This post was originally a reply to a post in another thread. But I got a little carried away with the detail and decided I needed to bring it out front.
Lewerke only has one game left as a Spartan. Why am I bothering to analyze him so deeply at this stage, when there's not much left to learn about him? Well, mainly because I can't remember ever seeing a 342-yard performance by an Michigan State QB that has drawn equal doses of compliments and criticism, maybe of the latter.
So I had to cut into it again, just to look around, put it on paper and see if we learned anything.
In the end, I thought Lewerke was worthy of being pulled in the third quarter, but the coaches were correct to leave him in. He was excellent in the fourth.
In all, whether you saw Lewerke's performance as a plus or a minus is kind of like your perception of THE DRESS in 2015 whether it was blue or black.
What I saw in Lewerke was a roller coaster of inconsistency, which has pretty much become the m.o.
This is the way I saw it (boiled down to the key moments, positive or negative, in each drive):
(red is negative, green is positive, for faster perusal):
1H
First Drive: Field Goal, score: 3-0.
Red Zone:
- 1-10: Bad zone read exchange. Not sure whom to blame. Loss of 1.
+ Nice back shoulder throw to Nailor. Called back, illegal man downfield.
Second Drive:
+ 3-3: Pump, keep, gain of 6.
[Drive ended with fourth-and-one stoppage].
Third Drive
Red Zone:
- 1-10: INT intended for Gillison on underthrown corner route.
Fourth Drive
- 1-10: INT on slant intended for Barnett. Telegraphed pass? Or great defensive play? Dantonio said it was the latter. Barnett took his route too long. I confirmed with sources that he was supposed to break it off shorter.
Fifth Drive: Field Goal, score: 6-7
+ Nice pass to Cody White for 27 yards into the cover-two hole.
Red Zone:
+ Nice pass to Seybert on a curl vs zone for 13 yards. Good read, throwing to Nailor on a comeback vs press coverage for gain of 9.
* After two runs failed (Including: Duplain and Reid beaten on a zone read give for loss of one. Wrong read by Lewerke? Possibly.) Then on 3-9, Lewerke threw into the cover-two hole again, but Nailor ran an in route. The ball bounced into the cover-two hole with no receiver near it. Probably the receiver's fault). [The end result is a red zone failure. Lewerke's fault? I don't think so. Looked like a good read to me, would it have been an accurate throw if Nailor had run the correct choice route? I don't know. That red zone failure is not chalked up to Lewerke, in my estimation.]
Sixth Drive: TD, score: 13-7
+ 16-yard pass to a diving Tre Mosley on 3-6.
- 24-yard pass to White on a square-in, but the ball should have been intercepted by a Maryland linebacker. Passed right through his hands.
- INC pass for White on a slot corner fade. A well-thrown touch pass would have resulted in a TD. White had some leverage to open space on the receiver. Lewerke threw it on a line, uncatchable.
+ on 3-5 in the red zone: 10-yard pass to Elijah Collins on a wheel in the flat for a gain of 10. Good read.
(NOTE: The TD was scored on a QB power read option from 1 yard out. It should be noted that on first-and-goal at the 4-yard line, Michigan State gained 3 yards on a split zone run by Collins. On that play, Samac, Duplain and Arcuri all had good blocks against a heavy front. That was the key to MSU's lone red zone TD conversion. They got good run blocking inside the 5 on first-and-goal).
2H:
Seventh Drive: 3 and out
- INC pass, on a scramble, thrown at Adam Berghorst's feet. Good job to scramble and stay alive, created an opening, but missed him.
- Gain of 2 on a zone read keeper into a slot corner blitz. Had to be the wrong read. As the result of the slot blitz, he wasn't optioning just one player, there were two unblocked players there. Had to be the wrong read.
Eighth Drive: 3 and out
- on 2-9, pass batted and dangerously deflected high in the air for an INC.
- on 3-9, pass intended for Barnett batted INC.
[At this point, I was thinking it's the proper time to try a back-up QB, if you had a back-up QB you trusted. I'm not saying they have one better than Lewerke. I'm just saying THIS was the time to make the move. But they didn't, and they made the right decision.]
Ninth Drive: Missed Field Goal
+ Sprint out pass to White, complete for 16.
+ Pass to Barnett for 32 yards into the cover-two hole on the short side. This was essentially the same route that Nailor messed up in the first half. Both were to the short side of the field and called for a skinny corner route, almost a fade. This time, Lewerke trusted his receiver and made the throw.
+ 3-1 at the +41: zone read keep for gain of 10.
