think so. With me being the only one, me and Riley (Bullough), and with Ed (Davis) as the only guys who played in the game last year, it's just a matter of preaching to your guys that you have to be in shape for this game. You can't bulk up in the weight room as much as you want to. You've got to be in shape, nimble, you've got to be able to move, you've got to have loose hips out there. So just being able to preach that to my guys, they took it very well I thought, kind of changed up their habits this summer and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they're going to be able to do.
Have you prepared yourself for the possibility that there could be a lot of points scored Saturday night?
Harris: I don't think that ever comes out of our minds, that they're going to score a lot of points. I think the way that we approach that situation is that there's going to be a lot of adversity out there no matter what. We saw that in our first game, that there was going to adverse situations playing against Western and that it's more about how we were able to play through that. And the same will be for this week and any week after that. That it's just understanding that there's going to be adversity and that it's up to the leaders to get the team to regroup, whether it's the defense or the offense because we know that this is a team game.
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - In today's era of spread option football, no defensive player gets stretched by run-pass conflicts more than the slot-area linebacker.
Michigan State refers to this player as the 'star' linebacker. At other programs that institute a 4-2-5 defense, the player in the slot area might be a safety or basically a third cornerback.
Some programs, such as Virginia Tech, opt to play press man-to-man on the slot receiver with a cornerback.
MSU opts to keep a third linebacker on the field, and play several steps off of the slot receiver. This makes MSU susceptible to short hitches to the slot, as Baylor showed in the Cotton Bowl. And MSU must cover ground quickly versus bubble screens to that area, something the Spartans did exceedingly well against Western Michigan last week, but almost paid for its post-snap aggression against bubbles on one occasion when WMU faked the bubble and then released the slot receiver on a deep wheel route against 'star' linebacker Darien Harris. The receiver was wide open but dropped the pass inside the 10-yard line.
MSU prefers to go relatively heavy at 'star' linebacker with the 6-foot, 220-pound Darien Harris. In addition to being a first-responder to bubble screens, he also has an interior gap responsibility on inside running plays. Basically, that 'star' linebacker in MSU's system is asked to be two places at once. Offenses will stretch him with run-pass conflicts, showing a run action to get him sucked in, and then delivering a pass to his perimeter area. Or offenses may send a slot receiver to the sideline to threaten the bubble, and get Harris to move in that direction, and instead hit MSU inside with a running play, challenging Harris to close the daylight.
Sometimes, offenses like Oregon read Harris and decide whether the play is going to be a run or a pass several beats after the snap, depending on Harris' positioning.
Harris will be a key player at 8 p.m. on Saturday when No. 5 Michigan State plays host to No. 7 Oregon at Spartan Stadium.
A year ago, Harris started 11 of 13 games for the Spartans at 'star' linebacker. But Michigan State started pseudo defensive back Mylan Hicks in the slot linebacker position against Oregon and Baylor. Hicks wasn't great in those games, but his role revealed an evolution within MSU's system, to opt for more of a pure nickel back against some teams rather than keeping three thump-oriented linebackers on the field at all times.
Defenses have gone to nickel backs in passing situations for more than 30 years. Increasingly, nickel defenses have become base defenses in the modern game. Under Mark Dantonio and Pat Narduzzi,MSU resisted the idea of playing a 4-2-5 as a base defense, in first-and-10 situations. But, the use of Hicks in place of Harris as a starter against Oregon and Baylor signaled the beginning of a change.
With Hicks having graduated, MSU sought to improve Harris' versatility and speed for 2015, in anticipation of having him play more snaps against tempo-based spread teams such as Oregon.
Harris has dropped nearly 10 pounds since last year and is capable of playing faster, but seemed to be a bit winded a few times in patrolling the flat in the fourth quarter last week against Western Michigan.
Dantonio talks about the importance of maintaining knee-bend at pre-snap. Don't become a statue. Don't react late. Harris seemed to be one of the players guilty of becoming a bit straight-legged at times last week. Last year against Oregon, he was noticeably winded in failing to sprint to the sideline as a late fourth-and-two play broke to the outside for a touchdown.
As for last week's victory over Western Michigan in which the Spartans allowed 365 yards passing, co-defensive coordinator Mike Tressel felt the Spartans unnecessarily sagged midway through the second half.
"We gave up our first touchdown drive of the entire game came in the third quarter and all of the sudden we thought the sky was falling," Tressel said. "We need to keep our swag about ourselves and we would have been fine."
In terms of a speed and strength package, there might not be a more gifted player on the team than Harris - who has a 400-pound bench and can break 4.6 in the 40. But can he play down-after-down with the quickness and endurance needed to keep Oregon hemmed in at the slot area? That will be a key area of evaluation as Saturday's game progresses.
During his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Dantonio seemed to be challenging Harris.
"Darien is in his fifth-year, he's been elected captain, with that comes an added responsibility in terms of how you play and perform on the field as well," Dantonio said. "He's got tremendous speed. We clocked him under 4.5, and he needs to play like a 4.5 player.
"So sometimes you're trying to do everything right and it slows you down a little bit. You've got to be a reactionary player out there, especially at the starting linebacker position.
"So I think he's right on the money in terms of what he's got to do. He understands what he has to do. These are opportunities, and these are things he'll talk about with his children at some point in time. Games like this, opportunities like this, that's what this is about."
What About The Back-Up?
Does Harris have a quality back-up, like he did at times in 2014?
Well, last year at this time, Hicks wasn't a proven player at 'star' linebacker, or anywhere else. He had gotten on the field a handful of times on special teams and in mop-up duty heading into his senior year. Then, in 2014, MSU elevated him to a specialized role as a nickel back of sorts against uptempo spread teams.
Hicks was a surprise starter against Oregon, and registered a pass break-up on the second play of the game. Later, there were struggles when he didn't get adequate reroutes on receivers. He was a solid contributor. He provided depth. He was lost for five games at midseason to a broken arm, and returned to post a career-high four tackles in the Cotton Bowl against Baylor.
MSU was in the process of trying to develop Jalyn Powell as a DB-type option at 'star' linebacker for 2015, '16 and '17, in moving Powell from safety to linebacker last spring. However, Powell didn't like the move and allowed redshirt freshman T.J. Harrell to edge ahead of him in the depth chart by the end of spring practice. Powell then transferred to Youngstown State, saying he did not want to play linebacker.
Harrell was regarded as a riser at the 'star' linebacker position heading into August camp. But he was overtaken by true freshman Andrew Dowell for second-string status by the end of camp. Among other things, coaches said Harrell needed to show better tackling ability.
Now, Dowell (6-0, 216) is seen as a rising talent in the program. However, his only playing time last week came on special teams.
Against Oregon, the Spartans want to play a two-deep, or more, at every position on the field. MSU came out of 2014 believing that one of the keys to being able to contain the best uptempo spread teams is to play more players.
That seemed like a fine idea when Harris had a back-up like Hicks, or the possibility of a guy like Powell or Harrell, or even former Nebraska player and junior college transfer Drake Martinez.
But Powell is gone, Harrell went south on the depth chart, and Martinez missed the Western Michigan game for undisclosed reasons. In addition, Martinez moved from 'star' linebacker to 'money' linebacker midway through camp in order to give MSU options at the position after starter Ed Davis went down with a season-ending injury.
So Martinez wouldn't be properly soaked with reps at 'star' linebacker, even if he were available. His status for Saturday's game is unknown.
That brings us back to the true freshman, Dowell.
Can Dowell provide quality snaps in the key run-pass conflict area of 'star' linebacker? MSU needs it. Harris needs it.
The strong play of redshirt freshman Vayante Copeland as a starting cornerback last week could result in more trust being given to a rookie like Dowell.
Harris had eight tackles and one TFL against Western Michigan, but MSU needs him to play faster and more consistently on Saturday.
Copeland was solid all day against bubble screens and the occasional deep test. He cinched victory by jamming and stacking WMU's standout receiver Corey Davis on a fade route in the end zone, and intercepted the pass with less than two minutes to play.
"Vayante handled what we put on his plate last week very well," Tressel said. "We feel now like we can put a little bit more on his plate. And we also came out of the game realizing you can't call plays to protect players; you need to let them play."
Sounds like they're talking about guys like Dowell.
"They're here at Michigan State for a reason," Tressel said, of young players who have yet to make an impact. "These are good football players. We need to let them do what they do. Whether it's Oregon or Western Michigan, whether it's at home or on the road, we need to let our guys do what they do."
If Dowell plays, and plays well, it could give Michigan State a fresher, more effective Harris rather than the worn-down Harris we saw last week, and at times in 2014 against Oregon.
A quick question & answer session with Harris regarding this game and the challenges MSU will face:
Q: What did you learn after last year's loss at Oregon?
Harris: That the little things matter. Coach D is always talking about the little things and we saw last year, a step here, a step there can be the difference between an incomplete pass and a touchdown. So we're really focusing on the little things, playing our game and playing to the moment. Just doing the things that we know how to do. We always have a great plan going into a game, we're practicing really hard and we're really confident in what we do.''
Q: What are some of the key elements necessary when playing a team such as Oregon?
Harris: You've got to be able to line up when you're tired. And sometimes, that's one of the hardest things you have to do because your mind is racing with a whole bunch of different things, you feel tired out there, you've been running a lot and you don't necessarily think that you can get into the right position. So that's why we've practiced fast this week. We practiced with a no huddle coming at us and we practiced getting back into our own positions.
Q: Your defense had some missed tackles against Western Michigan. What will you do to correct that against a team like Oregon, who could make you pay for a missed tackle
Harris: Western had a lot of athletes that made a lot of plays for them but we've got to go back to the fundamentals this week. A lot of tackling drills, leveraging the ball, tackling in space, like Coach D always talks about. Obviously, that will be a real key for this game because Oregon does have a lot of athletes that can get free and create on the perimeter. So our project is going to be, getting back to the fundamentals, getting back to the basics and really focusing on the details.''
