Michigan State fans witnessed a rare role reversal on Saturday

Michigan State fans witnessed a rare role reversal on Saturday.  Instead of the Spartans’ stout defense bailing out the offense, it was the offense’s

Michigan State fans witnessed a rare role reversal on Saturday.

 

Instead of the Spartans’ stout defense bailing out the offense, it was the offense’s onslaught that saved the defense’s subpar day in a 41-28 victory over Nebraska.

 

The MSU defense allowed the Cornhuskers to rack up 392 total yards on offense, yielding 132 rushing yards to Nebraska’s Ameer Abdullah. But Jeremy Langford and the MSU offense outdueled the Nebraska offense, capitalizing on five Huskers turnovers to pick up the win.

 

This is the kind of win Spartans fans have been looking for all season. For the past season and a half, Michigan State has dominated opposing offenses, but the MSU attack has often been sluggish. Saturday’s victory proved that those days are over.

 

Jeremy Langford has been a big part of that change. The junior has emerged as the team’s workhorse running back as the season has rolled along. After failing to surpass 100 yards in his first five games, Langford has hit the century mark in each of the past five games.

 

“It feels different,” Langford said after the win. “I’m getting better as the game goes on and I’m starting to know our offense better.”

 

The Wayne, Mich. native wore down the Nebraska defense as the game progressed, attaining 68 of his 152 rushing yards in the fourth quarter.

 

“I sensed it and I kept telling the offensive line, and they kept talking to me: ‘Keep working, keep working.’ And at the end of the game, the fourth quarter, it came.”

 

Langford and the Spartans inserted the final dagger with two minutes remaining. Langford dashed 37 yards for a touchdown to give the Spartans a 41-21 lead and put the Huskers away for good.Â

 

“That’s something we have to do,” Langford said. “When we have the lead, we have to hold the ball, I need to make the carries and keep grinding away and the offensive line is doing a great job of that too, just holding onto the ball.”

 

Holding onto the ball was not something the Huskers were able to do. Fumbling the ball four times, mostly unforced, Nebraska giftwrapped great field position and made the Michigan State defense look better than it was at times. But defensive end Shilique Calhoun was simply happy that the Spartans took advantage of Nebraska’s mistakes.

 

“I feel like that’s the biggest thing. Coach D[antonio] speaks about it a lot,” Calhoun said. “You have to take advantage of the opportunities you’re given, that’s what we did today. We didn’t force many turnovers, but we were able to capitalize from the turnovers and get the ball back.

 

“Even though we didn’t technically force them, we kind of disrupted the offense a little bit and made them not be able to plays and that led us to those turnovers.”

 

The turnovers spared the Spartans defense, which nearly surrendered MSU’s lead to Nebraska’s potent offense in the game.

 

“They were aggressive, they did their assignments and they did them well,” Calhoun said. “I’m not taking anything away from them, but we didn’t have the best game either. We weren’t feeling it today, and you could tell from the beginning that we weren’t the team that played Michigan, that played South Florida. We didn’t play that way today, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to bounce back and get after it this week.”

 

In the midst of the offense’s coming out party, Michigan State’s stellar special teams play went almost unnoticed. But Mike Sadler’s field goal fake proved to be a critical play for the Spartans.

 

Facing a fourth-and-two at the Nebraska 27-yard line with less than 11 minutes remaining the fourth quarter, Mark Dantonio opted to send out the field goal unit. But the seventh-year head coach did not call for a field goal try. Dantonio signaled in the play “Charlie Brown,” a fake field goal run. The play called for the holder, Mike Sadler, to run to the right. “Charlie Brown” is a mirror play to “Lucy,” which is the same play, but to the left. Sadler decided to follow neither play, electing to run up the middle instead.

 

“The hole I was supposed to be running through completely blocked up,” Sadler explained. “I realized it probably wasn’t going to be a good thing because you don’t want your 180-pound punter running up the middle and trying to juke people, so that wasn’t great.”

 

But Sadler found enough running room up the middle to squeak out a first down, even showing off a spin move to pick up an extra yard.

 

“I think Snoopy would have made the fake look a little better than I did, but luckily it worked out,” Sadler said.

 

The special teams unit noticed early in the game that the Nebraska field goal block team would be susceptible to a fake. “Charlie Brown” was saved for the critical scenario in the fourth quarter when the Spartans needed more than a field goal.

 

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a safe look, they just weren’t bringing pressure,” Sadler said of Nebraska’s formation. “They weren’t sitting back and watching for the fake, they just weren’t coming hard all day. That’s what our guys saw after the very first field goal: we can run this, we can dominate the line of scrimmage and we did.”

 

But as surprising as it may seem, Sadler technically shouldn’t have run the ball. The junior was instructed to check out of the play if Huskers lined up the way they did.

 

“We were only going to run it if they were inside the tackle, but if they were head up or outside, we were supposed to check out of it. But they were so far outside, I didn’t even see it,” Sadler said. “They gave us a different look on the field goal block team than we saw in any of the 100 plus plays on film. That was on me, but fortunately it worked out and we got the first down.”

 

The next two weeks will be critical for the Spartans. To beat Northwestern and Minnesota and carry momentum into the Big Ten Championship bout, Michigan State will have to put together a complete game on both offense and defense. All the pieces of the puzzle are there, the Spartans just need to put it all together.