The Good:
1. Tailgating. Are you kidding? The ES picked a stellar location, lucky when some moron backed out of his parking spot across from IM Circle (south side of Landon/Adams Field) and the ES popped right in - around 3:15 pm. Opened up the sunroof, blasted some Van Halen, fired up the grill and cracked those PBRs. A five-star performance indeed.
2. LJ Scott. Enough of Madre London, etc. Coach D puts in LJ Scott, and everything changes. 105 yards on 20 carries, the moves, running over defenders. I could watch Scott all day long - he IS the BMOC.
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| Monty Madaris (#88) was finger-licking-good vs Furman. Photo courtesy WXYZ. |
4. Defense. With the exception of the 11-play, 73 yard drive by Furman in the third to early fourth quarter, the defense gave up very little other than stupid penalties (see Ugly). MSU held Furman to a total of 226 yards on 64 plays for an average of 3.5 yards per play.
5. Chris Frey (#23). The dude played lights-out, he was all over the place on defense. He ended up with a team high nine tackles, and looked good doing it.
6. Tyler O'Connor. Let's face it, he's no Connor Cook. But he is also no Andrew Maxwell. On second thought, the ES didn't have a sleepless night after the game because of TO - he did fine (13-18 for 190 yards with a pick). He might not win games for us... but he likely won't lose them either. His performance was fine, a couple of nice throws, a couple of hurries, etc. He'll get better, which is a relief.
7. Watching ND lose last night to Texas. The Irish losing never gets old.
8. A bye week. After watching that yawner on Friday, we need it. So much for a $55 ticket price and entertainment.
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| Michael Geiger needs to straighten out his kicking game. |
1. Overall offensive inefficiency. Maybe it should be in the ugly category. You could tell the team was not very fired up, seemed disinterested on offense. 4-for-10 (40%) on third downs against a FCS team should be better. Was Coach D sandbagging it to wait for ND and Wisky in 2-3 weeks? We shall see... but, that offense was a bore. Grinding out 361 total yards on offense ain't exactly something to write home about.
2. Lack of use of tight ends. What the hell is going on? If we have the best TE unit in the Big Ten, they were absent on Friday, with the exception of the beautiful 21-yard TD from O'Connor to Price.
3. The 43-yard missed FG. We Geiger-ed it wide left. Need some improvement immediately.
1-5. Penalties. Wha??? 10 for 120 yards, and many were of the "are you an idiot?" variety - THREE personal fouls, two pass interference calls... all were blatant stupidity by the Big Green. This has GOT to be priority #1.
6. The 11-play, 73 yard drive by Furman in the third to early fourth quarter. Where the hell did that come from? D-Line can't fall asleep against ND for a drive like they did vs Furman.
7. Watching sUM put 60+ on a pathetic Hawaii squad, Ohio State dropping 70+ on Bowling Green, Wisconsin's impressive performance beating a senseless LSU team, well... the B1G sans-MSU & Northwestern (which lost to WMU) looked pretty damn strong for the opening week. The bye week is timely for the Big Green.
FUR MSU
FIRST DOWNS................... 18 19
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............ 33-87 40-171
PASSING YDS (NET)............. 139 190
Passes Att-Comp-Int........... 31-16-1 18-13-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS..... 64-226 58-361
Fumble Returns-Yards.......... 0-0 0-0
Punt Returns-Yards............ 1-5 4-23
Kickoff Returns-Yards......... 1-25 3-70
Interception Returns-Yards.... 1-2 1-0
Punts (Number-Avg)............ 5-37.8 3-44.7
Fumbles-Lost.................. 2-0 1-1
Penalties-Yards............... 4-34 10-120
Possession Time............... 29:31 30:29
Third-Down Conversions........ 3 of 14 4 of 10
Fourth-Down Conversions....... 2 of 3 0 of 0
Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 3-3 4-4
Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 2-3 1-5