Specifically for linebackers, do you have to take a differing approach when playing Oregon than you would in other games?
Harris: Yeah, definitely. We can't be downhill thumpers, like we like to be. There's a lot of Big Ten teams that kind of line up in I-Pro and run the ball downhill. But we're going to have to be able to play in space out there and we saw that a lot last year but I feel like we have the athletes to do that in the linebackers room. The game's changing and we've got to be more of cover linebackers rather than run-stopping linebackers and I think everyone's up for the challenge.'
What is your role and your message, on and off the field for this game, as a linebacker and captain for a game like this. Does your role change somewhat?
Harris: I think so. With me being the only one, me and Riley (Bullough), and with Ed (Davis) as the only guys who played in the game last year, it's just a matter of preaching to your guys that you have to be in shape for this game. You can't bulk up in the weight room as much as you want to. You've got to be in shape, nimble, you've got to be able to move, you've got to have loose hips out there. So just being able to preach that to my guys, they took it very well I thought, kind of changed up their habits this summer and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they're going to be able to do.
Have you prepared yourself for the possibility that there could be a lot of points scored Saturday night?
Harris: I don't think that ever comes out of our minds, that they're going to score a lot of points. I think the way that we approach that situation is that there's going to be a lot of adversity out there no matter what. We saw that in our first game, that there was going to adverse situations playing against Western and that it's more about how we were able to play through that. And the same will be for this week and any week after that. That it's just understanding that there's going to be adversity and that it's up to the leaders to get the team to regroup, whether it's the defense or the offense because we know that this is a team game.
DotComp: Measuring This Sample Against Oregon
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DotComp: Measuring this sample against Oregon
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
KALAMAZOO - Okay, let's be honest. At the conclusion of Friday night's game, we asked ourselves: Based on MSU's uneven 37-24 victory at Western Michigan, do we now feel MSU has a better chance to beat Oregon, or a worse chance?
First of all, the Oregon we have in mind is last year's Oregon. We should table all thoughts about Oregon until we actually see the 2015 Ducks play against an FBS opponent (which they won't until they visit Spartan Stadium next week).
Regardless of whether Oregon's new quarterback, Vernon Adams, is even remotely comparable to 2014 Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, we can be sure about this: Oregon will have speed at wide receiver. They'll play fast, try to get you tired, make you sub-in some second-string DBs, and then test you with more speed.
I had concerns about MSU's ability to handle high-end speed at wide out prior to Friday's game. Now, those concerns are more well-founded.
That doesn't mean the MSU secondary and the defense as a whole can't be ultimately successful. It's just going to make it trickier, with tighter margin for error.
We knew the Broncos - with the best passing attack in the Mid-America Conference, led by true NFL prospect split end Corey Davis - were going to give the Spartans' new cornerbacks a major college test on opening night. He did, and MSU passed most of the tests, but I come away a bit concerned about the top-end speed of junior cornerback Demetrious Cox, and MSU's other options at the position.
I really like Cox as a player. And he is doing what he can to help this team by playing cornerback. But let's get this straight: MSU has three very good safeties on this team, and one cornerback that I'm currently comfortable with (Vayante Copeland).
Cox is one of the three quality safeties, along with Montae Nicholson and RJ Williamson. Cox is undoubtedly one of the four best DBs on this team. So he needs to be on the field. He is the safety best-suited to move to cornerback, as the Spartans search for answers at that position. He has made the transition to corner, and he looks pretty good in some aspects, very good in other aspects, but when Davis ran past him on a deep go route on Friday night, it might have revealed a little bit about the ceiling of this Spartan defense. And it's a ceiling that the very best offenses and wide receivers might exploit in difference-making situations this season.
Know this: Davis is a terrific receiver. "He's going to get drafted," Michigan State co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett said outside the locker room following Friday's game, on his way to meet family members and board the team bus.
Cox did a good job of muscling him on some plays. On the deep go route, Cox worked the route properly, turned his hips well, funneled Davis to the outside, and he ran with Davis initially. But then Davis hit another gear and Cox couldn't quite match it. With Davis, once he was even with Cox, he was leavin', as they say.
Davis didn't finish the play, didn't come up with the catch. But the example remains on film. Others will continue to test Cox, the way they tested Darian Hicks last year. The thing Cox has that Hicks didn't have is physical strength at the line of scrimmage. That will help.
Getting beat deep by Davis was no huge sin for Cox. We've seen the great Trae Waynes allow a receiver to run past him from time to time (see the first quarter of the 2014 Rose Bowl).
Cox's top-end speed is something we had to wonder about because we quite frankly haven't seen him play the position (other than a few snaps in the Cotton Bowl), due to practices being closed.
I'm hesitant to arrive at absolutes based on just one game. But it's hard to improve one's top-end speed during the course of a season. I'm not ready to say Cox's speed is a problem. Not at all. He will have plenty of juice against most opponents, on most plays. But we can be sure that Oregon will test him next week. And it might take only one or two failed tests to swing the balance of a game, when you're trying to play for a National Championship.
This is the good thing about Cox: He has excellent size and physicality at the line of scrimmage. He's a team-oriented guy, playing for arguably the best defensive backs coaches in America. He's well-schooled in the fundamentals, and does a good job of taking away inside routes while moving his feet and hips quickly enough to stay in phase.
This skill and physical ability made him an excellent player last night in the red zone. He pressed Davis several times in the red zone, controlled the route, influenced where the passing window would be, and then closed on that window with smarts and physicality. Western Michigan tried to beat him, and Copeland, with fade routes in the red zone, and failed.
Cox's ability to play strong in the red zone is a major, major plus.
Settle It In The Red Zone
Being able to win in red zone is becoming a difference-making component in today's college football. "It's pretty much all about finishing in the red zone today, wouldn't you agree?" said Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen last January while watching the National Championship Game with other coaches as part of an ESPNU live studio program.
I thought Mullen's quote, and his colleagues' agreement, was fascinating. And I'm not going to argue with him. Learn from him.
The fast, ball-setting rules combined with the uptempo spreads of today's college football have made it harder to stop quality offenses between the 20-yard lines than ever before. Scoring and rushing yardage have escalated, nationally, in recent years, thanks in part to uptempo spread offenses.
Against the best offenses, a Top 10 defense can give up 500 yards and 30-plus points and come out of it feeling it has played well enough to win.
Michigan State has arrived at the philosophy that the answer against the best, uptempo spread teams (such as Oregon) is to stop the run, make a team one-dimensional with the pass, contain those passes between the 20-yard lines by tackling well in space and preventing the big play. And if said offense is proficient enough to get inside your 25-yard line, then stop them there once you're able to squeeze routes a little tighter due to the safeties and slot-area linebacker being able to play in closer quarters as the field shrinks.
Believe it or not, this strategy might have worked just fine against the best offense in the country last year - Baylor. But that game remains a nightmare of sorts for Spartan fans, despite the historic victory. Seeing the Bears throw for 600-plus yards makes some wonder what the heck MSU was doing in pass coverage on that day. Seeing Western Michigan chuck it around for 365 on Friday night reawakens some of those concerns, especially with Waynes having left for the NFL.
The chief problem for MSU in the litmus test against Baylor wasn't the fact that Baylor completed an absurd number of short routes to the free-release slot area, but that the Bears scored
three touchdowns from outside the red zone. MSU felt it was on schedule, defensively, in allowing the short-area, slot stuff while shutting down the run.
MSU planned to stop Baylor in the red zone, and did so on four occasions. MSU forced four Baylor field goals. No one forces Baylor to attempt that many field goals.
But Baylor wrecked MSU's ideas by scoring three times from outside the red zone. (One TD coming on a double-pass trick play, and another when Cox and Williamson miscommunicated on how to squeeze a cover-three seam.) (Baylor punched in a 19-yard TD pass on a trick play to an offensive lineman. Western Michigan went to a similar wrinkle trick of sorts in sneaking an h-back past linebacker Darien Harris for a 29-yard TD.)
Why am I talking about the Baylor game? Because Baylor - along with Ohio State and Oregon - represent the state of the art in college offenses. And Baylor is the most recent state-of-the-art offense that MSU has played. Oregon will be the next. MSU is in the conversation as a National Championship contender. Beating Oregon next week will allow MSU to stay in that conversation.
Some of MSU's theories worked against Baylor. Some didn't. Meanwhile, Western Michigan succeeded in probing some of the soft areas of MSU's zone defense that were also compromised by Baylor.
Was MSU's pass defense exposed by this MAC opponent on Friday night? I wouldn't go that far. Again, I'm cautious about arriving at absolutes.
It was uncomfortable for Spartan fans to watch Western Michigan slot receiver Daniel Braverman scurry around for 13 catches and 109 yards on Friday.
In the SPARTAN Plus Pre-Snap Read, we predicted that Braverman would be a bigger problem than Davis. It's unclear whether that turned out to be true, but the point is that the mixture of WMU's system, along with Braverman's talent and the soft spots in the Spartans' base zone coverage, led us to conclude that the ball was going to get fed to Braverman. MSU knew it, and tried to limit his yards after the catch, while hoping to dish out some hard hit. As it turned out, MSU didn't get than many hard hits on him. That kid is good.
The WMU quarterback was on-time and on-the-money, and Braverman finished all but one of his opportunities (failing to haul in a deep wheel route against Harris, on a well-conceived trick play. On that play, WMU faked a bubble screen to Braverman, then sprung him down the sideline on a the wheel after the bubble action sucked the play-side safety away from helping. This ploy matched Braverman's speed on Harris, giving Braverman the one-step edge in knowing where the play was headed.)
