The Outlook Moving Forward: Maryland

Coming off their 39-38 defeat to Nebraska last week, the Spartans return home to face the Maryland Terrapins at noon on ESPN2.

Offense

This unit came out last week looking to throw the ball around a stacked Huskers’ box. The approach made sense, but early MSU execution let them down. Drops, high passes from Connor Cook, and other missteps left MSU with only 3-points to show for the 1st Quarter. Over the course of the game they got things turned around and found a decent measure of success. From a strategic standpoint it was encouraging to see MSU willing to take what the Defense presented them rather than to once again trying to slam a square peg into a round hole. Hopefully that approach has returned to stay.

Gerald Holmes made a mental error when failing to know where the 1st Down marker was early on, which may have cost him a series or two, but he put together a pretty solid day as the Spartans’ lead back. Connor Cook ran the ball four times too, and must remain part of the MSU ground attack that’s still a long way from where they hoped to be. Given their final scoring numbers, it’s ironic to look at the stat sheet and see that MSU ended the game with 10 more rushing than passing plays on the day.

RJ Shelton struggled early on, but bounced back to make some big catches down the stretch. Shelton’s work in the 4th included grabbing a ball on 3rd and 25 that set up the Spartans final score, which at the time sure looked like the clincher. Aaron Burbridge and Macgarrett Kings also had big days against a porous Nebraska pass defense that was about as bad as expected. MSU once again struggled to get the ball to their Tight Ends through the air, but when you can get the ball to your wide outs that easily, they’re bound to be less targeted.

The Offense played well enough to win Saturday night, except for the final drive. MSU started from the Nebraska 44 with 1:47 left and knew they needed at least one 1st Down to seal the deal. They also knew Nebraska had proven the strength of its rush defense. Yet, MSU chose to run the ball on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Down. It was disappointing and surprising not to see Cook running the ball, looking to option, or looking to throw from a roll out. You expected to see the ball in Cook's hands on at least two of those plays.

He's not just the best skill player on the team, he's the best Quarterback in school history and almost certainly the most successful one Mark Dantonio will ever coach. That decision could leave a mark on the collective psyche inside Spartan Football. It's one that MSU will regret long into the future. If the Spartans’ Coaching Staff could not trust Cook after all he's accomplished in crunch time of the biggest games the school has played in a half century, how will they ever trust those that follow after him? It will be interesting to see what they do the next time they encounter a similar situation.

Up until that final drive the Spartans probably called their best game of the year, but many of the substitutions were bizarre and confusing, if not dangerous. While it was nice to see Damion Terry actually throw the ball, the time and place seemed off. Once again we saw Delton Williams inserted again in a very an odd spot late in the game. But we did not see a wide range of different MSU wide outs early on when the starters weren't sharp and the team needed a spark.

The Offense's early rust and head scratching personnel decisions may have caught up to them in the end. They started the night with look of a team that had overlooked their opponent a bit. They seemed to recognize that fact after a couple drives, and then were both good enough and lucky enough to get it back together from there. Rather than running through the finish line, however, the Spartans tried to tip toe over it and stop just beyond it. It was a combination that left them inches short, which won’t be easy to shake off. If this unit takes a while to get going against Maryland (78th Total Defense, 58th Rushing Defense, 91st Passing Yards Allowed, 100th Scoring Defense), such an emotional letdown would not come as a surprise.

Defense

It looked like the Defense turned the corner in October, but Saturday night cannot be described as anything but a setback, even though you can successfully argue that the 39 points MSU gave up is a questionable number. One Nebraska score was clearly the result of a Huskers' hold that was somehow not flagged, another appeared to be the result of a hold, and then there was the final score of the night. For a team that saw their matchup with Ohio State last year flip around on a Holding call that took a Touchdown off the scoreboard, the two non Holding calls had to burn Michigan State a little bit extra Saturday night. And though the final score will go down as one of the worst officiating gaffes in College Football history, the overall performance, game stats, and especially the 4th Quarter collapse have humbled this unit quite quickly.

