Pre-Snap Read: MSU vs Tulsa
By Jim Comparoni
Publisher, SpartanMag.com
EAST LANSING - The lofts are up, SBS is buzzing, peanuts are all over the floor at the Barrel and it’s time for Michigan State’s annual Friday night Labor Day Weekend kickoff.
No. 18-ranked Michigan State will play host to Tulsa at 7 p.m. on Friday at Spartan Stadium (FS1).
It’s time for the SpartanMag Pre-Snap Read, a terrible addiction and autumnal affliction for some. And we appreciate being your dealer.
In the past, we promoted the Pre-Snap Read as being the most in-depth, insightful game previews in the history of mankind. We have backed off from that claim in recent years as we have tried to go shorter with them. These will no longer approach 15,000 words in length.
This week, it’s easy to keep it short because we’ve seen neither team play.
Michigan State is a 22.5-point favorite. The Spartans didn’t beat any team by 22 or more points last year in going 7-6.
Is Tulsa that bad? Or is Michigan State ready to play sharp, quality football on both sides of the line of scrimmage?
We haven’t seen Michigan State or Tulsa play in nearly nine months. Forecasts are foggy. But here’s the top of the lineup for what you need to know about this matchup.
* Tulsa went 3-9 last year.
(Games of note: Lost to Texas, 28-21. Lost to Arkansas, 23-0)
* Tulsa was 2-10 the year before, in 2017.
* Tulsa was 10-3 in 2016.
So what the heck is the deal with this program? Ten wins, to two wins, to three wins?
THE MACRO & THE BACK STORY
Head coach Philip Montgomery (Philip with one “L”) is in his fifth year at the helm of the Golden Hurricanes.
Prior to becoming head coach at Tulsa, he was co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Baylor, under Art Briles.
[Montgomery and Briles’ son, Kendal Briles, shared the offensive coordinator role at Baylor from 2012-2015. Montgomery began as Art Briles’ co-offensive coordinator at the University of Houston in 2005, and stayed with him through the 2014 season. Kendal joined in 2012.
[Montgomery’s final game as Baylor’s co-offensive coordinator was the Bears’ 42-41 loss to Michigan State on Jan. 1, 2015 in the Cotton Bowl Classic.]
So Montgomery had a hand in the development of Briles’ system, which revolutionized college football with the use of what has become known as the RPO (run pass options).
When Michigan State played Baylor in 2014, the term “RPO” wasn’t yet a regular part of football lexicon. Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi described Baylor’s system this way: “The best way I can describe it is that every run is also a pass, and every pass is also a run.”
Dantonio complimented Baylor for being “cutting edge” with its offensive approach in 2014.
Basically, Baylor was one of the first, if not THE first, major conference program to regularly use run blocking for pass plays. This puts d-linemen in a dilemma. The d-linemen see offensive linemen firing off the ball in a zone blocking scheme, so the d-linemen stay home, man their gaps and play the run. Meanwhile, the QB is pulling the ball out of the RB’s gut and has time for quick-game passing because the d-linemen are playing the run, they aren’t rushing the passer.
If you want to blitz against that look, that’s just more fun (and open windows) for the QB.
If you want to keep your safeties back and play the pass, then the QB will leave the ball in the gut of the RB with standard 6 vs 6 blocking, or 5 vs 5. Get a helmet on a helmet and the RB should have some daylight somewhere.
If the QB is also a run threat, then the defense has 11 pegs for 12 holes, and that’s how and why Robert Griffin III was unstoppable at Baylor in 2011.
They basically added an element to Rich Rodriguez’s read option. Rodriguez used to deploy a little bit of passing behind run blocking. Baylor took it to another level.
When people describe the RPO, they usually focus on the QB’s reads. But it’s the work on the offensive line (every run play is a pass play) that gave Briles’ Baylor a new gear.
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Depending on how you choose to defend the old Baylor system, or the current Tulsa system, the run game can often be as tough to stop as the pass game. Tulsa ranked No. 4 in the nation in total offense three years ago. They had a good QB, good blocking, good RBs and the Briles scheme.
In 2016, Tulsa rushed for 300-plus yards in EIGHT games.
That team went 10-3 and beat a 6-7 Central Michigan team 55-10 in the Miami Beach Bowl.
Last year, Tulsa was more of a spread-to-run outfit than an air-it-out spread.
**
Now, the Briles scheme, and RPOs, have become conventional football. Michigan State dabbled in occasional RPOs last year and the year before. The Spartans are expected to make more use of RPOs this year with the offensive changes employed by new offensive coordinator Brad Salem.
Will Michigan State use Brian Lewerke’s legs as the 12th hole for 11 pegs this year, within some RPO elements? Probably so. They probably can’t do it that way over and over and over. But the Spartans are likely to mix it in, although it does put the QB at risk to contact.
Managing the amount of contact your QB receives is a big question when going to zone read/RPO-based spread. Ohio State has had injuries at QB over the years, but enough depth at the position to withstand attrition. This year, OSU doesn’t have that kind of depth. Will that be their undoing the way it was when Rodriquez lost QB Pat White to injury late in the season, and Chip Kelly (as offensive coordinator at Oregon) lost QB Dennis Dixon. Big QBs like Tim Tebow and Vince Young were the rare breed who could run the zone read for 13 or 14 games while remaining healthy.
As for the RPO era, Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray was a little dude who could fly and had great smarts. West Virginia coach Dan Holgersen said when his team prepared to play the Sooners late last season, he and his staff looked at every snap Murray took and counted up the number of hits the speedy QB endured. They found he wasn’t hit more than 12 times all year.
Is Lewerke fast and smart enough to avoid punishment like Murray? Is Michigan State willing to put him in harms way with the keeper option as part of the RPO? Somewhere in the middle is a happy median of effective football, possibly terrific offensive football.
Terrific offensive football at Michigan State?
Shut up. It wouldn’t be that big of a shock. You don’t remember 2014 and ’15? Sure that was under a different base approach, but Michigan State was quite multiple in those days, and quite effective.
Whether or not Michigan State can get effectiveness in the run game and along the o-line is the biggest question on the team and one of the biggest questions in the Big Ten.
**
As for Tulsa’s journey in modern day football:
With Briles’ system becoming more commonplace, it’s also less of a shock for opposing defensive coordinators. It’s still probably the hardest style of offense to defend, but defenses are catching up.
(Meanwhile in Los Angeles, second-year coach Chip Kelly, who was the forerunner of the super-fast-tempo style of offense at Oregon when the rules changed in 2008, is going to the huddle, two-backs and multi-tight end football. Kelly said when he left college football in 2013, his Oregon Ducks were the only team that used chrome helmets and five wide receivers and the ultra-fast hurry-up. He said now that he’s back in college football, he found that EVERY team is using chrome helmets, five wide receivers and the ultra-fast hurry-up. That’s an exaggeration, but his point is well-taken. Kelly yearns to be different. So he is going back in time, to more of a Stanford approach - the approach that gave his old Ducks the most problems. Meanwhile in The Great Lakes State, the Spartans and Wolverines are chasing the trend that Alabama adopted two or three years ago - morphing from two-page power to spread-formation multiple).
Here’s What You Need To Know (1): There’s more than one way to move the football in the college game. Doing it the mainstream Clemson/Alabama way (like most other programs in the country, born out of the zone read and Briles’ tangents) is probably the way with the least resistance. If you have a QB and WRs like Clemson last year, it’s an even bigger headache to stop.
But if you’re physical enough to do it the old-fashioned way, you might offer a powerfully effective knuckleball; we’ll see if Iowa and Wisconsin can prove that theory still holds.
Meahwhile, Michigan State plans to have the ability to run power while spreading the formations. Auburn has done that effectively in the past, and was maybe the first program to demonstrate that uptempo spread doesn’t have to be cotton candy finesse football and CAN deploy power football between the tackles. That’s about when Alabama jumped on board with it.
“Whether you’re in spread or two-back, power is still power,” Salem said - an indication that Michigan State isn’t banishing the backside guard pull from the playbook.
