Michigan State Spartans Have Plenty of Reasons To Smile After Impressive Win Over CMU!
Mount Pleasant, MI
The Michigan State Spartans rolled into Mount Pleasant, Michigan, with a #11 national ranking and their eyes on a Big Ten Title and a Rose Bowl. They leave with those dreams still in place and still tangible. With a 41-7 trouncing of the Central Michigan Chippewas, they took the short one hour bus trip home with their eyes on next week’s opponent, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
New starting QB Andrew Maxwell improved his passing efficiency from last week’s 58% to an impressive 65% on the Chips field turf. He threw for 248 yards and three picks in a season opening win over Boise State and those numbers improved to 275 yards and no picks. Battling wind surges on the field up to 25 mph Maxwell handled the additional adversity with ease.
Former MSU QB and QB Coach Dan Enos now runs the Chippewa program. He is well aware of the QB Maxwell from his time on Dantonio’s staff at MSU. He said about the Spartans new signal caller, “He's a great young man; very poised, very smart. He'll be a very good player in that league for them." In Enos’s short time away from East Lansing, Enos did admit that physically he isn’t the same young man. Enos said, "He's a big, powerful kid. He seems bigger than he was when I was there."
Maxwell described the Spartans mentality as they came to CMU for the first time saying they, “took a workman-like attitude to this game" and in front of the record 35,127 fans they did. He added in terms that any football coach will love, “We kept our nose to the grindstone and kept playing the whole game.â€
With ten different receivers catching balls from MSU QBs, the Spartan signal caller was happy with how the team worked to this point.  “I got the ball to our playmakers and let them go to work."
LeVeon Bell garnered national Heisman talk after a dominating 44 rushes for 217 yards against Boise. He also added an attractive 55 yards receiving on six catches. He was quieter on Saturday. He ran for 71 yards on 18 carries and had only one reception for zero yards.
Of course, the story is wins. Of course, the story is the improved passing games, but if you’re looking for another angle there are two of them. Dantonio took the red shirt chances off of two high powered freshmen:  WRs Macgarrett Kings and Aaron Burbridge. The other story would be the emergence of former elite MLB recruit Lawrence Thomas to FB.
Kings and Burbridge now join LS Taybor Pepper as the only true freshmen in what many think is Dantonio’s best class who will play as true freshmen. Barring injury or the collapse of players already getting snaps, it would seem to be coming into focus that these are the only three who will play as true freshmen.
Burbridge and Kings both caught two balls for a total of 32 yards. They looked crisp in route running and both are game changers. There will be mistakes that rookies make, but their talent is unquestionable. Dantonio admitted that in four years he may regret the choice not to redshirt them, but that was more tongue in cheek. He needs them this year and in sports, as much as you want to think about tomorrow, this team is too talented and has such gigantic opportunities ahead to sacrifice what could be a magical campaign is pointless.
The other angle to take from this team is Lawrence Thomas. He was all the rage as a LB coming out of high school. The pay for recruiting services heralded him as the next great thing. In fairness, he had a great high school career, but he came to a Michigan State program that was loaded. He couldn’t break into the playing group at any LB position. He couldn’t break into the top playing group on the DL.
Dantonio admitted about the talented red shirt freshman affectionately known as LT that, “I really felt like we’ve got to get the guy going somewhere. He’s too good to not play -- whether that be tight end, whether that be fullback, whether that be defensive end.â€
It is an imposing thing to look as a defender at LeVeon Bell and Niko Palazeti and know they are coming at you, but it isn’t an easy thing seeing LT either. Dantonio added, “280-pound fullback in there, and he moved some people." Dantonio has the luxury of a team with so many parts and only a few places to utilize them. This is not your father’s MSU team, but it could be your grandfather’s. Not since the era of Duffy and Biggie have the Spartans stockpiled weapons like a cold war era super power.
Dantonio knows that you can’t have a great player sitting the bench. You have to manufacture opportunity. A fact he bluntly stated of LT when he said, “Obviously (Lawrence Thomas) is a great football player."
It was a great win for the Spartans. They still have a lot of room to work on a lot of things, but they are taking shape. Most people don’t get the statement that each year is a new team because they see many of the same jerseys. Trust me each year is a new team. A new dynamic and a new personality is what each change of the season brings. Dantonio summed up the win in simple terms, “The goal every week is to get better. I thought we did that.â€
The Spartans entered the weekend as the #11 ranked team in the nation. With the soap opera that college football has become, they should emerge as a top ten team once again!
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