Nebraska ran the ball much better on MSU than expected. Perhaps some of that was a result of Holding calls missed, but the 179 yards was extremely high relative to the Spartans’ standards. Their pass coverage collapsed when needed most, and it wasn’t just the back end. The strength of the Spartans' Defense is its front four.  They had no sacks on the night, didn’t get to Armstrong late, and played a role in Nebraska's rushing success. The front four may have been just as responsible for allowing 19 points in the 4th Quarter as the secondary. MSU unfortunately allowed an alarming 144 yards and two Touchdowns in the final 2:29 of the game.

The critical effort for the Defense at Nebraska was on the final drive. For some reason, MSU appeared to go into a version of “Prevent Defense.” Other than the Herb Haygood game winner against Notre Dame in 2000, it's hard to think of a play that would’ve been avoided had a Defense gone "Prevent." There are at least a half dozen games you could come up with in the next seventy-five seconds that were lost because the team ahead went into some kind of "Prevent" instead of sticking with a previously successful approach. We even got a famous Bobby Knight quote out of the growth of the “Prevent Defense” through the 1990s. Nebraska's Mike Riley said that MSU’s choice of coverage was not a surprise to the Huskers. "What Michigan State did (two minute package) is not unlike what we have played or what other teams have played," he told Spartan Nation earlier this week.

After the final Punt stuck Nebraska at the 9 and the 1st Down went for 28 yards, the Spartans looked immediately confused and in need of a reset. The sideline didn’t appear to like what the secondary was doing, the players looked confused, and it didn’t get much better. Rather than spending a much needed Time Out at that point, MSU let Nebraska take the next snap. Armstrong had plenty of time to throw, and Nebraska moved 33 yards further down the field. In less than 20 ticks, the Huskers went from their 9 to the MSU 30.

The next down will haunt Spartan Football for ages. Lawrence Thomas looked held on the play before Armstrong let it fly to the back of the End Zone and MSU’s Arjen Colquhoun went up to get it. Perhaps he timed his jump a fraction of a second too early because after he caught the ball with two hands and moved it to just his left on his way down, it popped out when his back hit the ground to give Nebraska another life. Spartans on the field and the bench had already begun celebrating before realizing that ball popped out. That was the moment the Defense could’ve secured the win, and a moment that will stick with the players on this roster well into the future.

The game was decided on the next play when the officials failed to overrule a Touchdown given to a receiver that had run out of bounds without being forced out. That call, especially when involving a Top 5 team, is a real black eye for the sport. While correcting the call on review may have been technically incorrect (more on this in the PATs below), it was the better choice for the overall integrity of the game. Had the proper call ultimately been made, Nebraska would’ve had two more plays to move the chains. We’ll never know how the game would’ve ended.

Who knows how this Defense will respond but it’s hard to imagine they will regain significant confidence in their secondary during the rest of the 2015 regular season. Nebraska left the kind of scar that will take good time to get past. MSU immediately needs a more dominant performance from their front four than they had Saturday night, which should happen this week against Maryland.

This defense has big issues defending the pass, which probably sent Mark Dantonio and staff scrambling with everything they’ve got to get them fixed again this week. If nothing else, the Spartans want to avoid the feeling of getting their hearts torn out through the air again anytime soon. We can also bet that MSU will not go into the same type of Defense the next time they’re trying to close a team out in that situation. Maryland is where the Spartan Dawgs need to reboot, refresh, and get synced up as a unit for the upcoming game of the year.

The Terps are not good team right now, don't have the depth of firepower to compete with MSU, but are getting the Spartan Dawgs at their lowest point since the Ohio State loss last year. There's more enough talent and leadership to get them through the next 60 minutes, but they also need to go into Maryland knowing this is their last game action to prepare for the explosive Ohio State attack they will see seven days later.

Special Teams

The Spartans may have to consider kicking the ball off out of bounds at times during the remaining games of the regular season. Kevin Cronin struggled to such a degree at Nebraska that the Spartans may not have another choice. Assuming there’s no one else on the roster that can kick it any better than Cronin, MSU’s hands are tied. The Spartans gave up 123 yards of returns on 5 tries last week. That's an enormous hunk of field position. It did not appear the bye provided a quick answer to this problem. Maryland may not be a good team, but they have a fine record returning kicks this year. They’ve already taken one Kickoff and two Punts back for Touchdowns, which constitutes a flashing red alert for this unit.