From there, the zone read doesn’t have to be stapled to a zone run. It can be power read option. From there, you can run power RPO. I saw Tulsa do it against Texas while watching tape last night. But Tulsa didn’t have a quality QB to make it sing.
Tulsa looked like a Briles outfit in year two of the Montgomery era in 2016, with the nation’s No. 4-ranked offense.
In the past two years, Tulsa has been substandard at quarterback. Tulsa’s talent at WR and RB is pretty good.
So here’s the big question for Friday night and the 2019 Tulsa season: Do the Hurricanes NOW have a quality quarterback in Zach Smith?
What You Need To Know (2): QB Zach Smith transferred from Baylor to Tulsa last year. Friday night, he will likely make his debut with Tulsa.
Montgomery has not named a starting quarterback. Last year’s part-time starter is Seth Boomer (6-3, 208, Soph., Collinsville, Okla) wasn’t bad:
* They removed his redshirt and he started the last eight games.
* He completed 51 pct of his passes averaging 172 yards passing per game.
* He threw 9 TDs and 4 INTs.
* He netted 71 rush yards on the year, so he’s not much of a run threat.
* He replaced QB Luke Skipper, who started the first half of the season. But Skipper retired from football in April rather than remain and compete with Boomer and Smith as a junior.
Last year in this space, I cautioned that unknown Utah State QB Jordan Love was erratic as a freshman but had good tools and said it’s possible he could make a Byron Leftwich type of leap as a sophomore. And that’s exactly what he did. I didn’t predict it would happen, but it didn’t shock me. It didn’t even surprise me.
I haven’t watched as much of Boomer as I did of Love at this time last year. But from what I’ve seen, I don’t think Boomer has the tools to become an overnight sensation like Love.
But what about Zach Smith? (Scroll Down to Big Question of the Week) for that.
But first:
FINAL ANALYSIS FIRST
Unless Tulsa gets surprise Superman type of throws and reads from Smith, their chances of victory are slim.
The fact that Smith threw for 463 yards for Baylor against Oklahoma two years ago tells us that he can get into a rhythm and throw darts, if you let him.
Can he do that against Michigan State?
Tulsa has a decent left tackle, although he’s only 6-foot-3. He has lateral quickness and can match a counter move. Kenny Willekes is outstanding, of course, but might need to play left DE and match up against the right offensive tackle in order to make more noise.
Michigan State will flip-flop Willekes back and forth, usually trying to keep him on the weak side. But they might go with him as purely a right DE due to Tulsa’s fast pace of play. (It’s easier to keep a defensive player on one side of the field than asking the defensive player to flip from strong side to weak side, depending on formation).
* The first thing that stood out to me when watching Tulsa a little bit from last year is their size.
They have big cornerbacks, a big junior college transfer tight end, big defensive linemen. Their WRs have good size. Their all-conference MLB (Cooper Edmiston) is 6-3, 241 and moves around like a Max Bullough stunt double. The other inside LB is 6-4, 256.
They have recruited big d-linemen to play a 30 front, with two-gapping as their main mode of operation when not blitzing.
Their guys are rotund on the d-line but from what I’ve seen, they are not quality all-around players. The d-end, Trevis Gipson, has some good pass rush ability but isn’t good against double-team blocking.
Some of their big d-tackles are solid against double-team blocking but aren’t real mobile.
Gipson is pretty good. The other guys are big, but kind of remind me of some Purdue d-lines we’ve seen in the past. They have some size, but they are still Purdue. These d-linemen at Tulsa have some size, but they aren’t mid-major diamonds in the rough. Although Gipson is enough of a pass rusher that he can get free for the occasional game-changing play.
Key Matchup 1: Gipson (6-4, 268, Sr., Cedar Hill, Texas) is usually at right defensive end. [He weight 200 pounds coming out of high school as a no-star recruit].
Gipson has good size for a pass-rushing d-end. He has a quick first step but not necessarily a great second step to the outside. From what I’ve seen, he is a first step to the outside, and counter inside, with good quickness and some pop to go with it.
Gipson ranked No. 2 in the nation last year in forced fumbles with five.
His other stats aren’t so great: 4 sacks last year and 3 QB hurries.
Gipson will be matching up against MSU’s new left tackle, AJ Arcuri.
I’ve been saying all off-season that Arcuri looked good in the Green-White Game, and was the most overlooked story of the day that day, and the most overlooked story of the summer. That forecast turned out to be accurate when Arcuri was named MSU’s starting left tackle on Tuesday.
Arcuri is big, smooth, athletic. But he has only played 22 snaps in his career. Will he be able to settle in and play with poise? That’s a big key to the game because he is matched up with one of Tulsa’s top two players. And Arcuri needs to get used to it, because right side defensive end is often the best player for most defenses.
* Tulsa’s run game vs MSU’s run defense is the mainstream curiosity.
Tulsa produced a 100-yard rusher in eight games last year. Junior RBs Shamari Brooks and Corey Taylor combined for 1,813 yards last year and 18 rushing TDs.
Brooks rushed for 967 in 11 games and Taylor rushed for 846 in 11 games.
Taylor made news recently when he said he expected 100 yards apiece from himself and Brooks against MSU’s vaunted run defense.
“With the offensive line that we have, those are great guys, so 100 yards apiece (for Taylor and fellow junior tailback Shamari Brooks), at least, and five (yards) per carry is pretty reasonable,” he said.
I asked Michigan State defensive tackle Mike Panasiuk and safety David Dowell about those comments after practice on Tuesday. They were aware of the comments. Everyone is aware of them. But neither seemed angry about it. They were likely told not to fire back with harsh words to then give Tulsa more to get excited about.
Taylor’s comments have been an element of motivation for Michigan State this week, and the Spartan coaches were glad to have something to dangle in front of the Michigan State defense in preparing for this game.
But those of us in the media who were expecting Spartan players to lash out at the Tulsa players, SEC-style, well, it wasn’t going to happen.
But I do think the Tulsa’s chances of run game success on Friday night were NOT helped by Taylor’s comments.
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* As for Tulsa’s defense, the Hurricanes ranked No. 8 in the nation in pass defense last year, but that’s a misleading stat.
The Hurricanes allowed only 174 yards passing per game because their run defense was so poor.
Here’s The Truth: Tulsa ranked No. 119 in the nation (out of 130 teams) in rushing defense.
Tulsa runs a 3-3-5 defense. Usually that doesn’t mean much. Most 3-3-5 defenses end up looking like standard 3-4-4 defenses when it’s time to line up and play, with one of the three “safeties” creeping down to essentially play linebacker.
But not Tulsa. Last year, they often put three safeties deep across the top with one or sometimes BOTH cornerbacks playing off coverage.
On one hand, that makes for soft passing windows underneath.
But it also leaves the box incredibly thin vs the run. So most opponents decided not to attack deep vs the deep-safety look, and instead took candy from the run defense baby.
The safeties played deep, and when they came up to try to support the run, they took poor angles and didn’t tackle well. That’s pretty much the trifecta. It looked like something out of Chris Smeland’s defense at the end of the John L. Smith era (like when Michigan State played with two safeties deep all day long against a Juice Williams Illinois team that couldn’t throw the ball, but instead ran at will against light boxes).
HOWEVER, Tulsa’s defensive coordinator from last year retired. The new DC was Tulsa’s linebackers coach from a year ago.
How much will the defense change? I don’t know. Tulsa held open scrimmages this month, but I didn’t travel to Oklahoma to watch them. I suspect that Michigan State had spies in attendance. At least I would hope they did.
As for my desk, I don’t know what the Tulsa defense will look like. If they continue to play a deep, conservative secondary with a light box, then it might be a night for run game resurrection for the Spartans.
Also, if Tulsa continues to play soft in the secondary with safeties bailing deep, play action passes to the tight end over the middle certainly worked well for Arkansas against the Hurricanes last year. A career game (thus far) for Michigan State TE Matt Dotson is a possibility.
Montgomery spoke earlier this week about not knowing whether Michigan State will go with its old school, two-back approach or something vastly different. Maybe that was coachspeak, because most of us know that the two-back, old-school approach is out. But he said stopping the run against “physical” Michigan State is a top priority.