* How the drive ended:
On 1-10 at the +31, Michigan State ran a reverse designed for White to throw to Lewerke or another receiver. No one was open. White threw it away. On 2-10
On 2-10: Anthony Williams gained 4 on an inside zone.
On 3-6: Pass INC, thrown behind Barnett on a slant. Arcuri flagged for hand to the face. Locksley amazingly declined the personal foul. Coghlin missed the field goal. Bad on bad on bad on bad. That's four bads.
10th Drive: FG, 16-16
+ 3-2: at the -30: Speed option pitch to Williams for gain of 11. Major darn play in the game. 5 yards after contact by Williams. Gutsy play call, gutsy choice by Lewerke, great job by Williams. Williams' best play as a Spartan so far. Also, this was against that slot blitz again. Michigan State might have anticipated the slot blitz and influenced it based on formation. But instead of zone read with the RB going inside, Michigan State went speed option with the RB going outside. And this time Lewerke made the right read and got rid of the ball.)
+ Nice pass to Seybert on a crosser for about 16 yards, but he was hit and fumbled on the play, losing yardage. Michigan State recovered it for a net gain of 4.
+ 3-1: QB sneak. Have to give him credit on that. They couldn't trust the run game.
+ Short wheel route pass to Collins for a gain of 13.
+ Nice pass to Barnett for a gain of 12 on a corner route to the wide side of the field.
= 3-10 at the +19: Check down to Mosley on a curl for short gain, after a time out. (At pre-snap, Michigan State sent a receiver in motion. A Maryland defender ran with the motion man, declaring man-to-man and showed blitz. Lewerke then audibled to max seven-man protection. By the time he got that aligned, Maryland had checked to a three-man rush and an eight-man zone. With eight covering three, the two downfield routes were coveraged. He had to check it down. Rushing three works more than you think. See Minnesota's game-winning INT against Penn State, and Oklahoma's game-winning defensive play against Baylor).
11th Drive: Field Goal, 19-16
+ Nice accuracy on a short wheel route vs man-to-man, giving Williams a chance for yards after the catch. Gain of 12.
+ Good choice on a shallow cross to Seybert on a late release route for a gain of 5.
+ Another short wheel route to Wiliams, this time vs zone, for gain of 13.
+ Out route to Mosley for gain of 19 (Cody White erred in running and out and getting in the way, when he should have ran something else).
+ Back shoudler fade to Mosley for a gain of 13 vs blitz press man.
+ Curl to Seybert for gain of 6 set up third and manageable.
+ Good choice on a curl at the sticks as part of a snag concept vs bailing zone for gain of 4 to the +17 on 3-4.
Then the drive stalled in the red zone:
- 1-10: No gain on a man-blocking isolation play. Brandon Wright should have followed his lead blocker for maybe a yard or two. No gain. Maryland got away with a facemask on the tackle. That's an uncommon blocking scheme for Michigan State, but the freshman probably shouldn't have tried to bounce it. It was man blocking, 7 blockers vs an 8-man front. Not much room. But I think coaches wanted Wright to stay inside and try to break a tackle downhill rather than outside.
- 2-10: Wright no gain on outside zone. Gain of 2. Carrick tried to initially double-team with Samac and then get out to the LB. But the angle wasn't right for him. Maybe he shouldn't have committed to the initial double team, based on the angle and the direction of the zone, Samac might have been able to seal his guy without any help. But Carrick helped and then couldn't get to the LB to finish the combo. That LB bounced the play. Wright eluded him but by that time the defense was able to string it out. Seybert could have done a better job getting off of his double-team to block the cornerback, who made the tackle.
- 3-8: INC. Sprint out to another snag concept for Mosley. He was open at 6 yards, but wouldn't have gotten the first down. Lewerke, on the run to his left, a difficult direction for a right-hander, attempted a sidearm pass. Good read, good decision but it was inaccurate. The other choices were White in the flat and CJ Hayes headed for the corner. Both were covered.
Field goal. Then defense for the win.
**
The takeaway: Lots of alternating red and green for three quarters, and then a lot of green at the end. If you were a fan of neither team and just tuned in for the fourth quarter, you would think Lewerke was a stud. I didn't see a lot of open receivers that he missed, as one of the posted claimed. Lewerke only threw 11 INCs in 41 pass attempts. But there were spills and messes along the way. Inconsistent? Yes. But Maryland would have liked to have had that kind of inconsistency in the pass game on their side all year. Iowa? Iowa might not have the play-making ability at QB in Stanley that Lewerke has, but fewer messes, and a much tighter overall operation.
