Thump. MSU favored by 4 TD over Minnesota. MSU chances for Indy are still good. The Enlightened Spartan: Thump. MSU favored by 4 TD over Minnesota. MSU chances for Indy are still good.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Thump. MSU favored by 4 TD over Minnesota. MSU chances for Indy are still good.

Well, that sucked didn't it?  In its 24-3 loss on Saturday, Michigan State just didn't show up on offense vs Nebraska in a repeat of their poor performance against Notre Dame earlier this year. Captain Kirk looked lost in his worst performance of the year, and the offensive play calling was even more lost with a vanilla gameplan sprinkled with gimmicks at consistently the wrong time - just a pathetic, anemic performance by Spartan offense.  The offense never gave the resolute Spartan defense (holding Nebraska to just 270 total yards) a chance.  Hell, the MSU defense played pretty well for much of the day... but ain't no team gonna win many games with its offense scoring 3 points.   The defense showed up, and the offense had a hangover from last week's sensational win over Wisky.  Don't get me wrong -- give the Huskers defense some credit for wearing on and tearing up the Spartan offensive line -> but when the MSU offense needed to make plays, they couldn't make a good call, a sharp pass, a serviceable block, or a damn catch.  The Spartan offense went out of their way to make it easy for the Nebraska defense. 

Michigan State dropped to #15 in the AP, #16 in the USA Today, and #17 in the BCS standings. What I can't figure out is how scUM is ranked ahead of the Spartans... again, this is a Michigan team that, yes, beat Notre Dame, but has no other quality wins on its resume.  Sigh, it must be that mystique rearing its ugly head again.

Michigan State ain't out of it folks.  What is amazing is the Wisky loss to Ohio State, the JoePa win, and the Iowa loss to Minny.  If the Spartans can sweep their favorable schedule and Nebraska stumbles on the road at either JoePa or at scUM, MSU could head to the Big Ten title game against JoePa or Wisky. Right now, JoePa has a two game lead over the field in the Leaders division; the Spartans and Huskers are tied at 3-1 atop the Legends.

The Spartans are early 28-pt favorites over Minnesota this upcoming weekend.

Here is the recent BCS standings:

BCS Standings
RKTEAMRECORD
1LSU8-0
2Alabama8-0
3Oklahoma State8-0
4Stanford8-0
5Boise State7-0
6Oklahoma7-1
7Arkansas7-1
8Oregon7-1
9South Carolina7-1
10Nebraska7-1
11Clemson8-1
12Virginia Tech8-1
13Houston8-0
14Kansas State7-1
15Michigan7-1
16Penn State8-1
17Michigan State6-2
18Georgia6-2
19Arizona State6-2
20Wisconsin6-2
21Texas5-2
22Auburn6-3
23Georgia Tech7-2
24West Virginia6-2
25Southern Miss7-1