If he truly means what he says, then maybe Tulsa will go away from last year’s safety net approach to defense.
This is one of those cases where we’ve never seen MSU’s offense play and we’ve never seen Tulsa’s defense play. So we might as well be doing card tricks and magic shows in trying to visualize what’s going to take place.
Back to things we know more about:
A Big Question Of The Week (1): Has Montgomery held off on naming a starter because he wants to dilute MSU’s preparation just a bit?
Or has Montgomery held off on naming a starter because the competition is actually that close between Boomer and Smith?
I think it’s the former.
When asked if he will likely use two QBs, he said no. He plans to go with one and ride with one.
If the competition were actually that close, would Montgomery be that steadfast right now in declaring it will be a 1-QB system? I think not.
I am expecting Smith to be the guy.
THE MICRO ON TULSA
QB ZACH SMITH (6-3, 224, Jr., Grandview, Texas).
* Smith was a four-star recruit, ranked the No. 41 player in Texas in 2016, and the No. 3 QB in Texas. (Alabama’s Jalen Hurts, now at Oklahoma, was No. 2).
* You may have heard me talk about Smith a few times this week on the radio or podcasts. He transferred from Baylor last year and sat out the 2018 season.
At Baylor, he played in 18 games, including 10 starts. He threw for at least 200 yards in his first seven starts and in eight of 10 career starts.
* He played for interim coach Jim Grobe in 2016 and Matt Rhule in 2017.
* His 14 TD passes in his first five starts were second-best in Baylor history.
* In his best game, he threw for 463 yards (33 of 50) and four TDs against No. 3 Oklahoma in 2017.
So why did he leave Baylor? Well, Baylor had a sexual assault scandal and a coaching staff shuffle, so he went with Montgomery at Tulsa. Montgomery was Smith’s main recruiter at Baylor.
Montgomery on Smith: “I knew him. I knew his family. I knew what he was about. I knew what we were getting. To have him come and be a part of what we have going on here, I thought it was gonna be a great match on both ends.”
Montgomery on Smith last week: “He’s still knocking a little rust off, but I’m really impressed with what he’s doing and the command of the offense that he has,” Montgomery said of Smith. “Now we just gotta continue generating that and getting better every week.”
My Take On Smith: The arm talent is there. That’s why he was a four-star recruit and why Briles brought him to be the heir of a short but impressive string of QBs.
He is a pocket guy. In the clips I’ve seen, I haven’t seen him do anything on the move. Maybe he can do it, but I haven’t seen him do it.
He wants to stand in the pocket and throw darts. If you let him do that, in the Briles system, he will be dangerous. And Tulsa has the WRs and RBs to make noise.
But does Tulsa have the blocking?
Tulsa returns the LT and LG from a mediocre offensive line.
When you see Smith make mistakes for Baylor against West Virginia and Kansas State, it’s when he is feeling some pressure, or is “moved off his point,” as Dantonio likes to say.
That’s the case with most QBs. Put pressure on the and they aren’t themselves. Well, that’s the case with most QBs. Some are special enough to withstand some heat. Some occasional prosper in the face of physical pressure.
As a sophomore at Baylor, Smith struggled when getting some heat.
So if Michigan State can get heat on Smith, his chances of having a storybook night will likely diminish drastically.
Of course this is an obvious, worn-out “key to victory” cliché: MSU’s key on defense is to get heat on the quarterback. Thank you, captain obvious. That goes for most teams and most games and most key to victory lists.
In this case, Michigan State made pass rush across the board one of the biggest areas of emphasis of the off-season.
Kenny Willekes was No. 1 in the nation among edge rushers, according to Pro Football Focus, in applying heat to QBs.
Tulsa’s pass protection might be suspect, although their left tackle looks okay to me.
The Tulsa offense was predicated on the run game last year. Can they make it work against the nation’s No. 1 run defense of 2018, Michigan State? Or might Tulsa have more dual-threat capability this year with Smith?
All are good questions.
THE LATEST ON TULSA
* Montgomery indicated that Tulsa’s o-line was giving up too much pressure in its scrimmage, especially to Gipson.
* Montgomery was bothered by his offense’s penalties in the last scrimmage of August.
* In the first scrimmage of August, Smith and Boomer seemed to make the same number of big plays (not many) and mistakes.
THINGS TO KNOW
* Tulsa was mostly a spread-to-run offense last year, but the Hurricanes threw deep four times in the first half against Texas.
They also attempted a double pass trick play on their second possession (WR Keenen Johnson overthrew an open target).
In the 2015 Cotton Bowl, Baylor tied the game at 14-14 with a 53-yard double pass from WR to WR in the first quarter.
So be alert for the double-pass. Montgomery likes it.
* Baylor had a very good running attack in 2014, but Michigan State set out to stuff the run attack by giving the slot WR a free release and off coverage while the defender in that area skewed toward the run.
Baylor went to the free-release slot WR over and over and over an obscene number of their completions. Michigan State was willing to stop the run, take this trade-off, and make Baylor earn their points with long drives and stiffen in the red zone.
Michigan State gave up a lot of points and a lot of yards that day, but Michigan State also held Baylor under its season average in yards and points, and forced more field goal attempts than the Bears had attempted all season.
The problem is that Baylor hit big plays from beyond the red zone, such as the 53-yard double pass. That messed up MSU’s calculus, which was otherwise on-schedule to work.
Pat Narduzzi was d-coordinator back then. He was less willing to change his defense than his successors, Mike Tressel and Harlon Barnett.
Tressel and Barnett stuck with Narduzzi’s system in 2015. Then came problems from other areas in 2016. Then in 2017, Michigan State really started to update their defense, with less predictability in coverages.
Last year, the defense grew up with a Top 10 unit, strong against both the pass and the run.
Now, Michigan State will see the Briles offense again. My two biggest questions in this area:
1. Will Michigan State continue to leave the slot WR open like they did in the 2015 Cotton Bowl?
2. Is Zach Smith of Tulsa anything remotely comparable to Bryce Petty at Baylor?
You’ll find out when I do.
TULSA PERSONNEL (other than Smith)
QB SETH BOOMER (6-3, 208, Soph., Collinsville, Okla.)
* I’m expecting him to be the back-up. But I could be wrong.
* He improved last year as the season progressed. He completed only 35 pct of his passes in his first three starts. But completed 61 pct of his passes in his last five starts.
* He threw 4 TD passes against UConn.
* Was a two-star, unranked recruit with no offers after committing to Tulsa late in his junior year.
* In the first August scrimmage, he led two of Tulsa’s first three TD drives but also threw two bad INTs.
* In going through the Tulsa roster, most of their starters are guys that Tulsa recruited and signed. From what I’ve seen, for the most part, they don’t have a lot of transfers who were once highly-ranked guys. Utah State had many, many guys who transferred from name programs with good recruiting profiles. Tulsa is trying to do it the other way.
THE RUN GAME:
3 RB SHAMARI BROOKS (5-9, 195, Jr., Tulsa)
* Was a three-star recruit with an offer from Texas Tech and mid-majors.
* Rushed for 967 yards lats year (87.9 yards per game and 4.2 per carry).
* He is a quick-cut guy who pinballs around for daylight.
* Something unique to Tulsa: Their TE last year (who graduated) often lines up close to fullback depth, well off the line, sometimes behind the guard. This is an odd sight when the QB is in shot gun and there’s a tailback to his side.
So that creates a two-back shotgun look, which goes against “spread” stereotypes. Then they’ll motion a WR into the backfield, and now they have two potential ball carriers and a backfield blocking back, and it might look like the flexbone … if the QB were a run threat. But these QBs are not.
24 COREY TAYLOR (5-10, 222, JR., Tulsa)
* Was an unranked, two-star recruit when he committed to Air Force to be part of the Falcons’ 2015 freshman class. But he spent 2015 at Air Force Academy Prep, and then enrolled at Tulsa in 2016.
* Rushed for 846 yards and 11 TDs last year. Averaged 4.8 yards per carry and 76.9 yards per game.
