Okay, the MSU staff now knows what they have to focus on this week to correct the mistakes made in game one as well as prepare for Central Michigan.
The Chippewas fell to the Arizona Wildcats 19-6 on Saturday night in Tucson. Dan LeFevour, their “Tim Tebow of the MAC” had a less than steller night as the AU defense held him to 18 yards rushing and 108 yards passing, no touchdowns and one interception. After the game LeFevour and his coach mentioned the speed of the Wildcat defense as being a major factor in CMUs offensive difficulties.
The young, inexperienced, CMU OL struggled to keep the Wildcats out of the backfield and pressuring LeFevour. AU was only able to record two sacks, but LeFevour was under pressure most of the evening and not allowed to sit in the pocket. This does not surprise me as CMU was starting a redshirt freshman at one tackle and a converted TE at the other. These two as well as the rest of the Chippewa OL can expect the same treatment this weekend from the MSU front seven. The Chippewas were only able to manage 74 yards rushing on 20 attempts.
The Spartans front four had several breakdowns against Montana State that allowed them to gain four plus yards. Narduzzi spoke about this during his post game press conference, so I would expect that this will be a point of emphasis this week during game preparation. Anderson, and Neely are two veteran ends that should be able to take advantage of the inexperience of the CMU tackles and get pressure off the edge. Anderson is MSU’s most effective speed rusher, and I expect CMU will be forced to slide a TE to his side to assist with pass blocking. This should allow the interior linemen to face one-on-one blocking and favor MSU with their rotation of Wilson, Worthy, Johnson, Jordan and Pickelman.
If speed was a major contributing factor in the CMU loss, the Spartan linebackers should provide a “Deja vu” feeling for the Chippewa offense. Jones is displaying the traits that one would expect from a player who was selected as the preseason conference defensive player of the year. I expect CMU to try and get as many hats on him as possible to keep him away from the ball, but as the old saying goes, “You can’t hit what you can’t see.” Jones has the quickness, speed, and overall understanding of the game that allows him to play fast. Gordon and Denson both run effectively, and should be disruptive forces as well by not allowing LeFevour the opportunity to run.
In three short years Dantonio has transformed the MSU secondary from being a liability to being a unit of unquestioned strength. Secondary coach, Harlan Barnett has numerous options when deciding on his starting four, and the luxury of knowing that there will be negligible drop off in performance between his first, second and third team players. Everyone on this unit can run and is capable of locking down receivers man-to-man. CMU has two solid receivers in 6’5″ senior Bryan Anderson, and 5’10″ junior Antonio Brown who will test and be tested by the Spartan secondary.
This will be another good early season test for the Spartans. The offense, especially the play of the offensive line has to show much improvement and open holes for the talented trio of Ray, Baker and Caper. Now that all three have gotten their feet wet, and appear to have gained confidence in their ability to play at this level. Cousins and Nichol have an arsenal of receivers in White, Cunningham, Gantt, Linthicum and Sims that will hopefully force CMU to pull players out of the box and allow for the running backs to have more room with which to operate, but this will only happen if the line comes through.