That wheel route wrinkle, and the sneak route to the H-back (and Baylor's TD pass to the offensive lineman) represent the answer to the answer for offenses. If a quality defense such as MSU is going to play bend-but-don't-break and then try to stop you in the red zone, the answer for some offenses is becoming to run trick plays in the red zone, or at the edge of the red zone. Save your trick plays for the edge of the red zone. That's a novel concept. WMU did it on Friday night, and they were smart to do it, because Cox and Copeland were good in the red zone, and Braverman's effectiveness diminishes as the offense gets closer to the goal line.
So why was Braverman so open all the time? That's just the way MSU plays it. Every coverage as a weakness, as Dantonio likes to say. MSU elects to be soft in the slot area. MSU wants to press the corners, play the safeties shallow, and have the slot-area LB (Harris) leaning more to help stop the run than most 4-2-5 defenses might do these days.
Making sure to stop the run leaves MSU a little more vulnerable to short-area curls and some intermediate benders. MSU is willing to make that trade, between the 20s.
Braverman, with his excellent ability to read defenses, and run tight routes, continually sat down in weak spots in the zone. WMU quarterback Zach Terrell, was excellent in anticipating the openings, delivering the ball on-time and on-target, and doing so without telegraphing passes. Dantonio was most impressed with his ability to remain efficient despite getting rocked by seven sacks, and several other hurries and knockdowns.
Some Numbers To Consider
Western Michigan amassed 365 yards on 50 pass attempts.
When including the seven sacks, WMU netted just 326 yards of passing on 57 attempts. That's an average of 5.7 yards per pass attempt. That average would lead the Big Ten in that category, most years.
The 365 yards might seem extreme. But when wrapped within the overall construct, combined with allowing just 18 yards of rushing, and making the Broncos one-dimensional on offense, MSU's pass defense might not have been as substandard as one may think.
Will MSU mix up its coverages a bit more against Oregon, and change the pictures of its soft spots for the new Ducks QB? Changing coverages hasn't been MSU's mode of operation in the past, and that philosophy has served them well.
However, Oregon's run game will be much harder to stop than WMU's. We may see Oregon return to the QB keeper in the spread option being more of a facet to its offense than it was last year, when the Ducks were trying to protect Mariota.
WMU did some good things on offense, but the Broncos don't have nearly the run-pass conflict component that the Ducks will present.
But MSU will play more players than last year, try to stay fresh, try to contain the ground game, try to limit big plays by tackling in space, and stop Oregon in the red zone. In the meantime, there is no margin for error at cornerback. Can't get beat deep. That's where Cox will need to answer.
And so will the other corners.
Copeland was pretty good most of the night. He gave up a route or two to Davis on some fine angle routes. But for the most part, he was excellent for a freshman playing in his first game.
Second-stringers Arjen Colquhoun and Jermaine Edmondson were each beaten on significant plays, in limited playing time. That wasn't a positive.
Overall, MSU's individuals in the secondary didn't get beat much. I counted three or four times in 57 pass attempts. The other completions were structural, not individual beatings. And it's a structure MSU may tweak here and there, but is unlikely to change. And I don't blame them.
"I thought they played pretty well," Dantonio said of the cornerbacks. "I would say they are solid right now. But it's a game-to-game thing.
"We made some mistakes that have got to be cleaned up, but that happens in the first game."
How confident is Dantonio that those mistakes will get corrected?
"Very confident," Dantonio said. "We've got good players. We have players playing for the first time, like Vayante Copeland. I thought he did a nice job. Demetrious Cox is out playing full-time corner, probably for the second time. Arjen Colquhoun played and Jermaine Edmondson played. So we had a lot of guys out there playing, and they're all going to get better because they all had an opportunity to play. So they're going to prepare even more, and they'll know what to work on. That's usually the way it goes. You get more confident.
"Davis is a very good player," Dantonio added. "The quarterback was on target. Everybody's got good players. You can see why they were effective last year. And they didn't quit. Well-coached football team. They were going to have a plan.
"They max protected, and they made plays," Dantonio said of WMU's passing attack. (The max protection component, by the way, was something we highlighted in the Spartan Plus Skull Session podcast and the Pre-Snap Read).
"We played very, very well against the run, it's just that guys got loose," Dantonio said. "They were sort of isolating it and throwing it to No. 84, and he's a good player."
And it should make Cox, and the rest of them, that much better by next week, having faced some quality opposition at the WR position on Friday night.
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
KALAMAZOO - Okay, let's be honest. At the conclusion of Friday night's game, we asked ourselves: Based on MSU's uneven 37-24 victory at Western Michigan, do we now feel MSU has a better chance to beat Oregon, or a worse chance?
First of all, the Oregon we have in mind is last year's Oregon. We should table all thoughts about Oregon until we actually see the 2015 Ducks play against an FBS opponent (which they won't until they visit Spartan Stadium next week).
Regardless of whether Oregon's new quarterback, Vernon Adams, is even remotely comparable to 2014 Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, we can be sure about this: Oregon will have speed at wide receiver. They'll play fast, try to get you tired, make you sub-in some second-string DBs, and then test you with more speed.
I had concerns about MSU's ability to handle high-end speed at wide out prior to Friday's game. Now, those concerns are more well-founded.
That doesn't mean the MSU secondary and the defense as a whole can't be ultimately successful. It's just going to make it trickier, with tighter margin for error.
We knew the Broncos - with the best passing attack in the Mid-America Conference, led by true NFL prospect split end Corey Davis - were going to give the Spartans' new cornerbacks a major college test on opening night. He did, and MSU passed most of the tests, but I come away a bit concerned about the top-end speed of junior cornerback Demetrious Cox, and MSU's other options at the position.
I really like Cox as a player. And he is doing what he can to help this team by playing cornerback. But let's get this straight: MSU has three very good safeties on this team, and one cornerback that I'm currently comfortable with (Vayante Copeland).
Cox is one of the three quality safeties, along with Montae Nicholson and RJ Williamson. Cox is undoubtedly one of the four best DBs on this team. So he needs to be on the field. He is the safety best-suited to move to cornerback, as the Spartans search for answers at that position. He has made the transition to corner, and he looks pretty good in some aspects, very good in other aspects, but when Davis ran past him on a deep go route on Friday night, it might have revealed a little bit about the ceiling of this Spartan defense. And it's a ceiling that the very best offenses and wide receivers might exploit in difference-making situations this season.
Know this: Davis is a terrific receiver. "He's going to get drafted," Michigan State co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett said outside the locker room following Friday's game, on his way to meet family members and board the team bus.
Cox did a good job of muscling him on some plays. On the deep go route, Cox worked the route properly, turned his hips well, funneled Davis to the outside, and he ran with Davis initially. But then Davis hit another gear and Cox couldn't quite match it. With Davis, once he was even with Cox, he was leavin', as they say.
Davis didn't finish the play, didn't come up with the catch. But the example remains on film. Others will continue to test Cox, the way they tested Darian Hicks last year. The thing Cox has that Hicks didn't have is physical strength at the line of scrimmage. That will help.
Getting beat deep by Davis was no huge sin for Cox. We've seen the great Trae Waynes allow a receiver to run past him from time to time (see the first quarter of the 2014 Rose Bowl).
Cox's top-end speed is something we had to wonder about because we quite frankly haven't seen him play the position (other than a few snaps in the Cotton Bowl), due to practices being closed.
I'm hesitant to arrive at absolutes based on just one game. But it's hard to improve one's top-end speed during the course of a season. I'm not ready to say Cox's speed is a problem. Not at all. He will have plenty of juice against most opponents, on most plays. But we can be sure that Oregon will test him next week. And it might take only one or two failed tests to swing the balance of a game, when you're trying to play for a National Championship.
This is the good thing about Cox: He has excellent size and physicality at the line of scrimmage. He's a team-oriented guy, playing for arguably the best defensive backs coaches in America. He's well-schooled in the fundamentals, and does a good job of taking away inside routes while moving his feet and hips quickly enough to stay in phase.
This skill and physical ability made him an excellent player last night in the red zone. He pressed Davis several times in the red zone, controlled the route, influenced where the passing window would be, and then closed on that window with smarts and physicality. Western Michigan tried to beat him, and Copeland, with fade routes in the red zone, and failed.
Cox's ability to play strong in the red zone is a major, major plus.
Settle It In The Red Zone
Being able to win in red zone is becoming a difference-making component in today's college football. "It's pretty much all about finishing in the red zone today, wouldn't you agree?" said Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen last January while watching the National Championship Game with other coaches as part of an ESPNU live studio program.
I thought Mullen's quote, and his colleagues' agreement, was fascinating. And I'm not going to argue with him. Learn from him.
The fast, ball-setting rules combined with the uptempo spreads of today's college football have made it harder to stop quality offenses between the 20-yard lines than ever before. Scoring and rushing yardage have escalated, nationally, in recent years, thanks in part to uptempo spread offenses.
Against the best offenses, a Top 10 defense can give up 500 yards and 30-plus points and come out of it feeling it has played well enough to win.
Michigan State has arrived at the philosophy that the answer against the best, uptempo spread teams (such as Oregon) is to stop the run, make a team one-dimensional with the pass, contain those passes between the 20-yard lines by tackling well in space and preventing the big play. And if said offense is proficient enough to get inside your 25-yard line, then stop them there once you're able to squeeze routes a little tighter due to the safeties and slot-area linebacker being able to play in closer quarters as the field shrinks.
Believe it or not, this strategy might have worked just fine against the best offense in the country last year - Baylor. But that game remains a nightmare of sorts for Spartan fans, despite the historic victory. Seeing the Bears throw for 600-plus yards makes some wonder what the heck MSU was doing in pass coverage on that day. Seeing Western Michigan chuck it around for 365 on Friday night reawakens some of those concerns, especially with Waynes having left for the NFL.
