Working on the film room. Should have it up in short order. A couple things have come to mind on rewatch. Firstly, I really like how Smith has handled the team. Letting Chiles shoot from the hip and grow, while living with the consequences.
The offense isn't complex—at all—and thats ok. MSU really only does a few things, but they do two of them well. Thats awesome, and the path to a bowl and those critical 15 practices is much more clear now. I think Maryland’s pass defense might not be very well coached, but thats ok, you have already seen week over week improvement from MSU.
As a contrast, look at Michigan. Michigan didn't simplify their offense, or defense, at all. Offensively, they’re having a walk on do the same presnap checks and adjustments that they had a top ten pick do last year. They’re running highly technical gap schemes with a walk on at center and a true freshman at right tackle. Defensively, Michigan has yet to develop an answer for the fact that they don't have the depth they did last year, when they routinely played 18-20 starter caliber level players a game.
I imagine this week, UM is going to try to dumb down the offense and find what they do well and build off that—something similar happened to them in 18 and 19. This is the mindset with which i believe MSU approached camp, and you’re seeing the relative benefits.
With MSU, i love the fact that Smith is basically saying, damn the torpedoes, we are a good outside zone team. We’re gonna lose drives because OL will get holding calls when asked to scoop block people slanting away from them. And thats ok! Its this kind of stuff that made me really attracted to Smith as a coach—a program builder who can take the long term perspective when it comes to building a program.
I don't know if he’ll ever have the high level talent to stack up physically with the top 5-8 programs in cfb. However, i think the second tranche of the big ten with a 21st century track record of at least some success (MSU Nebraska and Iowa really come to mind here) will benefit from not being pulled into the helmet games with the pac 12 schools that the conference wants to see.
Just some food for thought on a Monday.