Is Michigan State any closer now to being an 8-4 type of team than they were against ASU and Illinois? No.
Lewerke only has one game left as a Spartan. Why am I bothering to analyze him so deeply at this stage, when there's not much left to learn about him? Well, mainly because I can't remember ever seeing a 342-yard performance by an Michigan State QB that has drawn equal doses of compliments and criticism, maybe of the latter.
So I had to cut into it again, just to look around, put it on paper and see if we learned anything.
In the end, I thought Lewerke was worthy of being pulled in the third quarter, but the coaches were correct to leave him in. He was excellent in the fourth.
In all, whether you saw Lewerke's performance as a plus or a minus is kind of like your perception of THE DRESS in 2015 whether it was blue or black.
What I saw in Lewerke was a roller coaster of inconsistency, which has pretty much become the m.o.
This is the way I saw it (boiled down to the key moments, positive or negative, in each drive):
(red is negative, green is positive, for faster perusal):
1H
First Drive: Field Goal, score: 3-0.
Red Zone:
- 1-10: Bad zone read exchange. Not sure whom to blame. Loss of 1.
+ Nice back shoulder throw to Nailor. Called back, illegal man downfield.
Second Drive:
+ 3-3: Pump, keep, gain of 6.
[Drive ended with fourth-and-one stoppage].
Third Drive
Red Zone:
- 1-10: INT intended for Gillison on underthrown corner route.
Fourth Drive
- 1-10: INT on slant intended for Barnett. Telegraphed pass? Or great defensive play? Dantonio said it was the latter. Barnett took his route too long. I confirmed with sources that he was supposed to break it off shorter.
Fifth Drive: Field Goal, score: 6-7
+ Nice pass to Cody White for 27 yards into the cover-two hole.
Red Zone:
+ Nice pass to Seybert on a curl vs zone for 13 yards. Good read, throwing to Nailor on a comeback vs press coverage for gain of 9.
* After two runs failed (Including: Duplain and Reid beaten on a zone read give for loss of one. Wrong read by Lewerke? Possibly.) Then on 3-9, Lewerke threw into the cover-two hole again, but Nailor ran an in route. The ball bounced into the cover-two hole with no receiver near it. Probably the receiver's fault). [The end result is a red zone failure. Lewerke's fault? I don't think so. Looked like a good read to me, would it have been an accurate throw if Nailor had run the correct choice route? I don't know. That red zone failure is not chalked up to Lewerke, in my estimation.]
Sixth Drive: TD, score: 13-7
+ 16-yard pass to a diving Tre Mosley on 3-6.
- 24-yard pass to White on a square-in, but the ball should have been intercepted by a Maryland linebacker. Passed right through his hands.
- INC pass for White on a slot corner fade. A well-thrown touch pass would have resulted in a TD. White had some leverage to open space on the receiver. Lewerke threw it on a line, uncatchable.
+ on 3-5 in the red zone: 10-yard pass to Elijah Collins on a wheel in the flat for a gain of 10. Good read.
(NOTE: The TD was scored on a QB power read option from 1 yard out. It should be noted that on first-and-goal at the 4-yard line, Michigan State gained 3 yards on a split zone run by Collins. On that play, Samac, Duplain and Arcuri all had good blocks against a heavy front. That was the key to MSU's lone red zone TD conversion. They got good run blocking inside the 5 on first-and-goal).
2H:
Seventh Drive: 3 and out
- INC pass, on a scramble, thrown at Adam Berghorst's feet. Good job to scramble and stay alive, created an opening, but missed him.
- Gain of 2 on a zone read keeper into a slot corner blitz. Had to be the wrong read. As the result of the slot blitz, he wasn't optioning just one player, there were two unblocked players there. Had to be the wrong read.
Eighth Drive: 3 and out
- on 2-9, pass batted and dangerously deflected high in the air for an INC.
- on 3-9, pass intended for Barnett batted INC.
[At this point, I was thinking it's the proper time to try a back-up QB, if you had a back-up QB you trusted. I'm not saying they have one better than Lewerke. I'm just saying THIS was the time to make the move. But they didn't, and they made the right decision.]
Ninth Drive: Missed Field Goal
+ Sprint out pass to White, complete for 16.
+ Pass to Barnett for 32 yards into the cover-two hole on the short side. This was essentially the same route that Nailor messed up in the first half. Both were to the short side of the field and called for a skinny corner route, almost a fade. This time, Lewerke trusted his receiver and made the throw.
+ 3-1 at the +41: zone read keep for gain of 10.