The chief problem for MSU in the litmus test against Baylor wasn't the fact that Baylor completed an absurd number of short routes to the free-release slot area, but that the Bears scored
three touchdowns from outside the red zone. MSU felt it was on schedule, defensively, in allowing the short-area, slot stuff while shutting down the run.
MSU planned to stop Baylor in the red zone, and did so on four occasions. MSU forced four Baylor field goals. No one forces Baylor to attempt that many field goals.
But Baylor wrecked MSU's ideas by scoring three times from outside the red zone. (One TD coming on a double-pass trick play, and another when Cox and Williamson miscommunicated on how to squeeze a cover-three seam.) (Baylor punched in a 19-yard TD pass on a trick play to an offensive lineman. Western Michigan went to a similar wrinkle trick of sorts in sneaking an h-back past linebacker Darien Harris for a 29-yard TD.)
Why am I talking about the Baylor game? Because Baylor - along with Ohio State and Oregon - represent the state of the art in college offenses. And Baylor is the most recent state-of-the-art offense that MSU has played. Oregon will be the next. MSU is in the conversation as a National Championship contender. Beating Oregon next week will allow MSU to stay in that conversation.
Some of MSU's theories worked against Baylor. Some didn't. Meanwhile, Western Michigan succeeded in probing some of the soft areas of MSU's zone defense that were also compromised by Baylor.
Was MSU's pass defense exposed by this MAC opponent on Friday night? I wouldn't go that far. Again, I'm cautious about arriving at absolutes.
It was uncomfortable for Spartan fans to watch Western Michigan slot receiver Daniel Braverman scurry around for 13 catches and 109 yards on Friday.
In the SPARTAN Plus Pre-Snap Read, we predicted that Braverman would be a bigger problem than Davis. It's unclear whether that turned out to be true, but the point is that the mixture of WMU's system, along with Braverman's talent and the soft spots in the Spartans' base zone coverage, led us to conclude that the ball was going to get fed to Braverman. MSU knew it, and tried to limit his yards after the catch, while hoping to dish out some hard hit. As it turned out, MSU didn't get than many hard hits on him. That kid is good.
The WMU quarterback was on-time and on-the-money, and Braverman finished all but one of his opportunities (failing to haul in a deep wheel route against Harris, on a well-conceived trick play. On that play, WMU faked a bubble screen to Braverman, then sprung him down the sideline on a the wheel after the bubble action sucked the play-side safety away from helping. This ploy matched Braverman's speed on Harris, giving Braverman the one-step edge in knowing where the play was headed.)
That wheel route wrinkle, and the sneak route to the H-back (and Baylor's TD pass to the offensive lineman) represent the answer to the answer for offenses. If a quality defense such as MSU is going to play bend-but-don't-break and then try to stop you in the red zone, the answer for some offenses is becoming to run trick plays in the red zone, or at the edge of the red zone. Save your trick plays for the edge of the red zone. That's a novel concept. WMU did it on Friday night, and they were smart to do it, because Cox and Copeland were good in the red zone, and Braverman's effectiveness diminishes as the offense gets closer to the goal line.
So why was Braverman so open all the time? That's just the way MSU plays it. Every coverage as a weakness, as Dantonio likes to say. MSU elects to be soft in the slot area. MSU wants to press the corners, play the safeties shallow, and have the slot-area LB (Harris) leaning more to help stop the run than most 4-2-5 defenses might do these days.
Making sure to stop the run leaves MSU a little more vulnerable to short-area curls and some intermediate benders. MSU is willing to make that trade, between the 20s.
Braverman, with his excellent ability to read defenses, and run tight routes, continually sat down in weak spots in the zone. WMU quarterback Zach Terrell, was excellent in anticipating the openings, delivering the ball on-time and on-target, and doing so without telegraphing passes. Dantonio was most impressed with his ability to remain efficient despite getting rocked by seven sacks, and several other hurries and knockdowns.
Some Numbers To Consider
Western Michigan amassed 365 yards on 50 pass attempts.
When including the seven sacks, WMU netted just 326 yards of passing on 57 attempts. That's an average of 5.7 yards per pass attempt. That average would lead the Big Ten in that category, most years.
The 365 yards might seem extreme. But when wrapped within the overall construct, combined with allowing just 18 yards of rushing, and making the Broncos one-dimensional on offense, MSU's pass defense might not have been as substandard as one may think.
Will MSU mix up its coverages a bit more against Oregon, and change the pictures of its soft spots for the new Ducks QB? Changing coverages hasn't been MSU's mode of operation in the past, and that philosophy has served them well.
However, Oregon's run game will be much harder to stop than WMU's. We may see Oregon return to the QB keeper in the spread option being more of a facet to its offense than it was last year, when the Ducks were trying to protect Mariota.
WMU did some good things on offense, but the Broncos don't have nearly the run-pass conflict component that the Ducks will present.
But MSU will play more players than last year, try to stay fresh, try to contain the ground game, try to limit big plays by tackling in space, and stop Oregon in the red zone. In the meantime, there is no margin for error at cornerback. Can't get beat deep. That's where Cox will need to answer.
And so will the other corners.
Copeland was pretty good most of the night. He gave up a route or two to Davis on some fine angle routes. But for the most part, he was excellent for a freshman playing in his first game.
Second-stringers Arjen Colquhoun and Jermaine Edmondson were each beaten on significant plays, in limited playing time. That wasn't a positive.
Overall, MSU's individuals in the secondary didn't get beat much. I counted three or four times in 57 pass attempts. The other completions were structural, not individual beatings. And it's a structure MSU may tweak here and there, but is unlikely to change. And I don't blame them.
"I thought they played pretty well," Dantonio said of the cornerbacks. "I would say they are solid right now. But it's a game-to-game thing.
"We made some mistakes that have got to be cleaned up, but that happens in the first game."
How confident is Dantonio that those mistakes will get corrected?
"Very confident," Dantonio said. "We've got good players. We have players playing for the first time, like Vayante Copeland. I thought he did a nice job. Demetrious Cox is out playing full-time corner, probably for the second time. Arjen Colquhoun played and Jermaine Edmondson played. So we had a lot of guys out there playing, and they're all going to get better because they all had an opportunity to play. So they're going to prepare even more, and they'll know what to work on. That's usually the way it goes. You get more confident.
"Davis is a very good player," Dantonio added. "The quarterback was on target. Everybody's got good players. You can see why they were effective last year. And they didn't quit. Well-coached football team. They were going to have a plan.
"They max protected, and they made plays," Dantonio said of WMU's passing attack. (The max protection component, by the way, was something we highlighted in the Spartan Plus Skull Session podcast and the Pre-Snap Read).
"We played very, very well against the run, it's just that guys got loose," Dantonio said. "They were sort of isolating it and throwing it to No. 84, and he's a good player."
And it should make Cox, and the rest of them, that much better by next week, having faced some quality opposition at the WR position on Friday night.
Jack Allen: Driven 'for the good of the team'
- Spartans Illustrated Message Board
- 4 Replies
A version of this story was posted earlier today.
We reworked it a bit for its current slot:
Jack Allen driven 'for the good of the team'
Ricardo Cooney
SpartanMag.com Staff Writer
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - During Michigan State's spring football season, senior offensive lineman Jack Allen said being one of six finalists in voting for the Rimington Trophy (awarded to the nation's best center) would serve as part of his motivation for having a successful final season as a Spartan.
Allen's answer came after he had once again been asked about the holding call during Jeremy Langford's apparent 11-yard touchdown run vs. Ohio State. The flag denied MSU what could have been a two-touchdown lead over the Buckeyes at halftime in the game that decided the champion of the Big Ten's East Division.
The flag resulted in a field goal attempt, which missed - followed by an OSU touchdown, and a far different vibe for the rest of the evening, and the season.
Robert Hendricks
Fifth-year senior offensive lineman Jack Allen wants to be one his team's leaders this season.
The Buckeyes went on to win that contest 49-37 before destroying Wisconsin 59-0 in the conference's title game en route to an eventual national championship.
OSU's run to the national title is something MSU seems capable of matching in 2016, after consecutive 11-win seasons and Top 5 national finishes in the polls. A senior-loaded roster that knows and understands what it takes to put itself in a position to make a national title run begins, in some ways, with Allen - the man who initiates every offensive play. He's also the man QB Connor Cook relies upon to make adjustments to blocking schemes and protections just seconds before each snap.
Now, Allen is making adjustments to some of his stated goals and intentions. Apparently, after reviewing his spring response to the question about the flag, and some soul searching, Allen has changed his answer a bit. When asked again, during Media Day in early August, about the Rimington Trophy, and the penalty against the Buckeyes, his answer and philosophy were decidedly different.
"I'm not really worried about things like that. All I can focus on is how well I play for my teammates and Michigan State,'' said Allen, who has 30 starts at center and five at left guard. "Luckily, I've had coaches and people like Ken Mannie to help keep me humble. So my main motivation, the chip that I've held onto, has come from those coaches, scouts and evaluators who said I either wasn't big enough, wasn't fast enough or wasn't strong to play at this level for Michigan State. Actually, I think most of the schools and a lot of coaches in the Big Ten didn't think I would be good enough to play at this level. So the fact that I have been able to find some success at this level with this team means so much more.''
That being said, Allen is still just the fourth center in MSU history to be named a first team All-American at his position. And he will probably garner All-America status again this season, if he continues to build off of what he has done in his first three seasons as a Spartan.
But Allen wants something bigger - for himself and his teammates. And he wants to do it by being one of the leaders behind MSU's success.
That's why Allen has abandoned all talk of individual success for a chance to lead his team to the same trek the Buckeyes enjoyed last season as eventual national champions.
So much so, that the 6-foot-2, 296-pound lineman was clear about his desires for the 2015 Spartans. Clear enough for him to admit that he has been working on something during the offseason that has really never been a part of his training: stepping outside of his comfort zone to become more of a vocal leader.
Robert Hendricks
Expect more vocal leadership from Jack Allen.