* He is a big man who will tip toe for a moment and then run with power.
* He converted a fourth-and-one on a toss sweep out of shot gun, via the hurry-up against Texas.
NAMES & THINGS TO KNOW
Two guys return on the o-line:
65 LT CHRIS IVY (6-3, 296, Sr., Wichita, Kan.)
* Is a second-year starter.
* He is short for the position, but he moves well - as a 6-foot-3 left tackle MUST do.
* He changes directions well, can move inside to take on a counter move by a d-end, or a stunt. Willekes’ favorite move is a counter to the inside. Ivy might be well-suited to keep a lid on that move. Willekes has worked to improve his straight bull rush from the edge; he might need to show that improvement to have a big game against Ivy.
* Overall, Ivy isn’t a weakness.
LG CHRIS PAUL (6-4, 324, Soph., Houston).
* Was an unranked two-star, with offers from Army and mid-majors.
* Another dude with plus size. Despite his gerth, he gets out as a pull guard once in awhile. He’s not a stature. But I wouldn’t call him a plus player.
The other three o-linemen … I haven’t seen them play.
They go:
C: 6-3, 299, Jr.
RG: 6-5, 322, Jr.
RT: 6-4, 300, R-Fr.
“Those guys are coming together,” Montgomery said. “We are much younger up front than we’ve been in the last couple of seasons. There’s going to be some times when we may get beat, we can’t let that linger into the next play. We have to keep battling throughout.”
Key Matchup 2: If that sounds like strength (Michigan State d-front) vs weakness (Tulsa o-line), you might be right.
When a strength matches up against a weakness, you can usually expect disproportionate results, and that’s what Michigan State needs to make happen in order to prevent Tulsa’s offense from getting into a Northwestern-style rhythm.
Montgomery know it.
Montgomery on MSU’s defense:
“They are are technically very sound,” he said. “They don’t stay blocked. You can see a guy in great position, hands in the right spot, body in the right spot and then all the sudden you see a guy pop away from it and make the tackle. So you have to do a good job of sustaining blocks; we have to do a good job as running backs working in and out of those things. If you see daylight you’d better hit it because it’s going to close in a hurry.”
Montgomery on MSU’s d-line:
“This d-line that we’re facing might be the best d-line we’ve faced since I’ve been here. They have unbelievable talent up front but it is maybe one of the best-coached, technical fronts that we’ve gone against. We maybe have played some better athletes up front but I don’t know as a group and the way they pay technically within their scheme, I don’t know that we’ve played anyone better.”
“I feel as though we’ve got some talented backs, some guys that can to do some work. We have to do a good job of trying to limit what people can do to us from a defensive front standpoint.”
How? He isn’t saying. But tempo and formations would be the short answer.
WIDE RECEIVERS
* Good WR athletes seem to be a dime a dozen these days, and Tulsa has some good ones with experience.
2 KEYLON STOKES (6-0, 190, Jr., Manvel, Texas)
* Was a three-star recruit with mid-major offers.
* Led team with 41 catches last year for 575 yards.
* Rushed 15 times for 104 yards.
* He had Tulsa’s only 100-plus yard receiving game last year with 140 vs SMU.
8 WR KEENEN JOHNSON (6-1, 200, Sr., Alto, Texas)
* 29 starts, 108 career receptions.
* Was a two-star recruit, unranked with offers from mid-majors such as Louisiana-Lafayette, SMU and North Texas.
* As was the case with Briles’ teams, if the slot WR has a free release, they will often shoot the ball to that guy on a quick hitch or a mini curl or a slot out. Stokes is often that guy.
* They will run switch routes, with two WRs lining up next to one another and criss-crossing as they move downfield. Sometimes they cross each other downfield, sometimes they cross each other immediately. Michigan State will look to “switch” like basketball players, known as a banjo technique.
Will Michigan State switch when they have a CB and a safety playing next to one another? It’s easier to switch when they play “corners over” with both CBs on the same side of the field. I don’t know if someone like Xavier Henderson is ready to switch onto a WR the way Michigan State could do that with Justin Layne and Khari Willis.
DEFENSIVE FRONT:
15 DE TREVIS GIPSON (6-4, 268, Sr.)
* Mentioned earlier.
* Was a no-star recruit who has become a decent d-end.
* He isn’t a traditional wide nine rush end. They don’t do that, with a 30 front.
54 DT SHEMARR ROBINSON (6-4, 312, Sr.)
* There’s that size again. He’s listed as a DT but he will play some five technique defensive end in the 30 front.
* Pretty good vs double teams.
* They will bring a 343-pounder, Tyarise Stevenson, off the bench. Size.
90 NG JAXON PLAYER (6-0, 296, Soph.)
* No opinion.
LINEBACKER
42 MLB COOPER EDMISTON (6-3 241, Sr., Gatesville, Texas)
* 113 tackles last year and all-conference in the American.
* He was an unranked two-star with no other offers.
* Plays like a slightly watered-down version of Max Bullough. This is a quality middle linebacker with good size.
23 WLB ZAVEN COLLINS (6-4, 256, Soph., Hominy, Okla.)
* Was an unranked, two-star recruit with no other offers.
* Intercepted Boomer in the first scrimmage of August.
* No other opinion, other than look at that size and frame. That’s another big guy for his position.
6 STAR LB DIAMON CANNON (6-2, 230, Sr.)
* Good size for slot LB.
* Looked like a Brandon Bouyer-Randle type in blocking a punt vs Texas.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
* Big corners.
* Their safeties were unimpressive in pursuing to the ball and making tackles last year.
26 CB AKAYLEB EVANS (6-2, 193, Jr., McKinney, Texas)
* Unranked, two-star recruit with offers from Iowa State and Kansas.
++ Good hip turn vs WR Devin Duvernay of Texas on two occasions when playing press vs a go-route. Good hip turn, good run vs a very speedy guy. With his size at 6-foot-2, Evans looked like an NFL prospect on these two snaps.
The other cornerbacks go 6-1, 197 and 6-3, 215. And they added a juco CB who is 6-3, 180.
Size, size, size.
* The safeties are shaky.
Strong safety Manny Bunch plays like his panties are in one.
That might not be fair. I haven’t seen him play all that much.
He’s 6-2, 201 and he misplayed an outside zone into a 29-yard TD run against Texas. Was tentative, took a wrong angle, missed a tackle, the whole nine.
The stat sheet says he ha8 80 tackles last year. I wonder how many he missed. he had 14 tackles against Navy and has started 18 times, so maybe I just saw him at a bad moment.
When seeing their safeties play deep, and then support the run so shakily, that’s what adds up to a run defense ranking outside the top 100.
* The other safety is Brandon Johnson (6-0, 186, Sr.) He had nine tackles last year as a reserve in his first year as a juco transfer.
SPECIAL TEAMS
* Their punter averaged 46.6 last year. That’s booming it. He’s good.
* The place kicker is a freshman, Jacob Rainey.
* Stokes is the return man. No opinion.
ADD IT ALL UP
* MSU’s offense should have a comfortable matchup to work out its kinks and maybe pleasure the home crowd with some modern wrinkles.
Brian Lewerke should be in position to perform the reads in the new offense that he is so excited about.
MSU needs to see Connor Heyward run with power and improved vision.
We hear that Cody White is improved at WR. He was pretty good before, when healthy. Darrell Stewart might be better than people remember.
The stage is set for these guy to do good work. They feel good about themselves.
If there is a concern, it would be dropped passes and inaccurate passes from being too jacked up. We saw that in the first quarter of the Holiday Bowl, 20 months ago.
On defense, Michigan State should win up front and stifle the run. The question is whether Tulsa can establish the pass. If Smith is the starter, can he get into a game of keepaway that would make the Briles family proud? Or will Michigan State win up front at such a loud, consistent rate that he doesn’t have time to even perform quick-game passes?
He’s not mobile, from what I’ve seen. That makes the chances of a magical upset less likely for Tulsa.
Overall, Michigan State usually is less than perfect in these type of opening games. But the focus, talent level, experience, chemistry and collective will is strong for the home team.
You go ahead and name the score. I don’t do that very often.