The other two MSU kickers are trending the right way. Jake Hartbarger came in after the bad final Spartan drive and booted his best Punt of the year. The value of dropping the 38 yarder to the 9 evaporated quickly, but that was still a big time Punt. So was Michael Geiger’s 46-yard Field Goal to get MSU’s scoring day started. Geiger’s emotion after the kick was a great sign, especially when you contrast that with his body language after missing early versus Oregon. It was too bad MSU couldn’t get him another 10 yards or so at the end for a game winning try. Both of those kickers are starting to come along and will hopefully be contributing factors in the coming weeks.

There’s not one aspect of Spartan Special Teams that doesn’t need a fantastic performance Saturday against Maryland. This is their final chance to prepare to face the fastest and most dangerous Special Teams unit they will see all year. Yet, MSU may struggle to get emotionally up for Maryland. If they do, it could easily show up on Special Teams.

Overall

Regardless of how the College Football Playoff committee handles the result of Michigan State-Nebraska, it is safe to say the Spartans control their own destiny from here. If MSU runs the table through Indianapolis, that would include a win at Columbus over Ohio State, and likely over a top 7 Iowa team. Combining such a run with the dubious ending at Nebraska should safely land MSU into the Football Final Four. A committee decision to take another 1-loss team over MSU at that point, since the Spartans’ loss will forever be in so controversial, would be more shocking than the way MSU actually lost at Nebraska.

The Nebraska ending was a really bad one for College Football and the Big Ten. You cannot have a game decided by an officiating mistake when a Top 10 team is on the field. Those kinds of blunders do harm to your game. The Big Ten was fast to say the review of the play was handled properly, but how could they ever publicly comment on arguably the worst blown call in modern Big Ten history? If that call wasn't enough, the other officiating issues on scoring plays only added to the cloudy legitimacy of that game.

College Football needs to be careful right now with its officiating. It’s nearing a tipping point.   This sport needs to get it together before it’s embarrassed on an even bigger stage than the good sized venue in Lincoln Saturday night. It wasn’t that long ago that College Basketball started to slip and slide, and look at that sport now. Officiating was the lead story of the last Final Four, if not the last two seasons, and is already destined to be the lead story of the coming season. That reality has done immeasurable harm to that sport. College Football is dangerously trending that way in 2015.

Though MSU-Nebraska was decided by perhaps one of the bigger blown calls in the sport’s history, that doesn’t mean the Officials cost MSU the game. Yes, even with the two other disputed scores. As we’ve discussed earlier, the Spartans had more than enough chances to finish Nebraska off for good. They couldn’t do if on Offense, needing only one last 1st Down. They couldn’t do it on Defense in the final couple drives, and they came up just short of having a chance to try to win it on Special Teams. It went down as a loss for MSU, but it’s also fair to say the game was decided by the Officials' error. Both things can co-exist.

How Spartan Football handles what happened to them Saturday night will determine whether they can move forward from it. Two weeks ago Duke lost on a completely blown call by the Officials on the game’s final play. They were beaten 66-21 in their follow up effort. Wisconsin endured a similar situation to MSU’s a couple Septembers ago when ranked 18th in a late game at Arizona State. They had setup a Field Goal try that would’ve won them the game but the Officials messed up the clock, failed to correct their mistake, and scampered off the field after calling it a game.

Much like the Spartans’ ending last week, there was little question that night the Officials made a wrong and decisive call. When Spartan Nation asked then Badgers’ Head Coach Gary Andersen three days after that game how he planned to process what had happened the following week, his response was a real surprise. “It is hard when the kids didn’t get to decide the game on the field, and they never will be able to. So to me it’s the game that never ended and I don’t care what anybody says about that, that’s how I feel.”