"I've had good role models in that area,'' he said. "I look at guys likeKirk Cousins and Joel Foreman and see how they handled themselves as leaders and how much the team respected them and what they had to say and I think I can do that. I'm still not where I need to be as a vocal leader because that's never been me in the past. Ever since I started playing football, I was always that guy that led by example. I was told or taught what to do and did that on the field and that's how I was a leader. But I understand that you have to be a guy that's willing to stand up, and step up and out of your comfort zone for the good of the team and your teammates.''
Part of the culmination in that training will be revealed when Allen delivers - at some point during August camp - his senior speech. It's a rite of passage for every senior, throughout the course of preseason practice.
"I've got some things written down that I want to say but I know there's got to be other stuff that I talk about that comes from the heart,'' he said. "And most of that will be about what it's meant to be a part of this program and play with these guys. It really has been an honor to be able to play here.''
And what would it mean for him to be named a captain during his final season in green and white? Well, even though he is not as polished a speaker as he would like to be, Allen had no problem expressing what it would mean to be named one of the team's leaders by his peers.
"I'm not going to say it's the only thing I've thought about because I still have a job to do whether I'm in that position or not but, yes, I would consider it an honor if these guys thought enough of me and about me to have me represent them as one of the leaders," he said.
If that's the case and Allen is fortunate enough to earn the honor of being named a captain, you get the sense that that would hold so much more meaning for him than any postseason honor ever could have during his tenure.
And it would just fuel his fire to deliver, first and foremost, for the good of the team.
We reworked it a bit for its current slot:
Jack Allen driven 'for the good of the team'
Ricardo Cooney
SpartanMag.com Staff Writer
Talk about it in The Underground Bunker
EAST LANSING - During Michigan State's spring football season, senior offensive lineman Jack Allen said being one of six finalists in voting for the Rimington Trophy (awarded to the nation's best center) would serve as part of his motivation for having a successful final season as a Spartan.
Allen's answer came after he had once again been asked about the holding call during Jeremy Langford's apparent 11-yard touchdown run vs. Ohio State. The flag denied MSU what could have been a two-touchdown lead over the Buckeyes at halftime in the game that decided the champion of the Big Ten's East Division.
The flag resulted in a field goal attempt, which missed - followed by an OSU touchdown, and a far different vibe for the rest of the evening, and the season.
Robert Hendricks
Fifth-year senior offensive lineman Jack Allen wants to be one his team's leaders this season.
The Buckeyes went on to win that contest 49-37 before destroying Wisconsin 59-0 in the conference's title game en route to an eventual national championship.
OSU's run to the national title is something MSU seems capable of matching in 2016, after consecutive 11-win seasons and Top 5 national finishes in the polls. A senior-loaded roster that knows and understands what it takes to put itself in a position to make a national title run begins, in some ways, with Allen - the man who initiates every offensive play. He's also the man QB Connor Cook relies upon to make adjustments to blocking schemes and protections just seconds before each snap.
Now, Allen is making adjustments to some of his stated goals and intentions. Apparently, after reviewing his spring response to the question about the flag, and some soul searching, Allen has changed his answer a bit. When asked again, during Media Day in early August, about the Rimington Trophy, and the penalty against the Buckeyes, his answer and philosophy were decidedly different.
"I'm not really worried about things like that. All I can focus on is how well I play for my teammates and Michigan State,'' said Allen, who has 30 starts at center and five at left guard. "Luckily, I've had coaches and people like Ken Mannie to help keep me humble. So my main motivation, the chip that I've held onto, has come from those coaches, scouts and evaluators who said I either wasn't big enough, wasn't fast enough or wasn't strong to play at this level for Michigan State. Actually, I think most of the schools and a lot of coaches in the Big Ten didn't think I would be good enough to play at this level. So the fact that I have been able to find some success at this level with this team means so much more.''
That being said, Allen is still just the fourth center in MSU history to be named a first team All-American at his position. And he will probably garner All-America status again this season, if he continues to build off of what he has done in his first three seasons as a Spartan.
But Allen wants something bigger - for himself and his teammates. And he wants to do it by being one of the leaders behind MSU's success.
That's why Allen has abandoned all talk of individual success for a chance to lead his team to the same trek the Buckeyes enjoyed last season as eventual national champions.
So much so, that the 6-foot-2, 296-pound lineman was clear about his desires for the 2015 Spartans. Clear enough for him to admit that he has been working on something during the offseason that has really never been a part of his training: stepping outside of his comfort zone to become more of a vocal leader.
Robert Hendricks
Expect more vocal leadership from Jack Allen.
"I've had good role models in that area,'' he said. "I look at guys likeKirk Cousins and Joel Foreman and see how they handled themselves as leaders and how much the team respected them and what they had to say and I think I can do that. I'm still not where I need to be as a vocal leader because that's never been me in the past. Ever since I started playing football, I was always that guy that led by example. I was told or taught what to do and did that on the field and that's how I was a leader. But I understand that you have to be a guy that's willing to stand up, and step up and out of your comfort zone for the good of the team and your teammates.''
Part of the culmination in that training will be revealed when Allen delivers - at some point during August camp - his senior speech. It's a rite of passage for every senior, throughout the course of preseason practice.
"I've got some things written down that I want to say but I know there's got to be other stuff that I talk about that comes from the heart,'' he said. "And most of that will be about what it's meant to be a part of this program and play with these guys. It really has been an honor to be able to play here.''
And what would it mean for him to be named a captain during his final season in green and white? Well, even though he is not as polished a speaker as he would like to be, Allen had no problem expressing what it would mean to be named one of the team's leaders by his peers.
"I'm not going to say it's the only thing I've thought about because I still have a job to do whether I'm in that position or not but, yes, I would consider it an honor if these guys thought enough of me and about me to have me represent them as one of the leaders," he said.
If that's the case and Allen is fortunate enough to earn the honor of being named a captain, you get the sense that that would hold so much more meaning for him than any postseason honor ever could have during his tenure.
And it would just fuel his fire to deliver, first and foremost, for the good of the team.
Ed Davis Out For Year; What's Next at SLB? (story)
- Spartans Illustrated Message Board
- 15 Replies
August 12, 2015
Ed Davis, out for year; what's next at SLB?
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Senior strong inside linebacker Ed Davis was lost for the season due to a knee injury sustained midway through Wednesday's practice, the university stated via Twitter on Wednesday evening.
"We're so disappointed for Ed Davis," head coach Mark Dantonio said Wednesday evening via Spartan Football's Twitter feed. "His presence in the lineup will be missed. Ed is a tremendous playmaker and a solid leader.
"He will still have an important role on this team and he might have the opportunity to qualify for a sixth year of eligibility.
"Our program has faced adversity before, so now it's time to adopt the 'next man up' mentality. Ed's injury provides otehrs with an opportunity to have a positive impact on the team."
Sophomore Chris Frey (6-2, 235, Upper Arlington, Ohio) will have the inside track to become the first-string strong inside linebacker at MSU, also known as Sam linebacker and 'money' linebacker.
Frey saw action in 13 games last year as a true freshman, mostly on special teams. He posted 19 tackles.
Jon Reschke (6-2, 228, Soph., Sterling Heights, Mich./Brother Rice) is also a candidate for an expanded role. Reschke and Shane Jones are battling for second-string Mike linebacker behind Riley Bullough.
Reschke missed most of the spring with an upper body injury. He began camp as a fourth-string Mike linebacker but has quickly regained favor with coaches this week. He had 13 tackles as the back-up toTaiwan Jones in 2014.
Can Reschke move outside to Sam linebacker? Coaches are likely pondering that question in camp right now.
Bullough (6-2, 230, Jr., Traverse City St. Francis) was Davis' back-up at Sam linebacker in 2014. But the Spartans have become extremely comfortable with Bullough setting the defense as the new first-string Mike linebacker.
From a frame and athleticism standpoint, Bullough might be the best fit for Sam linebacker as Davis' replacement, but would MSU move Reschke to Mike linebacker and move Bullough to Sam linebacker just to get the proper athleticism and body types in place in the front seven?
These are bothersome questions for MSU to answer, considering that with Davis the Spartans looked like they might have the best defensive front seven in the country.
Frey and Reschke are promising linebackers, but not in the class of the rangy, physical, fast Davis.
True freshman Tyriq Thompson has been repping at strong inside linebacker since enrolling in January, but would represent a steep drop-off from Davis if he has to play.
Davis (6-3, 230, Detroit Southeastern) was set to be a second-year starter for the Spartans in 2015 and a potential difference-maker. Davis was a preseason All-Big Ten pick by Lindy's (first-team), Sporting News (second team), Athlon Sports (second team) and Phil Steele (second team).
Davis was honorable mention All-Big Ten by coaches and media last year while leading the team in production points in 200. He ranked fourth on the team in tackles with 58 and was third on the team in tackles for loss with 12.
Ed Davis, out for year; what's next at SLB?
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Senior strong inside linebacker Ed Davis was lost for the season due to a knee injury sustained midway through Wednesday's practice, the university stated via Twitter on Wednesday evening.
"We're so disappointed for Ed Davis," head coach Mark Dantonio said Wednesday evening via Spartan Football's Twitter feed. "His presence in the lineup will be missed. Ed is a tremendous playmaker and a solid leader.
"He will still have an important role on this team and he might have the opportunity to qualify for a sixth year of eligibility.
"Our program has faced adversity before, so now it's time to adopt the 'next man up' mentality. Ed's injury provides otehrs with an opportunity to have a positive impact on the team."
Sophomore Chris Frey (6-2, 235, Upper Arlington, Ohio) will have the inside track to become the first-string strong inside linebacker at MSU, also known as Sam linebacker and 'money' linebacker.
Frey saw action in 13 games last year as a true freshman, mostly on special teams. He posted 19 tackles.