* How the drive ended:
On 1-10 at the +31, Michigan State ran a reverse designed for White to throw to Lewerke or another receiver. No one was open. White threw it away. On 2-10
On 2-10: Anthony Williams gained 4 on an inside zone.
On 3-6: Pass INC, thrown behind Barnett on a slant. Arcuri flagged for hand to the face. Locksley amazingly declined the personal foul. Coghlin missed the field goal. Bad on bad on bad on bad. That's four bads.
10th Drive: FG, 16-16
+ 3-2: at the -30: Speed option pitch to Williams for gain of 11. Major darn play in the game. 5 yards after contact by Williams. Gutsy play call, gutsy choice by Lewerke, great job by Williams. Williams' best play as a Spartan so far. Also, this was against that slot blitz again. Michigan State might have anticipated the slot blitz and influenced it based on formation. But instead of zone read with the RB going inside, Michigan State went speed option with the RB going outside. And this time Lewerke made the right read and got rid of the ball.)
+ Nice pass to Seybert on a crosser for about 16 yards, but he was hit and fumbled on the play, losing yardage. Michigan State recovered it for a net gain of 4.
+ 3-1: QB sneak. Have to give him credit on that. They couldn't trust the run game.
+ Short wheel route pass to Collins for a gain of 13.
+ Nice pass to Barnett for a gain of 12 on a corner route to the wide side of the field.
= 3-10 at the +19: Check down to Mosley on a curl for short gain, after a time out. (At pre-snap, Michigan State sent a receiver in motion. A Maryland defender ran with the motion man, declaring man-to-man and showed blitz. Lewerke then audibled to max seven-man protection. By the time he got that aligned, Maryland had checked to a three-man rush and an eight-man zone. With eight covering three, the two downfield routes were coveraged. He had to check it down. Rushing three works more than you think. See Minnesota's game-winning INT against Penn State, and Oklahoma's game-winning defensive play against Baylor).
11th Drive: Field Goal, 19-16
+ Nice accuracy on a short wheel route vs man-to-man, giving Williams a chance for yards after the catch. Gain of 12.
+ Good choice on a shallow cross to Seybert on a late release route for a gain of 5.
+ Another short wheel route to Wiliams, this time vs zone, for gain of 13.
+ Out route to Mosley for gain of 19 (Cody White erred in running and out and getting in the way, when he should have ran something else).
+ Back shoudler fade to Mosley for a gain of 13 vs blitz press man.
+ Curl to Seybert for gain of 6 set up third and manageable.
+ Good choice on a curl at the sticks as part of a snag concept vs bailing zone for gain of 4 to the +17 on 3-4.
Then the drive stalled in the red zone:
- 1-10: No gain on a man-blocking isolation play. Brandon Wright should have followed his lead blocker for maybe a yard or two. No gain. Maryland got away with a facemask on the tackle. That's an uncommon blocking scheme for Michigan State, but the freshman probably shouldn't have tried to bounce it. It was man blocking, 7 blockers vs an 8-man front. Not much room. But I think coaches wanted Wright to stay inside and try to break a tackle downhill rather than outside.
- 2-10: Wright no gain on outside zone. Gain of 2. Carrick tried to initially double-team with Samac and then get out to the LB. But the angle wasn't right for him. Maybe he shouldn't have committed to the initial double team, based on the angle and the direction of the zone, Samac might have been able to seal his guy without any help. But Carrick helped and then couldn't get to the LB to finish the combo. That LB bounced the play. Wright eluded him but by that time the defense was able to string it out. Seybert could have done a better job getting off of his double-team to block the cornerback, who made the tackle.
- 3-8: INC. Sprint out to another snag concept for Mosley. He was open at 6 yards, but wouldn't have gotten the first down. Lewerke, on the run to his left, a difficult direction for a right-hander, attempted a sidearm pass. Good read, good decision but it was inaccurate. The other choices were White in the flat and CJ Hayes headed for the corner. Both were covered.
Field goal. Then defense for the win.
**
The takeaway: Lots of alternating red and green for three quarters, and then a lot of green at the end. If you were a fan of neither team and just tuned in for the fourth quarter, you would think Lewerke was a stud. I didn't see a lot of open receivers that he missed, as one of the posted claimed. Lewerke only threw 11 INCs in 41 pass attempts. But there were spills and messes along the way. Inconsistent? Yes. But Maryland would have liked to have had that kind of inconsistency in the pass game on their side all year. Iowa? Iowa might not have the play-making ability at QB in Stanley that Lewerke has, but fewer messes, and a much tighter overall operation.
Is Michigan State any closer now to being an 8-4 type of team than they were against ASU and Illinois? No.
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