By Jim Comparoni
Publisher, SpartanMag.com
EAST LANSING - The lofts are up, SBS is buzzing, peanuts are all over the floor at the Barrel and it’s time for Michigan State’s annual Friday night Labor Day Weekend kickoff.
No. 18-ranked Michigan State will play host to Tulsa at 7 p.m. on Friday at Spartan Stadium (FS1).
It’s time for the SpartanMag Pre-Snap Read, a terrible addiction and autumnal affliction for some. And we appreciate being your dealer.
In the past, we promoted the Pre-Snap Read as being the most in-depth, insightful game previews in the history of mankind. We have backed off from that claim in recent years as we have tried to go shorter with them. These will no longer approach 15,000 words in length.
This week, it’s easy to keep it short because we’ve seen neither team play.
Michigan State is a 22.5-point favorite. The Spartans didn’t beat any team by 22 or more points last year in going 7-6.
Is Tulsa that bad? Or is Michigan State ready to play sharp, quality football on both sides of the line of scrimmage?
We haven’t seen Michigan State or Tulsa play in nearly nine months. Forecasts are foggy. But here’s the top of the lineup for what you need to know about this matchup.
* Tulsa went 3-9 last year.
(Games of note: Lost to Texas, 28-21. Lost to Arkansas, 23-0)
* Tulsa was 2-10 the year before, in 2017.
* Tulsa was 10-3 in 2016.
So what the heck is the deal with this program? Ten wins, to two wins, to three wins?
THE MACRO & THE BACK STORY
Head coach Philip Montgomery (Philip with one “L”) is in his fifth year at the helm of the Golden Hurricanes.
Prior to becoming head coach at Tulsa, he was co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Baylor, under Art Briles.
[Montgomery and Briles’ son, Kendal Briles, shared the offensive coordinator role at Baylor from 2012-2015. Montgomery began as Art Briles’ co-offensive coordinator at the University of Houston in 2005, and stayed with him through the 2014 season. Kendal joined in 2012.
[Montgomery’s final game as Baylor’s co-offensive coordinator was the Bears’ 42-41 loss to Michigan State on Jan. 1, 2015 in the Cotton Bowl Classic.]
So Montgomery had a hand in the development of Briles’ system, which revolutionized college football with the use of what has become known as the RPO (run pass options).
When Michigan State played Baylor in 2014, the term “RPO” wasn’t yet a regular part of football lexicon. Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi described Baylor’s system this way: “The best way I can describe it is that every run is also a pass, and every pass is also a run.”
Dantonio complimented Baylor for being “cutting edge” with its offensive approach in 2014.
Basically, Baylor was one of the first, if not THE first, major conference program to regularly use run blocking for pass plays. This puts d-linemen in a dilemma. The d-linemen see offensive linemen firing off the ball in a zone blocking scheme, so the d-linemen stay home, man their gaps and play the run. Meanwhile, the QB is pulling the ball out of the RB’s gut and has time for quick-game passing because the d-linemen are playing the run, they aren’t rushing the passer.
If you want to blitz against that look, that’s just more fun (and open windows) for the QB.
If you want to keep your safeties back and play the pass, then the QB will leave the ball in the gut of the RB with standard 6 vs 6 blocking, or 5 vs 5. Get a helmet on a helmet and the RB should have some daylight somewhere.
If the QB is also a run threat, then the defense has 11 pegs for 12 holes, and that’s how and why Robert Griffin III was unstoppable at Baylor in 2011.
They basically added an element to Rich Rodriguez’s read option. Rodriguez used to deploy a little bit of passing behind run blocking. Baylor took it to another level.
When people describe the RPO, they usually focus on the QB’s reads. But it’s the work on the offensive line (every run play is a pass play) that gave Briles’ Baylor a new gear.
**
Depending on how you choose to defend the old Baylor system, or the current Tulsa system, the run game can often be as tough to stop as the pass game. Tulsa ranked No. 4 in the nation in total offense three years ago. They had a good QB, good blocking, good RBs and the Briles scheme.
In 2016, Tulsa rushed for 300-plus yards in EIGHT games.
That team went 10-3 and beat a 6-7 Central Michigan team 55-10 in the Miami Beach Bowl.
Last year, Tulsa was more of a spread-to-run outfit than an air-it-out spread.
**
Now, the Briles scheme, and RPOs, have become conventional football. Michigan State dabbled in occasional RPOs last year and the year before. The Spartans are expected to make more use of RPOs this year with the offensive changes employed by new offensive coordinator Brad Salem.
Will Michigan State use Brian Lewerke’s legs as the 12th hole for 11 pegs this year, within some RPO elements? Probably so. They probably can’t do it that way over and over and over. But the Spartans are likely to mix it in, although it does put the QB at risk to contact.
Managing the amount of contact your QB receives is a big question when going to zone read/RPO-based spread. Ohio State has had injuries at QB over the years, but enough depth at the position to withstand attrition. This year, OSU doesn’t have that kind of depth. Will that be their undoing the way it was when Rodriquez lost QB Pat White to injury late in the season, and Chip Kelly (as offensive coordinator at Oregon) lost QB Dennis Dixon. Big QBs like Tim Tebow and Vince Young were the rare breed who could run the zone read for 13 or 14 games while remaining healthy.
As for the RPO era, Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray was a little dude who could fly and had great smarts. West Virginia coach Dan Holgersen said when his team prepared to play the Sooners late last season, he and his staff looked at every snap Murray took and counted up the number of hits the speedy QB endured. They found he wasn’t hit more than 12 times all year.
Is Lewerke fast and smart enough to avoid punishment like Murray? Is Michigan State willing to put him in harms way with the keeper option as part of the RPO? Somewhere in the middle is a happy median of effective football, possibly terrific offensive football.
Terrific offensive football at Michigan State?
Shut up. It wouldn’t be that big of a shock. You don’t remember 2014 and ’15? Sure that was under a different base approach, but Michigan State was quite multiple in those days, and quite effective.
Whether or not Michigan State can get effectiveness in the run game and along the o-line is the biggest question on the team and one of the biggest questions in the Big Ten.
**
As for Tulsa’s journey in modern day football:
With Briles’ system becoming more commonplace, it’s also less of a shock for opposing defensive coordinators. It’s still probably the hardest style of offense to defend, but defenses are catching up.
(Meanwhile in Los Angeles, second-year coach Chip Kelly, who was the forerunner of the super-fast-tempo style of offense at Oregon when the rules changed in 2008, is going to the huddle, two-backs and multi-tight end football. Kelly said when he left college football in 2013, his Oregon Ducks were the only team that used chrome helmets and five wide receivers and the ultra-fast hurry-up. He said now that he’s back in college football, he found that EVERY team is using chrome helmets, five wide receivers and the ultra-fast hurry-up. That’s an exaggeration, but his point is well-taken. Kelly yearns to be different. So he is going back in time, to more of a Stanford approach - the approach that gave his old Ducks the most problems. Meanwhile in The Great Lakes State, the Spartans and Wolverines are chasing the trend that Alabama adopted two or three years ago - morphing from two-page power to spread-formation multiple).
Here’s What You Need To Know (1): There’s more than one way to move the football in the college game. Doing it the mainstream Clemson/Alabama way (like most other programs in the country, born out of the zone read and Briles’ tangents) is probably the way with the least resistance. If you have a QB and WRs like Clemson last year, it’s an even bigger headache to stop.
But if you’re physical enough to do it the old-fashioned way, you might offer a powerfully effective knuckleball; we’ll see if Iowa and Wisconsin can prove that theory still holds.
Meahwhile, Michigan State plans to have the ability to run power while spreading the formations. Auburn has done that effectively in the past, and was maybe the first program to demonstrate that uptempo spread doesn’t have to be cotton candy finesse football and CAN deploy power football between the tackles. That’s about when Alabama jumped on board with it.
“Whether you’re in spread or two-back, power is still power,” Salem said - an indication that Michigan State isn’t banishing the backside guard pull from the playbook.