Jon Reschke (6-2, 228, Soph., Sterling Heights, Mich./Brother Rice) is also a candidate for an expanded role. Reschke and Shane Jones are battling for second-string Mike linebacker behind Riley Bullough.
Reschke missed most of the spring with an upper body injury. He began camp as a fourth-string Mike linebacker but has quickly regained favor with coaches this week. He had 13 tackles as the back-up toTaiwan Jones in 2014.
Can Reschke move outside to Sam linebacker? Coaches are likely pondering that question in camp right now.
Bullough (6-2, 230, Jr., Traverse City St. Francis) was Davis' back-up at Sam linebacker in 2014. But the Spartans have become extremely comfortable with Bullough setting the defense as the new first-string Mike linebacker.
From a frame and athleticism standpoint, Bullough might be the best fit for Sam linebacker as Davis' replacement, but would MSU move Reschke to Mike linebacker and move Bullough to Sam linebacker just to get the proper athleticism and body types in place in the front seven?
These are bothersome questions for MSU to answer, considering that with Davis the Spartans looked like they might have the best defensive front seven in the country.
Frey and Reschke are promising linebackers, but not in the class of the rangy, physical, fast Davis.
True freshman Tyriq Thompson has been repping at strong inside linebacker since enrolling in January, but would represent a steep drop-off from Davis if he has to play.
Davis (6-3, 230, Detroit Southeastern) was set to be a second-year starter for the Spartans in 2015 and a potential difference-maker. Davis was a preseason All-Big Ten pick by Lindy's (first-team), Sporting News (second team), Athlon Sports (second team) and Phil Steele (second team).
Davis was honorable mention All-Big Ten by coaches and media last year while leading the team in production points in 200. He ranked fourth on the team in tackles with 58 and was third on the team in tackles for loss with 12.
WR Notebook: Transitioning, but still talented
- Spartans Illustrated Message Board
- 4 Replies
August 11, 2015
WR Notebook: Transitioning, but still talented
Paul Konyndyk
SpartanMag.com Associate Editor
EAST LANSING - Michigan State does not have a workhorse receiver like Tony Lippett, who had 65 catches for 1,198 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior. But the Spartans have personnel at wide receiver capable of keeping the Spartans on top as Big Ten's top passing offense.
"Tony and Keith were great players, but we had a lot of guys making plays at wide receiver last year," senior wide receiver Aaron Burbridge said. "MacGarrett (Kings) made plays. I made plays. AJ (Troup) made plays. RJ (Shelton) made plays. Other guys can make plays too."
Robert Hendricks
Aaron Burbridge has 80 catches for 918 yards in 37 career games for Michigan State.
Burbridge and Kings have proven themselves as part-time starters over the past three seasons, combining for 156 receptions, 1,816 yards, and seven touchdowns. R.J. Shelton (5-11, 195) is another proven commodity, whose role expanded beyond perimeter running plays as a sophomore in 2014. Seniors AJ Troup, DeAnthony Arnett, and junior Monty Madaristook steps toward regular playing time during spring football. Each is a serious candidate for regular work at wide receiver this season.
"We'll evolve as we go," wide receivers coach Terrence Samuel said. "Whoever's hot, that's who you play and that's what we've always done. You get into a rhythm and you're attacking the DB and you are doing well, I am going to want you to stay out there."
Co-offensive coordinator Dave Warner is open to playing five or more wide receivers on a regular basis in 2015.
"It depends on who shows in practice over the next three weeks, that they deserve to be on the field," he said.
Experience and versatility make Burbridge one of the most valuable skill players in the Spartan program, and strong candidate to elevate his play as a senior.
"He knows all of the positions, he can play any wide receiver position, which is great," Warner said. "He can do it without having to think a whole lot. He can go out there and play and that is when a guy can be successful, and let their natural athletic ability take over."
Burbridge caught 29 passes for 358 yards (12.34 avg.) and one touchdown as a junior. He has 80 catches for 918 yards (11.4) and three touchdowns in 37 games over three years as a part-time starter.
Burbridge is still working off rust from a foot injury in April that prevented him from running during the summer.
"He's there, and I'm fired up to see what he can do," Warner said. "He just needs to get to the point now where his conditioning is back
Added Samuel: "He's got to get his receiver legs back, and that part is coming. His hand and eye coordination is still there. I am not worried about him catching the ball. I am not worried about his knowledge. I am more worried that he gets his feet up under him and gets his conditioning back."
Whereas injuries have been an issue for Burbridge, Kings has struggled with accountability. A handful of off-the-field incidents marred a productive 35-game career that includes 76 catches for 942 yards (12.4) and four touchdowns.
Warner and Samuel, however, seem reasonably confident that Kings has turned over a new leaf as a senior.
"It's a day-by-day process," Warner said. "He has to take care of business both on and off the field. I have a lot of confidence in MacGarrett that he is going to continue to take care of business."
Added Samuel: "I think he realizes when he makes a bad decision, it hurts his own family and his football family too. He is making better decisions. He is being more responsible. He is making the choices that would put him in a leadership position. Maybe that was something he wasn't doing before."
If Kings continues on his current path, Samuel expects him to play an even bigger role on offense than he has to this point in his career at Michigan State.
"I want him to be as close to an All-American as he possibly can possibly get to. I think he's got the ball skills. He's got the speed. There is no limitation to how good he can be. Every day he's got to go to work. I have been sending him little motivational things every day to make sure the leadership and the work ethic in practice is where it needs to be and he's responded.
"It's going to be a success story."
'two guys that look the part'
Freshmen Darrell Stewart (6-1, 198) and Felton Davis (6-4, 181) have gotten a lot of work during the first week of training camp.
"Those guys are sort of unknown right now," Warner said. "We want to give them the opportunity to see if they can light it up at all. And if that happens, they'll get more reps and get more opportunities. That is the way it is at every position, and maybe even a little bit more so at wide receiver because we have high expectations for some of those guys and there are some unknowns.
Stewart and Davis have made the most of their opportunities thus far.
"Darrell Stewart and Felton Davis both are two guys that look the part, run the part and act the part out there," Dantonio said, "so it'll be interesting to see how they retain things and how they move forward once real pads come on and we get farther into this than two a days, or in summer camp."
WR Notebook: Transitioning, but still talented
Paul Konyndyk
SpartanMag.com Associate Editor
EAST LANSING - Michigan State does not have a workhorse receiver like Tony Lippett, who had 65 catches for 1,198 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior. But the Spartans have personnel at wide receiver capable of keeping the Spartans on top as Big Ten's top passing offense.
"Tony and Keith were great players, but we had a lot of guys making plays at wide receiver last year," senior wide receiver Aaron Burbridge said. "MacGarrett (Kings) made plays. I made plays. AJ (Troup) made plays. RJ (Shelton) made plays. Other guys can make plays too."
Robert Hendricks
Aaron Burbridge has 80 catches for 918 yards in 37 career games for Michigan State.
Burbridge and Kings have proven themselves as part-time starters over the past three seasons, combining for 156 receptions, 1,816 yards, and seven touchdowns. R.J. Shelton (5-11, 195) is another proven commodity, whose role expanded beyond perimeter running plays as a sophomore in 2014. Seniors AJ Troup, DeAnthony Arnett, and junior Monty Madaristook steps toward regular playing time during spring football. Each is a serious candidate for regular work at wide receiver this season.
"We'll evolve as we go," wide receivers coach Terrence Samuel said. "Whoever's hot, that's who you play and that's what we've always done. You get into a rhythm and you're attacking the DB and you are doing well, I am going to want you to stay out there."
Co-offensive coordinator Dave Warner is open to playing five or more wide receivers on a regular basis in 2015.
"It depends on who shows in practice over the next three weeks, that they deserve to be on the field," he said.
Experience and versatility make Burbridge one of the most valuable skill players in the Spartan program, and strong candidate to elevate his play as a senior.
"He knows all of the positions, he can play any wide receiver position, which is great," Warner said. "He can do it without having to think a whole lot. He can go out there and play and that is when a guy can be successful, and let their natural athletic ability take over."
Burbridge caught 29 passes for 358 yards (12.34 avg.) and one touchdown as a junior. He has 80 catches for 918 yards (11.4) and three touchdowns in 37 games over three years as a part-time starter.
Burbridge is still working off rust from a foot injury in April that prevented him from running during the summer.
"He's there, and I'm fired up to see what he can do," Warner said. "He just needs to get to the point now where his conditioning is back
Added Samuel: "He's got to get his receiver legs back, and that part is coming. His hand and eye coordination is still there. I am not worried about him catching the ball. I am not worried about his knowledge. I am more worried that he gets his feet up under him and gets his conditioning back."
Whereas injuries have been an issue for Burbridge, Kings has struggled with accountability. A handful of off-the-field incidents marred a productive 35-game career that includes 76 catches for 942 yards (12.4) and four touchdowns.
Warner and Samuel, however, seem reasonably confident that Kings has turned over a new leaf as a senior.
"It's a day-by-day process," Warner said. "He has to take care of business both on and off the field. I have a lot of confidence in MacGarrett that he is going to continue to take care of business."
Added Samuel: "I think he realizes when he makes a bad decision, it hurts his own family and his football family too. He is making better decisions. He is being more responsible. He is making the choices that would put him in a leadership position. Maybe that was something he wasn't doing before."
If Kings continues on his current path, Samuel expects him to play an even bigger role on offense than he has to this point in his career at Michigan State.
"I want him to be as close to an All-American as he possibly can possibly get to. I think he's got the ball skills. He's got the speed. There is no limitation to how good he can be. Every day he's got to go to work. I have been sending him little motivational things every day to make sure the leadership and the work ethic in practice is where it needs to be and he's responded.
"It's going to be a success story."
'two guys that look the part'
Freshmen Darrell Stewart (6-1, 198) and Felton Davis (6-4, 181) have gotten a lot of work during the first week of training camp.
