-I was probably a little too quick to label "typical Spartans". Afterall, with a new quarterback and running back, expectations to maintain the performance of last year's team may have been too high. For the most part, we are a young team. I feel that I was dead on in declaring that the 3 game set against Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois would set the tone for the rest of the season. Cousins emerged as the starting (and finishing) QB and they won two of the three. I think the Michigan game really gave them the confidence that they needed for the rest of the season.
Here are my very unorganized thoughts on the Minnesota game:
-They were completely screwed by a horrible officiating crew. They issued the most penalities against Minnesota in a Big 10 game since 1957. Then, they awarded them the game by overturning a called completed catch and fumble by Minnesota with 6 minutes left to an incomplete pass. The game was 35-31 at that point and we would have had the ball in Minnesota's territory. Do the poor calls on both sides of the ball negate each other and create a "fair game"? Hell no. I think Chris L Rucker is getting a reputation as a dirty player because for the second week in a row he laid a receiver out by leading with his head. The biggest disappointment that I am seeing from the team in general is taking costly penalties that keep drives alive. The defense stopped them with less than 3 minutes to go to give us one last chance to win the game. Then the highly avoidable roughing the kicker penalty on the punt ended the game. We need more Keshawn Martin.
-After reading Mike's fantastic MSU basketball preview post, I am pretty worried about our schedule this season. It could act to challenge us so we're "battle ready" for the tournament. Or it could expose all of our weaknesses and pound them down. Florida, UNC, Gonzaga, Texas?? Who does that?
3 comments:
Falling down 14-0 against Minnesota about four minutes into the game didn't help matters for us yesterday, either...turnovers, turnovers, turnovers...
With the schedule I think you have to remember is that it's 2009, not 2008. Gonzaga and UNC are reloading, Florida is down, and Texas is up-and-coming. The names are impressive, and maybe I'm wrong, but I see UNC and Texas as the true tests (they both are preseason top-5, but the games are winnable).
I would say that our football team is "typical spartans" in that we lost a lot of games we had an opportunity to win. The Wisconsin game is the only one I feel we were outplayed, the rest we had the opportunities to win and we just didn't execute. I really think that we should be a 1-loss team right now.
CMU, Notre Dame, Iowa, and now Minnesota. In my mind, all games we should have won. The fact that we didn't is "typical spartans"
Who does that?
Izzo does that! MSU schedules tough non-conference games every year. It's all about toughening up our team for a tourney run.
By the end of the year, everyone knows everyone else's strengths/weaknesses, I'm not worried about that at all.
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