From there, the zone read doesn’t have to be stapled to a zone run. It can be power read option. From there, you can run power RPO. I saw Tulsa do it against Texas while watching tape last night. But Tulsa didn’t have a quality QB to make it sing.
Tulsa looked like a Briles outfit in year two of the Montgomery era in 2016, with the nation’s No. 4-ranked offense.
In the past two years, Tulsa has been substandard at quarterback. Tulsa’s talent at WR and RB is pretty good.
So here’s the big question for Friday night and the 2019 Tulsa season: Do the Hurricanes NOW have a quality quarterback in Zach Smith?
What You Need To Know (2): QB Zach Smith transferred from Baylor to Tulsa last year. Friday night, he will likely make his debut with Tulsa.
Montgomery has not named a starting quarterback. Last year’s part-time starter is Seth Boomer (6-3, 208, Soph., Collinsville, Okla) wasn’t bad:
* They removed his redshirt and he started the last eight games.
* He completed 51 pct of his passes averaging 172 yards passing per game.
* He threw 9 TDs and 4 INTs.
* He netted 71 rush yards on the year, so he’s not much of a run threat.
* He replaced QB Luke Skipper, who started the first half of the season. But Skipper retired from football in April rather than remain and compete with Boomer and Smith as a junior.
Last year in this space, I cautioned that unknown Utah State QB Jordan Love was erratic as a freshman but had good tools and said it’s possible he could make a Byron Leftwich type of leap as a sophomore. And that’s exactly what he did. I didn’t predict it would happen, but it didn’t shock me. It didn’t even surprise me.
I haven’t watched as much of Boomer as I did of Love at this time last year. But from what I’ve seen, I don’t think Boomer has the tools to become an overnight sensation like Love.
But what about Zach Smith? (Scroll Down to Big Question of the Week) for that.
But first:
FINAL ANALYSIS FIRST
Unless Tulsa gets surprise Superman type of throws and reads from Smith, their chances of victory are slim.
The fact that Smith threw for 463 yards for Baylor against Oklahoma two years ago tells us that he can get into a rhythm and throw darts, if you let him.
Can he do that against Michigan State?
Tulsa has a decent left tackle, although he’s only 6-foot-3. He has lateral quickness and can match a counter move. Kenny Willekes is outstanding, of course, but might need to play left DE and match up against the right offensive tackle in order to make more noise.
Michigan State will flip-flop Willekes back and forth, usually trying to keep him on the weak side. But they might go with him as purely a right DE due to Tulsa’s fast pace of play. (It’s easier to keep a defensive player on one side of the field than asking the defensive player to flip from strong side to weak side, depending on formation).
* The first thing that stood out to me when watching Tulsa a little bit from last year is their size.
They have big cornerbacks, a big junior college transfer tight end, big defensive linemen. Their WRs have good size. Their all-conference MLB (Cooper Edmiston) is 6-3, 241 and moves around like a Max Bullough stunt double. The other inside LB is 6-4, 256.
They have recruited big d-linemen to play a 30 front, with two-gapping as their main mode of operation when not blitzing.
Their guys are rotund on the d-line but from what I’ve seen, they are not quality all-around players. The d-end, Trevis Gipson, has some good pass rush ability but isn’t good against double-team blocking.
Some of their big d-tackles are solid against double-team blocking but aren’t real mobile.
Gipson is pretty good. The other guys are big, but kind of remind me of some Purdue d-lines we’ve seen in the past. They have some size, but they are still Purdue. These d-linemen at Tulsa have some size, but they aren’t mid-major diamonds in the rough. Although Gipson is enough of a pass rusher that he can get free for the occasional game-changing play.
Key Matchup 1: Gipson (6-4, 268, Sr., Cedar Hill, Texas) is usually at right defensive end. [He weight 200 pounds coming out of high school as a no-star recruit].
Gipson has good size for a pass-rushing d-end. He has a quick first step but not necessarily a great second step to the outside. From what I’ve seen, he is a first step to the outside, and counter inside, with good quickness and some pop to go with it.
Gipson ranked No. 2 in the nation last year in forced fumbles with five.
His other stats aren’t so great: 4 sacks last year and 3 QB hurries.
Gipson will be matching up against MSU’s new left tackle, AJ Arcuri.
I’ve been saying all off-season that Arcuri looked good in the Green-White Game, and was the most overlooked story of the day that day, and the most overlooked story of the summer. That forecast turned out to be accurate when Arcuri was named MSU’s starting left tackle on Tuesday.
Arcuri is big, smooth, athletic. But he has only played 22 snaps in his career. Will he be able to settle in and play with poise? That’s a big key to the game because he is matched up with one of Tulsa’s top two players. And Arcuri needs to get used to it, because right side defensive end is often the best player for most defenses.
* Tulsa’s run game vs MSU’s run defense is the mainstream curiosity.
Tulsa produced a 100-yard rusher in eight games last year. Junior RBs Shamari Brooks and Corey Taylor combined for 1,813 yards last year and 18 rushing TDs.
Brooks rushed for 967 in 11 games and Taylor rushed for 846 in 11 games.
Taylor made news recently when he said he expected 100 yards apiece from himself and Brooks against MSU’s vaunted run defense.
“With the offensive line that we have, those are great guys, so 100 yards apiece (for Taylor and fellow junior tailback Shamari Brooks), at least, and five (yards) per carry is pretty reasonable,” he said.
I asked Michigan State defensive tackle Mike Panasiuk and safety David Dowell about those comments after practice on Tuesday. They were aware of the comments. Everyone is aware of them. But neither seemed angry about it. They were likely told not to fire back with harsh words to then give Tulsa more to get excited about.
Taylor’s comments have been an element of motivation for Michigan State this week, and the Spartan coaches were glad to have something to dangle in front of the Michigan State defense in preparing for this game.
But those of us in the media who were expecting Spartan players to lash out at the Tulsa players, SEC-style, well, it wasn’t going to happen.
But I do think the Tulsa’s chances of run game success on Friday night were NOT helped by Taylor’s comments.
**
* As for Tulsa’s defense, the Hurricanes ranked No. 8 in the nation in pass defense last year, but that’s a misleading stat.
The Hurricanes allowed only 174 yards passing per game because their run defense was so poor.
Here’s The Truth: Tulsa ranked No. 119 in the nation (out of 130 teams) in rushing defense.
Tulsa runs a 3-3-5 defense. Usually that doesn’t mean much. Most 3-3-5 defenses end up looking like standard 3-4-4 defenses when it’s time to line up and play, with one of the three “safeties” creeping down to essentially play linebacker.
But not Tulsa. Last year, they often put three safeties deep across the top with one or sometimes BOTH cornerbacks playing off coverage.
On one hand, that makes for soft passing windows underneath.
But it also leaves the box incredibly thin vs the run. So most opponents decided not to attack deep vs the deep-safety look, and instead took candy from the run defense baby.
The safeties played deep, and when they came up to try to support the run, they took poor angles and didn’t tackle well. That’s pretty much the trifecta. It looked like something out of Chris Smeland’s defense at the end of the John L. Smith era (like when Michigan State played with two safeties deep all day long against a Juice Williams Illinois team that couldn’t throw the ball, but instead ran at will against light boxes).
HOWEVER, Tulsa’s defensive coordinator from last year retired. The new DC was Tulsa’s linebackers coach from a year ago.
How much will the defense change? I don’t know. Tulsa held open scrimmages this month, but I didn’t travel to Oklahoma to watch them. I suspect that Michigan State had spies in attendance. At least I would hope they did.
As for my desk, I don’t know what the Tulsa defense will look like. If they continue to play a deep, conservative secondary with a light box, then it might be a night for run game resurrection for the Spartans.
Also, if Tulsa continues to play soft in the secondary with safeties bailing deep, play action passes to the tight end over the middle certainly worked well for Arkansas against the Hurricanes last year. A career game (thus far) for Michigan State TE Matt Dotson is a possibility.
Montgomery spoke earlier this week about not knowing whether Michigan State will go with its old school, two-back approach or something vastly different. Maybe that was coachspeak, because most of us know that the two-back, old-school approach is out. But he said stopping the run against “physical” Michigan State is a top priority.