"Those guys are sort of unknown right now," Warner said. "We want to give them the opportunity to see if they can light it up at all. And if that happens, they'll get more reps and get more opportunities. That is the way it is at every position, and maybe even a little bit more so at wide receiver because we have high expectations for some of those guys and there are some unknowns.
Stewart and Davis have made the most of their opportunities thus far.
"Darrell Stewart and Felton Davis both are two guys that look the part, run the part and act the part out there," Dantonio said, "so it'll be interesting to see how they retain things and how they move forward once real pads come on and we get farther into this than two a days, or in summer camp."
Dantonio watching freshman DBs closely
- Spartans Illustrated Message Board
- 1 Replies
August 11, 2015
Dantonio watching freshman DBs closely
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - With Michigan State getting into the full-pads portion of August camp, Mark Dantonio is beginning to form opinions on his incoming freshman class.
He's not yet ready to proclaim which of them have a good shot to be in the playing group, but he'll spend the next few days looking closely.
"It's sort of early, but I'm spending a lot of time with the defensive backs," Dantonio said.
There are potential openings for playing time at cornerback, with Michigan State looking to replace the three men who started games at that position last year - Trae Waynes, Tony Lippett and Darian Hicks.Hicks is out for about a month with mononucleosis.
Junior Demetrious Cox has an inside track to start at boundary cornerback. Senior Arjen Colquhoun and junior Jermaine Edmondson are the top candidates competing at the other corner position, with redshirt freshman Vayante Copeland also getting a look with the twos.
Meanwhile, incoming freshmen Josh Butler (5-11, 170, Mesquite, Texas) and Tyson Smith (5-10, 170, Southfield, Mich/Orchard Lake St. Mary's) are getting a chance this week to demonstrate their talents.
"You see that Josh Butler looks good, Tyson Smith looks good, David Dowell looks good," Dantonio said. "I've been impressed with those safeties. I could go through all those guys. They all look good.
"Our linebackers have played pretty well.
Linebacker Andrew Dowell.
"(Wide receivers) Darrell Stewart and Felton Davis both are two guys that look the part, run the part and act the part out there.
"I think it takes a little bit of time for our offensive linemen and our defensive linemen, but they look talented."
Highly-touted running back Larry Scott has been impressive as well.
"So it'll be interesting to see how they retain things and how they move forward once real pads come on and we get farther into this than two-a-days or in summer workouts," Dantonio said.
The Spartans will take time working and fine-tuning the two-deep in the third week of August and get into preparation for Western Michigan during the fourth week. For now, freshmen are getting a close look to see which of them are capable of helping this season.
"We've got to look at every freshman as they come in," Dantonio said. "We're going to make sure we go ones, twos and frosh so that the frosh are getting reps."
That means, during "team" periods, the first-string will run a play, then the second string will run the same play, then true freshmen will run the same play as a third repetition is staged.
In a normal practice, only the first two strings would get a chance to run the rep. Freshmen will get the third rep for the next few days.
"It takes a little bit longer, but we're going to go ones, twos and frosh and see how they make their way," Dantonio said. "And then we're going to put them against our ones at times, too, throughout practice, so we're going to see them measure up not just against frosh but against the ones as well as the twos. We're just going to try and build their resumé and see how they handle it as we go."
Wide receiver Felton Davis.
Some freshmen get immediate playing due to being physically outstanding, such as Montae Nicholson last year and Taiwan Jones in 2011. Sometimes it's based on need at a position.
"I think it's just a matter of where our need is, can people stay healthy, and how ready are the players," Dantonio said. "Montae Nicholson played last year. He's a great athlete, great tackler, great ball skills so we put him in there.
"Some other guys played, as well, but it was because of need or because of their abilities, and I think that's usually what happens."
Offensive guard Brian Allen, linebacker Chris Frey and defensive tackle Malik McDowell also saw enough playing time last year to exhaust their freshman eligibility.
"We played more freshmen last year than we have in the past, but you go back and look at the 2011 class and those guys are all fifth-year seniors right now, and we only played one, Taiwan Jones, yet it's a great class," Dantonio said.
Thus, sometimes MSU has an influx of excellent talent but doesn't have the need to play many, or any, of them.
It remains to be seen how this year's freshman class will end up. Fans and media will learn more on Wednesday when selected true freshmen are made available to media for interviews.
Dantonio watching freshman DBs closely
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - With Michigan State getting into the full-pads portion of August camp, Mark Dantonio is beginning to form opinions on his incoming freshman class.
He's not yet ready to proclaim which of them have a good shot to be in the playing group, but he'll spend the next few days looking closely.
"It's sort of early, but I'm spending a lot of time with the defensive backs," Dantonio said.
There are potential openings for playing time at cornerback, with Michigan State looking to replace the three men who started games at that position last year - Trae Waynes, Tony Lippett and Darian Hicks.Hicks is out for about a month with mononucleosis.
Junior Demetrious Cox has an inside track to start at boundary cornerback. Senior Arjen Colquhoun and junior Jermaine Edmondson are the top candidates competing at the other corner position, with redshirt freshman Vayante Copeland also getting a look with the twos.
Meanwhile, incoming freshmen Josh Butler (5-11, 170, Mesquite, Texas) and Tyson Smith (5-10, 170, Southfield, Mich/Orchard Lake St. Mary's) are getting a chance this week to demonstrate their talents.
"You see that Josh Butler looks good, Tyson Smith looks good, David Dowell looks good," Dantonio said. "I've been impressed with those safeties. I could go through all those guys. They all look good.
"Our linebackers have played pretty well.
Linebacker Andrew Dowell.
"(Wide receivers) Darrell Stewart and Felton Davis both are two guys that look the part, run the part and act the part out there.
"I think it takes a little bit of time for our offensive linemen and our defensive linemen, but they look talented."
Highly-touted running back Larry Scott has been impressive as well.
"So it'll be interesting to see how they retain things and how they move forward once real pads come on and we get farther into this than two-a-days or in summer workouts," Dantonio said.
The Spartans will take time working and fine-tuning the two-deep in the third week of August and get into preparation for Western Michigan during the fourth week. For now, freshmen are getting a close look to see which of them are capable of helping this season.
"We've got to look at every freshman as they come in," Dantonio said. "We're going to make sure we go ones, twos and frosh so that the frosh are getting reps."
That means, during "team" periods, the first-string will run a play, then the second string will run the same play, then true freshmen will run the same play as a third repetition is staged.
In a normal practice, only the first two strings would get a chance to run the rep. Freshmen will get the third rep for the next few days.
"It takes a little bit longer, but we're going to go ones, twos and frosh and see how they make their way," Dantonio said. "And then we're going to put them against our ones at times, too, throughout practice, so we're going to see them measure up not just against frosh but against the ones as well as the twos. We're just going to try and build their resumé and see how they handle it as we go."
Wide receiver Felton Davis.
Some freshmen get immediate playing due to being physically outstanding, such as Montae Nicholson last year and Taiwan Jones in 2011. Sometimes it's based on need at a position.
"I think it's just a matter of where our need is, can people stay healthy, and how ready are the players," Dantonio said. "Montae Nicholson played last year. He's a great athlete, great tackler, great ball skills so we put him in there.
"Some other guys played, as well, but it was because of need or because of their abilities, and I think that's usually what happens."
Offensive guard Brian Allen, linebacker Chris Frey and defensive tackle Malik McDowell also saw enough playing time last year to exhaust their freshman eligibility.
"We played more freshmen last year than we have in the past, but you go back and look at the 2011 class and those guys are all fifth-year seniors right now, and we only played one, Taiwan Jones, yet it's a great class," Dantonio said.
Thus, sometimes MSU has an influx of excellent talent but doesn't have the need to play many, or any, of them.
It remains to be seen how this year's freshman class will end up. Fans and media will learn more on Wednesday when selected true freshmen are made available to media for interviews.
Media Day Notebook: 'We're in shape'
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August 11, 2015
Media Day Notebook: 'We're In Shape'
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Three days into August camp, Mark Dantonio approves of what he is seeing from a conditioning standpoint from his Michigan State Spartans.
"We look like we're in shape," Dantonio said during Monday's Media Day press conference. "We look like we have explosive players in the back end when you look at their 40 times and their short shuttles and their long jump and their 40 times, their vertical jump. I think my feeling is we have good skill, and we sort of paid the price with our big people. They can run, as well."
Senior linebacker Darien Harris, in one of several publicity photos released by MSU on Monday.
Dantonio is entering his ninth season at Michigan State. He's piloting a program that has finished in the Top 5 in each of the past two seasons - the only team in the nation that can make that claim.
Dantonio feels off-season focus and workouts have been in line with what he saw in 2013 and 2014 that led to Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl wins.
"I think our players worked extremely hard in our bottom line program, which is: Hey, you're getting it done or not getting it done at the end of the day," Dantonio said. "Got a lot of players lifting a lot of heavy weight, a lot of players running extremely well.
"I think we're in a good place."
The physical readiness has been complemented by strong leadership, Dantonio said.
"The leadership has been very good early in this camp from our senior group, and that's always extremely important," Dantonio said. "There's great direction within our program at the ground level, at the player level. When you have that at the player level, that gives you an added advantage in games. Players lead on the field. They have to. They have to get it done on the field."
In terms of conditioning and the emergence of new leaders: "It's been a great summer," Dantonio said.
Drawing A Crowd
More than 70 media members were on hand for Michigan State's Media Day on Monday, easily the biggest gathering of the Dantonio era for the annual event.
There few empty seats in the press room, Monday.
"We're on the move a little bit, and we've got some momentum," Dantonio said. "We were selling hope back then (when I first started), a little bit more of an unknown, and now we're selling the results of what's happened. The bar is set very high. We understand that. That's probably why you're all here.