Andersen’s mind was that clear from the get go. Rather than giving the typical response we hear from teams that have had similar types of issues with Officials, he decided the Badgers wouldn’t have any of it. By recognizing what had happened to his team for what it was instead of sidestepping it or avoiding the issue head on, Andersen and Wisconsin found strength. They finished strong, losing only twice during the rest of that regular season (at Ohio State, to Penn State).

The Spartans should take a similar approach. The Officials blew a call that decided the Nebraska game, but at the same time did not necessarily cost them that game. Unless MSU processes that result by truly acknowledging and accepting what happened at the end, within the program, they will struggle to move on and get past it.

Maryland is not a good football team right now and should not be able to keep up with MSU this Saturday. But the Spartans may have the worst football hangover felt around East Lansing in decades if they don’t get through what happened last week in order to move on from it. That cannot be a simple task given the team’s goals and what went down at the end, but they still have everything to play for. That’s what they should be focused on come the opening kick.

The Spartans have to run the table and then count on the committee to do the right thing should they finish 13-1 and Big Ten Champions. That’s a nice thing to talk about at this point, but after the heartbreak last Saturday night it’s going to be quite the challenge and effort from here. Maryland now sets up as even more of an emotional trap game with Ohio State coming up the next week. So MSU's first mental hurdle is to look sharper against Maryland than they have all year long, for all 60 minutes.

We don’t yet know how big an emotional toll Nebraska took on the 2015 Spartans. We probably won’t know until we look back sometime after the regular season is done. Yet, this week should give us a strong indication. Maryland is more about how MSU handles what happened to them last Saturday night than the matchups Maryland presents. It will show up as clear as a fall blue sky if the Spartans are still stuck in a moment that they can’t yet get out of.

@JPSpartan

P.A. T. (Perhaps Another Thought…)

1. Saturday night may have marked the end of the Spartans phenomenal run from the BWW Bowl after the 2012 season through October of 2015. MSU went an amazing 34-3 during that time and though the larger run may not completely be over yet, it will be nearly impossible to top that fine a records over that stretch of time again.
2. Just when some thought the Michigan-Michigan St. rivalry would take a step back in chitter chatter, Wolverines Jake Butt sent out a tweet after the end of MSU-Nebraska to re-stoke the fire. “I knew God had our back. Lose on fluke to little bro and that’s how they had to go down. I am the biggest OSU fan now,” it said. Not long after, Butt’s brother claimed to have tweeted it off Jake Butt’s phone. Who knows whether that’s true or just damage control, but the Spartans are unlikely to give the Wolverine the benefit of the doubt. There is no off season in this rivalry.
3. The Spartans have yet to get due credit for who they’ve played and beaten so far in 2015. All the focus has been on how MSU won each game, not on which teams they beat. After the regular season ends, perhaps that will change. I'd doubt it, unless MSU starts marketing their credentials much harder than they have so far. That should've begun during the bye week. Now they're starting from much further behind. For example, Notre Dame beat USC and Pitt on the road. MSU beat Oregon and Michigan on the road. Which 1-loss team has the better big wins so far?
4. I understand the Big Ten's assertion that the critical replay review process at Nebraska was conducted correctly and that by rule, they should not have been able to review or overturn the judgment of whether or not the Nebraska receiver was forced out of bounds. But looking at it from a broader perspective, they probably should have. Everyone saw the Official's hat fly off live, and everyone saw the replay, as Mark Dantonio said immediately after the game. So much in football (if not life) is a cost-benefit analysis. Had the officials fixed the historically incorrect judgment on the field they would've had a much easier time justifying that to everyone involved, would've gotten the call right, and would’ve permitted the game to continue without being decided by an infamous and historic call. A correction would've produced at least a 3rd Down for Nebraska, one Mike Riley said they were already preparing for, and likely one MSU was planning for as well. Who knows what would've happened from there, but it would've been a much fairer ending than what actually went down in the books. Had they considered the cost and benefit of their replay decision more wisely, the Officials and the Big Ten would not dealing with the fall out they're facing right now across the sport's landscape. In fact they would’ve been commended for doing the right thing relative to the competitive integrity of the game. Instead they stuck themselves with an enormous black eye in a marquee game, and put the sport back on its heels in great fear of the next huge officiating mistake of 2015.