Initial thoughts about the Big Green's 37-24 victory over WMU in Kalamazoo. Before I look at the stats:
1. Coach D brought vanilla, and it showed. No wrinkles on offense (no trick plays, no reverses, etc), no wrinkles on defense (did we blitz? ES couldn't tell). He's keeping his cards close to his vest for the Oregon game. So, what you saw basically was a high school scheme - line up, and play straight up. The better talent won. Nothing more. Yawn. ES should have stayed home and saved $150.
2. DB concern. Re #1 above, WMU figured it out at half and adjusted. The Broncos couldn't run the ball worth a crap (see #4 below), so they figured they had to pass to compete. It worked. Two wideouts one side, another on the other, and always someone in motion to isolate one-on-one coverage on a Spartan DB. Zach Terrell, the WMU QB, (33-50, 365, 2-2) started to hurl the ball on isolation the entire second half. MSU had no pass rush, so the DBs were on an island and... quite honestly... did not fare well. This needs work
3. MSU OL played great. Noone laid a hand on Connor Cook, and we ran for 196 yards on 40 carries (4.9 ypc); as the ES said before the season, my dead grandma could run behind that line and make 5 yards a carry.
4. MSU DL awesome against the run (WMU: 23 carries for 18 yards) but the Big Green seemed to lack any emphasis (or interest?) as the game wore on with the Bronco's focus on the pass. Spartans had 7 sacks, but the sacks were early and the Broncos were able to change their game plan (per #2 above) to make it work to close the gap vs Big Green (but not close it enough).
5. We have a RB. LJ Scott ran very, very well when inserted later in the game. While London (13-59) and Holmes (9-54) were serviceable and helped to move the chains... it was Scott (13-77) that really showed promise with some shiftiness and running over Broncos - the Spartan way. You had to be there to see his impact; the dude is a big brick. Scott = Pound Green Pound. This is the other Delton Williams. Scott is a Big Boy, with wheels, and he is a train wreck. Love him, start him. Period.
MSU WMU
FIRST DOWNS................... 26 22
Rushing..................... 11 2
Passing..................... 13 18
Penalty..................... 2 2
NET YARDS RUSHING............. 196 18
Rushing Attempts............ 40 23
Average Per Rush............ 4.9 0.8
NET YARDS PASSING............. 256 365
Completions-Attempts-Int.... 15-31-0 33-50-2
TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS........... 452 383
Total offense plays......... 71 73
Average Gain Per Play....... 6.4 5.2
The ES will embed some video from his experiences in this week's video episode... but, here are a few shots below:
Stadium thoughts? Waldo Stadium is boring. Rarely any PA to fire up the fans, the signage is terrible (same letters/numbers for rows as columns & seats... what????), etc. They shut off any wireless and cell phone service, which is anti-2015. That's basically very, very stupid. ES guesses Western wants nobody to learn or participate in their football experience? It is very backward. Unfortunate, because Waldo is just a beautiful stadium that is being minimized. That's another conversation for another day. At the end, it was an OK experience, not sure if it was worth my money either for the game experience or the town experience. Ho hum.