"I think people look at things and say that they've done this, they've done that, okay, what's the next step? That's where 'Reach Higher' comes into the play."
"Reach Higher" being the mantra Dantonio set down for this team at Big Ten Media Days in late July.
Dantonio says that mantra is subject to readjustment throughout the course of the season.
"That's something that we go into the season with and speak to fall camp about a little bit and our mindset as we move forward, but hings are always changing," Dantonio said. "We come off of one thing and go into another thing. It's sort of what sticks, but initially moving into the season, that's the thought process, that - as I told our football team - we're competing at a very high level. We're already up here. But we need to go a little bit higher to get where we want to be."
Terry, O'Connor Still Waiting
Dantonio was non-committal on stating which reserve quarterback - Damion Terry or Tyler O'Connor - has the inside track toward the No. 2 job this fall, and thereby for the starting job in 2016.
"Right I don't think there is a distinction, but certainly as we move forward in fall camp you try and make those decisions," Dantonio said.
In 2012, junior Andrew Maxwell struggled in his first year as a starting quarterback. Dantonio said he felt Maxwell would have had a better chance to succeed if he had gotten more chances to play as a freshman and sophomore.
Dantonio was asked on Monday if he will look to get O'Connor or Terry on the field more this year in order to take steps toward a similar problem in 2016.
"Tyler O'Connor and Damion Terry are both guys that have been on the field a lot for us already," Dantonio said. "They both have a good grasp and knowledge of the offense, and when the time comes, they'll have to assert themselves on the field.
"As far as playing them early, if the opportunity presents itself, we want to play those guys early, much like we did last year. Even in the Penn State game, I wasn't afraid to put Damion in on the 5 yard line. That was his time. But it was a tough situation.
"But I think both those guys have done a nice job so far."
Unready To Anoint
Dantonio was asked on Monday if his linebacking corps is the fastest he has had at Michigan State, and whether his linemen - on both sides of the ball - mark the best the Spartans have been in the trenches during his tenure.
In both instances, Dantonio stopped short of issuing advance credit.
"I think you make those distinctions at the end of the year," Dantonio said. "We've been pretty good on the defensive line here in the past, so I think all the ability is there. We certainly have a lot of good players back and they're very active and we've got some depth there."
The Spartans are led by four seniors on the d-line and a stock-on-the-rise sophomore in Malik McDowell. The seniors include All-America candidate Shilique Calhoun, DE/DT Lawrence Thomas, and DTs Joel Heath and Damon Knox.
On the offensive front, junior left tackle Jack Conklin is an All-America candidate and rated as a potential first-round draft pick next spring if he chooses to leave early for the pros. Senior center Jack Allen was a finalist for the Rimington Award in 2014 and is the only finalist returning to college football this fall. Right tackle Kodi Kieler and offensive guard Donavon Clark are longtime starters and reliable veterans.
"Offensive line wise I think this is the most depth we've had," Dantonio said. "You go back and look at our last two seasons, haven't been sacked too much, ran for about 2,000 yards as a group, and that's sort of been the norm the last couple seasons, and I think now they're getting a little bit more recognition. Good football team in those areas, but I think we'll anoint those people at the end of the season rather than at the beginning. But they have all the makings. They're good players with experience."
As for the linebackers, the Spartans will have an upgrade in the speed department at Mike linebacker with sophomore Riley Bullough. Meanwhile, seniors Ed Davis and Darien Harris are experienced, athletic and ready to play fast.
"Yeah, it's a fast group, and we've got to be able to play sideline to sideline, especially with what teams are doing offensively now," Dantonio said. "But again, I'm not ready to anoint our football team because we've had some great football teams here and we've had some great defenses. That 2013 defense had some guys that could really run, too.
"We'll see how they go, but they're good football players. We have some depth at those positions, and that's what's exciting. That's a positive."
Point After
Dantonio unplugged on … The Allen Brothers:
"They're so ornery. They'll mix it up a little bit, and they compete against each other. Both are very tough, strong, physical type players. Great feet. Athletes."
Media Day Notebook: 'We're In Shape'
Jim Comparoni
SpartanMag.com Publisher
EAST LANSING - Three days into August camp, Mark Dantonio approves of what he is seeing from a conditioning standpoint from his Michigan State Spartans.
"We look like we're in shape," Dantonio said during Monday's Media Day press conference. "We look like we have explosive players in the back end when you look at their 40 times and their short shuttles and their long jump and their 40 times, their vertical jump. I think my feeling is we have good skill, and we sort of paid the price with our big people. They can run, as well."
Senior linebacker Darien Harris, in one of several publicity photos released by MSU on Monday.
Dantonio is entering his ninth season at Michigan State. He's piloting a program that has finished in the Top 5 in each of the past two seasons - the only team in the nation that can make that claim.
Dantonio feels off-season focus and workouts have been in line with what he saw in 2013 and 2014 that led to Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl wins.
"I think our players worked extremely hard in our bottom line program, which is: Hey, you're getting it done or not getting it done at the end of the day," Dantonio said. "Got a lot of players lifting a lot of heavy weight, a lot of players running extremely well.
"I think we're in a good place."
The physical readiness has been complemented by strong leadership, Dantonio said.
"The leadership has been very good early in this camp from our senior group, and that's always extremely important," Dantonio said. "There's great direction within our program at the ground level, at the player level. When you have that at the player level, that gives you an added advantage in games. Players lead on the field. They have to. They have to get it done on the field."
In terms of conditioning and the emergence of new leaders: "It's been a great summer," Dantonio said.
Drawing A Crowd
More than 70 media members were on hand for Michigan State's Media Day on Monday, easily the biggest gathering of the Dantonio era for the annual event.
There few empty seats in the press room, Monday.
"We're on the move a little bit, and we've got some momentum," Dantonio said. "We were selling hope back then (when I first started), a little bit more of an unknown, and now we're selling the results of what's happened. The bar is set very high. We understand that. That's probably why you're all here.
"I think people look at things and say that they've done this, they've done that, okay, what's the next step? That's where 'Reach Higher' comes into the play."
"Reach Higher" being the mantra Dantonio set down for this team at Big Ten Media Days in late July.
Dantonio says that mantra is subject to readjustment throughout the course of the season.
"That's something that we go into the season with and speak to fall camp about a little bit and our mindset as we move forward, but hings are always changing," Dantonio said. "We come off of one thing and go into another thing. It's sort of what sticks, but initially moving into the season, that's the thought process, that - as I told our football team - we're competing at a very high level. We're already up here. But we need to go a little bit higher to get where we want to be."
Terry, O'Connor Still Waiting
Dantonio was non-committal on stating which reserve quarterback - Damion Terry or Tyler O'Connor - has the inside track toward the No. 2 job this fall, and thereby for the starting job in 2016.
"Right I don't think there is a distinction, but certainly as we move forward in fall camp you try and make those decisions," Dantonio said.
In 2012, junior Andrew Maxwell struggled in his first year as a starting quarterback. Dantonio said he felt Maxwell would have had a better chance to succeed if he had gotten more chances to play as a freshman and sophomore.
Dantonio was asked on Monday if he will look to get O'Connor or Terry on the field more this year in order to take steps toward a similar problem in 2016.
"Tyler O'Connor and Damion Terry are both guys that have been on the field a lot for us already," Dantonio said. "They both have a good grasp and knowledge of the offense, and when the time comes, they'll have to assert themselves on the field.
"As far as playing them early, if the opportunity presents itself, we want to play those guys early, much like we did last year. Even in the Penn State game, I wasn't afraid to put Damion in on the 5 yard line. That was his time. But it was a tough situation.
"But I think both those guys have done a nice job so far."
Unready To Anoint
Dantonio was asked on Monday if his linebacking corps is the fastest he has had at Michigan State, and whether his linemen - on both sides of the ball - mark the best the Spartans have been in the trenches during his tenure.
In both instances, Dantonio stopped short of issuing advance credit.
"I think you make those distinctions at the end of the year," Dantonio said. "We've been pretty good on the defensive line here in the past, so I think all the ability is there. We certainly have a lot of good players back and they're very active and we've got some depth there."
The Spartans are led by four seniors on the d-line and a stock-on-the-rise sophomore in Malik McDowell. The seniors include All-America candidate Shilique Calhoun, DE/DT Lawrence Thomas, and DTs Joel Heath and Damon Knox.
On the offensive front, junior left tackle Jack Conklin is an All-America candidate and rated as a potential first-round draft pick next spring if he chooses to leave early for the pros. Senior center Jack Allen was a finalist for the Rimington Award in 2014 and is the only finalist returning to college football this fall. Right tackle Kodi Kieler and offensive guard Donavon Clark are longtime starters and reliable veterans.
"Offensive line wise I think this is the most depth we've had," Dantonio said. "You go back and look at our last two seasons, haven't been sacked too much, ran for about 2,000 yards as a group, and that's sort of been the norm the last couple seasons, and I think now they're getting a little bit more recognition. Good football team in those areas, but I think we'll anoint those people at the end of the season rather than at the beginning. But they have all the makings. They're good players with experience."
As for the linebackers, the Spartans will have an upgrade in the speed department at Mike linebacker with sophomore Riley Bullough. Meanwhile, seniors Ed Davis and Darien Harris are experienced, athletic and ready to play fast.
"Yeah, it's a fast group, and we've got to be able to play sideline to sideline, especially with what teams are doing offensively now," Dantonio said. "But again, I'm not ready to anoint our football team because we've had some great football teams here and we've had some great defenses. That 2013 defense had some guys that could really run, too.
"We'll see how they go, but they're good football players. We have some depth at those positions, and that's what's exciting. That's a positive."
Point After
Dantonio unplugged on … The Allen Brothers:
"They're so ornery. They'll mix it up a little bit, and they compete against each other. Both are very tough, strong, physical type players. Great feet. Athletes."