ES Preview: MSU Spartans host Tulsa Time

Michigan State Spartans (0-0, #18/20) vs Don Williams, The Gentle Giant (0-0)

Spartan Stadium, East Lansing, MI
August 30, 2019.  7 pm ET
TV:  Fox Sports 1
Weather: 72, partly cloudy, 8 mph wind WNW

Sagarin Ratings:  MSU #20,  Tulsa #111.  Projected margin of victory:  MSU by 25
Line outta Vegas:  MSU by 23 1/2

Never been to Tulsa.  The ES has been to Oklahoma - actually Norman, OK for an interview at the Univ of Oklahoma (ugly) where a tornado blast through the town, hitting the ES with hail on his 2012 visit.  Didn't care for the state then, and don't care today - especially today.

The Tulsa Hurricanes waltz into town coming off a 3-9 season.  Let's do a little quiz:

1.  What conference is Tulsa in?  a) Sun Belt b) AAC c) Independent d) Conference USA e) Big 12.
2.  Did former Ohio State Coach John Cooper really win five consecutive conference championships as coach at Tulsa?  a) Duh b) Nope
3.  Tulsa is a girls' school.  It is, or it was.   a) True  b) False
4.  Which infamous songwriter has an archive at U Tulsa?  (hint: "to be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again")

Answers at the bottom of the post.

Predictions for today's stint:

Tulsa World (newspaper): MSU 30-14
Sloth:  Sunny, warm, and drunk
Big Bob:  MSU 7-2.  MSU will win 7-2 with the defense scoring the only TD in the game. Rocky Balboa will be sacked in his own end zone, giving up 2 points in his only series in the game.
RGM3:  MSU 38-10
Oakland Ronnie:  MSU 42-10
GVSU Gregger:  MSU 34-17
Freep:  MSU 33-6
Wojo/Det News:  MSU 30-9
Sensoli: Dantonio is going to switch around his coaching staff again......42-14 MSU
Kat:  still sleeping...

ES sez:  MSU 30-6






Answers (ES tried to turn the font upside down, but that's out of his league in HTML):

1.  b) American Athletic Conference (AAC). Have not.
2.  a) Yes, he did.  Mr. Cooper is a member of the College FB Hall of Fame, he is.
3.  a) True. If you're from Tulsa, you don't smoke marijuana but you're proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.  From Wiki: The Presbyterian School for Girls (also known as "Minerva Home") was founded in Muskogee, Indian Territory, in 1882 to offer a primary education to young women of the Creek Nation.  The Tulsa Chamber of Commerce bought the school for $100k in 1907 with 20 acres of land to relocate it.

4.  Noble Prize winner for Literature, Bob Dylan.  See the archives.  Even so, still don't wanna go back to Oklahoma. 

Speciality environment losses pile up

OK, the ES loves Mark Hollis with respect to him scheduling all these "specialty" games at unique environments.  But, at this point, they are a guaranteed loss.  Today's hoops game between Michigan State and Penn State was ugly.  "Bucket List"?  Let's take a look...

Tie - The Cold War (ice hockey in Spartan Stadium, world record crowd. MSU vs UM).  

Loss - Basketbowl (basketball at Ford Field, world record crowd.  MSU vs Kentucky). 

Loss - The Big Chill (ice hockey at Michigan Stadium, world record crowd. MSU vs UM).  

Loss - Carrier Classic (basketball on USS Carl Vincent.  MSU vs UNC).  

Loss - Armed Forces Classic (basketball in hangar at Ramstein AFB, Germany.  MSU vs UConn). 

Loss - At the Palestra (basketball at iconic arena in Philadelphia.  MSU vs Penn State).   

Is the ES missing something?

Spartans lay a horrific turd against BYU

Was that Freddy or Jason at quarterback for MSU yesterday?  The performance was HORRIFIC.  Watching that game was like watching the Teletubbies.  Now that's a horror show.

I am going to throw up.

This is MSU's offensive offense.  

That was the most dismal, ugly, disappointing, shitty performance by a Michigan State offense since the second half of John L Smith's crap vs Notre Dame in the remnants of the monsoon we know as  Hurricane Katrina.

I've been at the Peanut Barrel today, asking people for adjectives to describe the horror show in Spartan Stadium yesterday.  Halloween themes keep popping up.

Tyler O'Connor at QB is the second coming of Andrew Maxwell.  The ES said earlier this year "don't worry he'll get better." I was wrong.  He's worse.  Lots worse.  In a word?  Absent.  He never showed up to work.  58 yards through the air.  What?  Maybe irrelevant is a better word.

The offensive line for Michigan State is... offensive.  It's awful.  That performance was the worst of an OL the ES has seen since Bobby Williams was coach.  BOBBY WILLIAMS.  This Spartan team couldn't block my dead grandma for crissakes.

I remember watching the movie Fargo.  There is a scene where the criminals shoved a dead body  into a wood chipper in the backyard, coloring the snow blood red.  6-of-14 on third downs, 206 total yards. Yes, that's our offense.

And on defense, Michigan State couldn't stop the Mormons.  BYU was 10-of-16 on third downs.  Game over.  The mighty Cougar rushing attack upped the Spartans 260-85 on the ground.  That's a throat-slitter.

You can't gussy-up a turd, and that was what MSU gave the fans yesterday.  A big fat sloppy pooper of a game.

Season over?   Yup.  Who needs tickets?

                                    BYU      MSU

FIRST DOWNS...................       24       13
  Rushing.....................       15        5
  Passing.....................        7        7
  Penalty.....................        2        1
NET YARDS RUSHING.............      260       85
  Rushing Attempts............       49       32
  Average Per Rush............      5.3      2.7
NET YARDS PASSING.............      138      121
  Completions-Attempts-Int....  18-29-0  13-21-1
TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS...........      398      206
  Total offense plays.........       78       53
  Average Gain Per Play.......      5.1      3.9
Fumbles: Number-Lost..........      0-0      1-0
Penalties: Number-Yards.......     3-24     4-39
PUNTS-YARDS...................     2-82    5-189
KICKOFFS-YARDS................    5-318    3-190
Possession Time...............    34:34    25:26
Third-Down Conversions........ 10 of 16  6 of 14
Fourth-Down Conversions.......   2 of 4   2 of 3
Sacks By: Number-Yards........     3-15      0-0
PAT Kicks.....................      4-4      2-2
Field Goals...................      1-1      0-0
Points off turnovers..........        7        0

Furman Review: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Let's cut to the chase and talk about the lackluster performance by the Michigan State Spartans in their victory over the mighty Paladins from Furman.

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.

Monty Madaris (#88) was finger-licking-good 
vs Furman. Photo courtesy WXYZ.

3.  Monty Madaris (#88).  Get used to him, Spartan Nation.  The dude had wheels, great hands, a 5 -for-85 receiving day, looking good doing it as well.  Nice routes.  He's the real deal.

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.

Michael Geiger needs to straighten
out his kicking game.

The Bad:

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.

The Ugly:

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