If he truly means what he says, then maybe Tulsa will go away from last year’s safety net approach to defense.
This is one of those cases where we’ve never seen MSU’s offense play and we’ve never seen Tulsa’s defense play. So we might as well be doing card tricks and magic shows in trying to visualize what’s going to take place.
Back to things we know more about:
A Big Question Of The Week (1): Has Montgomery held off on naming a starter because he wants to dilute MSU’s preparation just a bit?
Or has Montgomery held off on naming a starter because the competition is actually that close between Boomer and Smith?
I think it’s the former.
When asked if he will likely use two QBs, he said no. He plans to go with one and ride with one.
If the competition were actually that close, would Montgomery be that steadfast right now in declaring it will be a 1-QB system? I think not.
I am expecting Smith to be the guy.
THE MICRO ON TULSA
QB ZACH SMITH (6-3, 224, Jr., Grandview, Texas).
* Smith was a four-star recruit, ranked the No. 41 player in Texas in 2016, and the No. 3 QB in Texas. (Alabama’s Jalen Hurts, now at Oklahoma, was No. 2).
* You may have heard me talk about Smith a few times this week on the radio or podcasts. He transferred from Baylor last year and sat out the 2018 season.
At Baylor, he played in 18 games, including 10 starts. He threw for at least 200 yards in his first seven starts and in eight of 10 career starts.
* He played for interim coach Jim Grobe in 2016 and Matt Rhule in 2017.
* His 14 TD passes in his first five starts were second-best in Baylor history.
* In his best game, he threw for 463 yards (33 of 50) and four TDs against No. 3 Oklahoma in 2017.
So why did he leave Baylor? Well, Baylor had a sexual assault scandal and a coaching staff shuffle, so he went with Montgomery at Tulsa. Montgomery was Smith’s main recruiter at Baylor.
Montgomery on Smith: “I knew him. I knew his family. I knew what he was about. I knew what we were getting. To have him come and be a part of what we have going on here, I thought it was gonna be a great match on both ends.”
Montgomery on Smith last week: “He’s still knocking a little rust off, but I’m really impressed with what he’s doing and the command of the offense that he has,” Montgomery said of Smith. “Now we just gotta continue generating that and getting better every week.”
My Take On Smith: The arm talent is there. That’s why he was a four-star recruit and why Briles brought him to be the heir of a short but impressive string of QBs.
He is a pocket guy. In the clips I’ve seen, I haven’t seen him do anything on the move. Maybe he can do it, but I haven’t seen him do it.
He wants to stand in the pocket and throw darts. If you let him do that, in the Briles system, he will be dangerous. And Tulsa has the WRs and RBs to make noise.
But does Tulsa have the blocking?
Tulsa returns the LT and LG from a mediocre offensive line.
When you see Smith make mistakes for Baylor against West Virginia and Kansas State, it’s when he is feeling some pressure, or is “moved off his point,” as Dantonio likes to say.
That’s the case with most QBs. Put pressure on the and they aren’t themselves. Well, that’s the case with most QBs. Some are special enough to withstand some heat. Some occasional prosper in the face of physical pressure.
As a sophomore at Baylor, Smith struggled when getting some heat.
So if Michigan State can get heat on Smith, his chances of having a storybook night will likely diminish drastically.
Of course this is an obvious, worn-out “key to victory” cliché: MSU’s key on defense is to get heat on the quarterback. Thank you, captain obvious. That goes for most teams and most games and most key to victory lists.
In this case, Michigan State made pass rush across the board one of the biggest areas of emphasis of the off-season.
Kenny Willekes was No. 1 in the nation among edge rushers, according to Pro Football Focus, in applying heat to QBs.
Tulsa’s pass protection might be suspect, although their left tackle looks okay to me.
The Tulsa offense was predicated on the run game last year. Can they make it work against the nation’s No. 1 run defense of 2018, Michigan State? Or might Tulsa have more dual-threat capability this year with Smith?
All are good questions.
THE LATEST ON TULSA
* Montgomery indicated that Tulsa’s o-line was giving up too much pressure in its scrimmage, especially to Gipson.
* Montgomery was bothered by his offense’s penalties in the last scrimmage of August.
* In the first scrimmage of August, Smith and Boomer seemed to make the same number of big plays (not many) and mistakes.
THINGS TO KNOW
* Tulsa was mostly a spread-to-run offense last year, but the Hurricanes threw deep four times in the first half against Texas.
They also attempted a double pass trick play on their second possession (WR Keenen Johnson overthrew an open target).
In the 2015 Cotton Bowl, Baylor tied the game at 14-14 with a 53-yard double pass from WR to WR in the first quarter.
So be alert for the double-pass. Montgomery likes it.
* Baylor had a very good running attack in 2014, but Michigan State set out to stuff the run attack by giving the slot WR a free release and off coverage while the defender in that area skewed toward the run.
Baylor went to the free-release slot WR over and over and over an obscene number of their completions. Michigan State was willing to stop the run, take this trade-off, and make Baylor earn their points with long drives and stiffen in the red zone.
Michigan State gave up a lot of points and a lot of yards that day, but Michigan State also held Baylor under its season average in yards and points, and forced more field goal attempts than the Bears had attempted all season.
The problem is that Baylor hit big plays from beyond the red zone, such as the 53-yard double pass. That messed up MSU’s calculus, which was otherwise on-schedule to work.
Pat Narduzzi was d-coordinator back then. He was less willing to change his defense than his successors, Mike Tressel and Harlon Barnett.
Tressel and Barnett stuck with Narduzzi’s system in 2015. Then came problems from other areas in 2016. Then in 2017, Michigan State really started to update their defense, with less predictability in coverages.
Last year, the defense grew up with a Top 10 unit, strong against both the pass and the run.
Now, Michigan State will see the Briles offense again. My two biggest questions in this area:
1. Will Michigan State continue to leave the slot WR open like they did in the 2015 Cotton Bowl?
2. Is Zach Smith of Tulsa anything remotely comparable to Bryce Petty at Baylor?
You’ll find out when I do.
TULSA PERSONNEL (other than Smith)
QB SETH BOOMER (6-3, 208, Soph., Collinsville, Okla.)
* I’m expecting him to be the back-up. But I could be wrong.
* He improved last year as the season progressed. He completed only 35 pct of his passes in his first three starts. But completed 61 pct of his passes in his last five starts.
* He threw 4 TD passes against UConn.
* Was a two-star, unranked recruit with no offers after committing to Tulsa late in his junior year.
* In the first August scrimmage, he led two of Tulsa’s first three TD drives but also threw two bad INTs.
* In going through the Tulsa roster, most of their starters are guys that Tulsa recruited and signed. From what I’ve seen, for the most part, they don’t have a lot of transfers who were once highly-ranked guys. Utah State had many, many guys who transferred from name programs with good recruiting profiles. Tulsa is trying to do it the other way.
THE RUN GAME:
3 RB SHAMARI BROOKS (5-9, 195, Jr., Tulsa)
* Was a three-star recruit with an offer from Texas Tech and mid-majors.
* Rushed for 967 yards lats year (87.9 yards per game and 4.2 per carry).
* He is a quick-cut guy who pinballs around for daylight.
* Something unique to Tulsa: Their TE last year (who graduated) often lines up close to fullback depth, well off the line, sometimes behind the guard. This is an odd sight when the QB is in shot gun and there’s a tailback to his side.
So that creates a two-back shotgun look, which goes against “spread” stereotypes. Then they’ll motion a WR into the backfield, and now they have two potential ball carriers and a backfield blocking back, and it might look like the flexbone … if the QB were a run threat. But these QBs are not.
24 COREY TAYLOR (5-10, 222, JR., Tulsa)
* Was an unranked, two-star recruit when he committed to Air Force to be part of the Falcons’ 2015 freshman class. But he spent 2015 at Air Force Academy Prep, and then enrolled at Tulsa in 2016.
* Rushed for 846 yards and 11 TDs last year. Averaged 4.8 yards per carry and 76.9 yards per game.
* He is a big man who will tip toe for a moment and then run with power.
