DEMOLISHED: Spartans Out Coached, Out Played, and OUSTED from the First College Football Playoff as the Nation Watches!

DEMOLISHED: Spartans Out Coached, Out Played, and OUSTED from the First College Football Playoff as the Nation Watches! Spartan Stadium East Lansing, MI On

DEMOLISHED: Spartans Out Coached, Out Played, and OUSTED from the First College Football Playoff as the Nation Watches!

Spartan Stadium

East Lansing, MI

On this night, being a Michigan State Spartan resonated or commiserated with the Spartans of January 1, 2011. You remember that day. Michigan State was flying high and the Alabama Crimson Tide destroyed them 49-7. As this game wore on, it was the same feeling.

Not since the 2010 Alamo Bowl has the Spartan defense been rung up for as many yards (579 vs Texas Tech) as Michigan State allowed Urban Meyer and his redshirt freshman QB J.T. Barrett to get tonight in 568. An even more stunning fact is that the Spartans gave up 332 in the first half to Ohio State.

In every phase of the game, the Spartans were shaky and looked discombobulated. It was a total annihilation and a beat down. While the Spartan offense was successful in 37 points, 536 total yards of offense, and Connor Cook had career night as far as yards (358), it was still while going 25 of 45.

Cook stood tall after the game refusing to talk about his offensive success. This was about team. “I'd say that it was just a couple of plays off, me missing some dives and not putting the ball in the right spot when I need to be. It's just unacceptable.”

Coaching mistakes were as abundant as player errors. 11 critical Spartan penalties for 105 yards were brutal to watch. I said in numerous places, “The Buckeyes only win if the Spartans help them,” and trust me the Spartans helped them, but I was wrong.

On this crisp fall night, the Buckeyes played their best game. OSU got help; OSU didn’t need any help. They are the better team. It was ugly.

While the turf was covered in undisciplined penalty flags, poor coaching decisions rang out from the sidelines and the coaches box.

It was a brutal fourth down play that the Buckeyes not only read, but turned back like me asking for my first date. It was so bad that MSU OC Dave Warner said of the fourth down play call, “That was a bad call on my part. That was a critical part of the game because we needed to score to put the pressure back on them. I thought we were going to get them with their defense with sort of a surprise, but not a very good play at all.”

It was questionable clock management and decisions on calling for onside kicks and more that had the usually in command coaches looking for answers and shaking their heads. All of them are guilty.

Frankly, for how far the program has come and the amazing job Mark Dantonio has brought Spartan football, it was the program’s worst defeat under his tutelage. They were demolished.

The critics of the Big Ten have every right to question OSU after an embarrassing loss to Virginia Tech and a near catastrophe at PSU. The Buckeyes left no doubt on this night what team was better: The Buckeyes.

Yet, still the Spartans stood tall. They were beaten, but it wasn’t trail of tears lined with excuses. No claims of phantom clapping that ruined their chances, it was simple. Even in defeat this proud program, its coaching staff of solid men and coaches, and the roster of quality young men faced it with class.

Spartan PK Michael Geiger was the number one kicker in the nation when he arrived on campus with the 2013 recruiting class, but his slip from the nation’s elite last year to numerous big misses this year is troubling. A super person with a great leg, his confidence is rattled and Mr. Reliable has become a question mark. He emphatically said, “I need to execute under that type of pressure.” No excuses. Just fact.

This was a bad football defeat. It was a disappointing game of football that essentially eliminated them from the first ever College Football Playoff, but the program isn’t done for and the world did not stop spinning. Even in defeat, the Spartans showed character. Make no mistake; this is NOT a game of moral victories. Not at this level, but how you handle adversity can define your program.

MSU recovered from the Alabama beat down in January of 2011 and the Texas Tech destruction from January 2010 and they will from this.

After the demolishment, MSU Head Coach Mark Dantonio stepped to the platform and made no doubt of what he thought. “The bottom line was we didn't stop them, we couldn't stop them. And we got to evaluate that and say, was that physical sometimes? Yeah. Was that structural sometimes? Probably yeah. And was that mental sometimes? Maybe we didn't get the correct adjustment or whatever the cause was.”

The emotion was certainly different for OSU Head Coach Urban Meyer, but it was genuine. “This is one for the ages. That's how much respect we had for our opponent going into it. We saw what they did. They had one loss and were actually winning that game until it got away from them somehow out in Oregon. We played a top-10 team and we really played our best and on the road. Once again, I look at our players and I see how many young guys are playing for us that are going to be around here for a while. So, the future's pretty bright."

On a night that isn’t common in the Spartan Nation, DC Pat Narduzzi gave props to the Buckeyes. “They did a great job executing, and we didn't do a great job of executing. I obviously didn't do a great job of coaching them up and getting them prepared and ready to go. We are going to bounce back.”

Perhaps one of the most telling post-game interviews came with true sophomore starting CB Darian Hicks. Just one game removed from a dominating performance against an elite WR (Devin Funchess) and a big time NFL performance against Michigan, he was attacked by the Buckeyes and frankly failed.

His postgame presence said it all as he frankly announced, “I know they made plays on me on running and passing, I know I can do better. The whole defense knows we can do better.” Everyone has bad days, but Hicks took it like a man.

It was Buckeye QB J.T. Barrett who summed up the Ohio State mindset perhaps better than his coaches could have. While the Spartans admittedly let off the gas against Oregon and against Nebraska, that mentality is not part of the Buckeyes psyche.

He said, “Coach Herman calls an aggressive style of play. I think that's how we wanted to come in here. We didn't want to come in here and be conservative. We wanted to go out swinging. That's how we approached this game this week.”

MSU will recover. Dantonio won’t let this one loss cost them two or three. They are still fighting for a double digit win season, but this will put it into context.

If I would have told you in 2007 when Dantonio arrived that a double digit win season and a great bowl would be a disappointment under Dantonio you would have called me crazy. Well, basking in the Shadow of a Rose Bowl win from only nine months and eight days in the past, it is.

Mark Dantonio’s incredible run as head coach continues and just like after the Alamo Bowl loss to Texas Tech and Capital One Bowl loss to Alabama, all is not lost. Disappointing? No doubt. Frustrating? I’m right with you. Over? Who are you kidding?