* He converted a fourth-and-one on a toss sweep out of shot gun, via the hurry-up against Texas.
NAMES & THINGS TO KNOW
Two guys return on the o-line:
65 LT CHRIS IVY (6-3, 296, Sr., Wichita, Kan.)
* Is a second-year starter.
* He is short for the position, but he moves well - as a 6-foot-3 left tackle MUST do.
* He changes directions well, can move inside to take on a counter move by a d-end, or a stunt. Willekes’ favorite move is a counter to the inside. Ivy might be well-suited to keep a lid on that move. Willekes has worked to improve his straight bull rush from the edge; he might need to show that improvement to have a big game against Ivy.
* Overall, Ivy isn’t a weakness.
LG CHRIS PAUL (6-4, 324, Soph., Houston).
* Was an unranked two-star, with offers from Army and mid-majors.
* Another dude with plus size. Despite his gerth, he gets out as a pull guard once in awhile. He’s not a stature. But I wouldn’t call him a plus player.
The other three o-linemen … I haven’t seen them play.
They go:
C: 6-3, 299, Jr.
RG: 6-5, 322, Jr.
RT: 6-4, 300, R-Fr.
“Those guys are coming together,” Montgomery said. “We are much younger up front than we’ve been in the last couple of seasons. There’s going to be some times when we may get beat, we can’t let that linger into the next play. We have to keep battling throughout.”
Key Matchup 2: If that sounds like strength (Michigan State d-front) vs weakness (Tulsa o-line), you might be right.
When a strength matches up against a weakness, you can usually expect disproportionate results, and that’s what Michigan State needs to make happen in order to prevent Tulsa’s offense from getting into a Northwestern-style rhythm.
Montgomery know it.
Montgomery on MSU’s defense:
“They are are technically very sound,” he said. “They don’t stay blocked. You can see a guy in great position, hands in the right spot, body in the right spot and then all the sudden you see a guy pop away from it and make the tackle. So you have to do a good job of sustaining blocks; we have to do a good job as running backs working in and out of those things. If you see daylight you’d better hit it because it’s going to close in a hurry.”
Montgomery on MSU’s d-line:
“This d-line that we’re facing might be the best d-line we’ve faced since I’ve been here. They have unbelievable talent up front but it is maybe one of the best-coached, technical fronts that we’ve gone against. We maybe have played some better athletes up front but I don’t know as a group and the way they pay technically within their scheme, I don’t know that we’ve played anyone better.”
“I feel as though we’ve got some talented backs, some guys that can to do some work. We have to do a good job of trying to limit what people can do to us from a defensive front standpoint.”
How? He isn’t saying. But tempo and formations would be the short answer.
WIDE RECEIVERS
* Good WR athletes seem to be a dime a dozen these days, and Tulsa has some good ones with experience.
2 KEYLON STOKES (6-0, 190, Jr., Manvel, Texas)
* Was a three-star recruit with mid-major offers.
* Led team with 41 catches last year for 575 yards.
* Rushed 15 times for 104 yards.
* He had Tulsa’s only 100-plus yard receiving game last year with 140 vs SMU.
8 WR KEENEN JOHNSON (6-1, 200, Sr., Alto, Texas)
* 29 starts, 108 career receptions.
* Was a two-star recruit, unranked with offers from mid-majors such as Louisiana-Lafayette, SMU and North Texas.
* As was the case with Briles’ teams, if the slot WR has a free release, they will often shoot the ball to that guy on a quick hitch or a mini curl or a slot out. Stokes is often that guy.
* They will run switch routes, with two WRs lining up next to one another and criss-crossing as they move downfield. Sometimes they cross each other downfield, sometimes they cross each other immediately. Michigan State will look to “switch” like basketball players, known as a banjo technique.
Will Michigan State switch when they have a CB and a safety playing next to one another? It’s easier to switch when they play “corners over” with both CBs on the same side of the field. I don’t know if someone like Xavier Henderson is ready to switch onto a WR the way Michigan State could do that with Justin Layne and Khari Willis.
DEFENSIVE FRONT:
15 DE TREVIS GIPSON (6-4, 268, Sr.)
* Mentioned earlier.
* Was a no-star recruit who has become a decent d-end.
* He isn’t a traditional wide nine rush end. They don’t do that, with a 30 front.
54 DT SHEMARR ROBINSON (6-4, 312, Sr.)
* There’s that size again. He’s listed as a DT but he will play some five technique defensive end in the 30 front.
* Pretty good vs double teams.
* They will bring a 343-pounder, Tyarise Stevenson, off the bench. Size.
90 NG JAXON PLAYER (6-0, 296, Soph.)
* No opinion.
LINEBACKER
42 MLB COOPER EDMISTON (6-3 241, Sr., Gatesville, Texas)
* 113 tackles last year and all-conference in the American.
* He was an unranked two-star with no other offers.
* Plays like a slightly watered-down version of Max Bullough. This is a quality middle linebacker with good size.
23 WLB ZAVEN COLLINS (6-4, 256, Soph., Hominy, Okla.)
* Was an unranked, two-star recruit with no other offers.
* Intercepted Boomer in the first scrimmage of August.
* No other opinion, other than look at that size and frame. That’s another big guy for his position.
6 STAR LB DIAMON CANNON (6-2, 230, Sr.)
* Good size for slot LB.
* Looked like a Brandon Bouyer-Randle type in blocking a punt vs Texas.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
* Big corners.
* Their safeties were unimpressive in pursuing to the ball and making tackles last year.
26 CB AKAYLEB EVANS (6-2, 193, Jr., McKinney, Texas)
* Unranked, two-star recruit with offers from Iowa State and Kansas.
++ Good hip turn vs WR Devin Duvernay of Texas on two occasions when playing press vs a go-route. Good hip turn, good run vs a very speedy guy. With his size at 6-foot-2, Evans looked like an NFL prospect on these two snaps.
The other cornerbacks go 6-1, 197 and 6-3, 215. And they added a juco CB who is 6-3, 180.
Size, size, size.
* The safeties are shaky.
Strong safety Manny Bunch plays like his panties are in one.
That might not be fair. I haven’t seen him play all that much.
He’s 6-2, 201 and he misplayed an outside zone into a 29-yard TD run against Texas. Was tentative, took a wrong angle, missed a tackle, the whole nine.
The stat sheet says he ha8 80 tackles last year. I wonder how many he missed. he had 14 tackles against Navy and has started 18 times, so maybe I just saw him at a bad moment.
When seeing their safeties play deep, and then support the run so shakily, that’s what adds up to a run defense ranking outside the top 100.
* The other safety is Brandon Johnson (6-0, 186, Sr.) He had nine tackles last year as a reserve in his first year as a juco transfer.
SPECIAL TEAMS
* Their punter averaged 46.6 last year. That’s booming it. He’s good.
* The place kicker is a freshman, Jacob Rainey.
* Stokes is the return man. No opinion.
ADD IT ALL UP
* MSU’s offense should have a comfortable matchup to work out its kinks and maybe pleasure the home crowd with some modern wrinkles.
Brian Lewerke should be in position to perform the reads in the new offense that he is so excited about.
MSU needs to see Connor Heyward run with power and improved vision.
We hear that Cody White is improved at WR. He was pretty good before, when healthy. Darrell Stewart might be better than people remember.
The stage is set for these guy to do good work. They feel good about themselves.
If there is a concern, it would be dropped passes and inaccurate passes from being too jacked up. We saw that in the first quarter of the Holiday Bowl, 20 months ago.
On defense, Michigan State should win up front and stifle the run. The question is whether Tulsa can establish the pass. If Smith is the starter, can he get into a game of keepaway that would make the Briles family proud? Or will Michigan State win up front at such a loud, consistent rate that he doesn’t have time to even perform quick-game passes?
He’s not mobile, from what I’ve seen. That makes the chances of a magical upset less likely for Tulsa.
Overall, Michigan State usually is less than perfect in these type of opening games. But the focus, talent level, experience, chemistry and collective will is strong for the home team.
You go ahead and name the score. I don’t do that very often.
