Second straight week playing against an MSU and thankfully (?) it isn’t Morgan State again. This time it’s the Spartans from the Big Ten in our typical FBS/FCS money grab of the year. A very necessary game for FCS programs and ones that have to be viewed from a certain lens based on the situation.

Michigan State

You think you’ve got issues with how UR does contracts for our coaches? Michigan State signed Mel Tucker to a 10 year, $95 million deal in late 2021 before he even completed his second full season. The Spartans are now 19-14 in his 4+ years entering this Saturday and while he may get it figured out they’ve put themselves in a tough spot. Ohio State and Michigan remain top-5 teams with Penn State looming, so maybe don’t bring this sore subject up if you’re in East Lansing this weekend.

Their opening game against Central Michigan last Friday didn’t do much to increase optimism as they only led 10-7 at the half and ended up wearing down the Chippewas for a 31-7 win. They too started a new QB and things actually went fairly well. Made some big throws, nearly hit 300 yards, and didn’t turn the ball over. They’re a Big Ten team, so they automatically have the advantage in size & depth, but this could be a really interesting game for our defense as a true measuring stick for what their ceiling can be.

Betting

Looks like the total will come in somewhere around 50, and I don’t see them being favored by anything less than 31 points. Based on last Saturday this isn’t too surprising but I don’t think that will move the number a ton. They were stout on defense in week 1 and were projected to have one of the stronger defenses in the Big Ten, so with an uncertain MSU offense and good UR defense I don’t expect the total to get much higher than that.

Spiders on Offense

This one should be… interesting. The Spartans picked up three sacks, 10 TFLs, and five deflections in their opening game with no glaring weak spots. Central Michigan couldn’t even tally 100 yards passing and managed to just hit the 3 YPC mark on the ground only thanks to a few bigger plays.

I think so much of what we do running will be based on our passing, as MSU has no reason to not crowd the box from the opening play. Wickersham threw a good deep ball the one time he let it loose but I’m sure they picked up pretty quickly how much offense we ran within a few yards of the LOS and there’s no doubt they’ll try and make us pay early for that. They played a lot of bodies in week 1 and if this games goes the way 99% of people think it will we’ll see plenty of defenders in and out throughout the four quarters. Their 10 TFLs were split between 12 defenders, with no one having more than 1 TFL, so they aren’t shy in keeping guys fresh in the front-7.

What I’m watching for

What offense will we see? – Huesman said in an interview earlier in the week that we “need to get rid of things that we can’t do well or add some things that match up to our skillset.” Uh… yeah. If that’s his way of saying that we’ll get our talent involved in a wider variety of ways than just screens than I’m all for it. It’s unrealistic to expect some overhaul of what we do but I don’t think that’s necessary at all. If you saw any of the spring/fall practices or scrimmages it’s clear that this offense isn’t meant to be overly basic. There’s definitely a balance between protecting our new QB and running the full playbook but we weren’t close to finding a middle last week. Can’t be afraid to let Wickersham go out there and make some mistakes (and some good plays) so I’d be shocked if we didn’t open things up earlier on.

How do we help out our O-line? – I know Morgan State had a good defensive line but there were a few too many plays where they brought four and either got home or got a hit on Kyle. The bigger concern is that as the game went on, the pressure only increased yet we made very few (if any) adjustments to increase protection or get the ball out. Our two most effective passing plays in the 2nd half were slants to Ja’Vion Griffin, as he was able to win his 1-on-1 outside and Wickersham got the ball out fast enough. Aside from that it was either a screen or something that took too long to develop. I harped on our lack of air yards in the recap but you’ve got the earn the ability to work the ball downfield by protecting against the blitz. You don’t need to have seen Michigan State play to know that the pressure is coming this Saturday – how the Spiders plan for and react to that pressure will be my #1 thing to watch.

How much control does Wickersham have? – Another noticeable difference last week was the lack of checks & audibles at the line of scrimmage. We did a great job of getting the play in quickly and used tempo very well, however we rarely checked out of a bad play and into a good one. Are we giving him the freedom to do that? How much of that is built into this offense? I don’t have answers for y’all but in today’s football you’ve got to be flexible. And it’s not something you need to use every play, however I’m having a hard time remembering too many downs where we got out of a look that we didn’t like or checked to something that exploited a match-up.

At the end of the day we’ve got to remember what this game is – it’s still Wickersham’s second career start and it’s still an FCS/FBS matchup. Everything feels rushed after losing to a MEAC team and while I refuse to excuse that one bit we do need to manage expectations for this game. We likely won’t suddenly figure it all out or put up 35+ points, but finding a way to take a few steps forward would go a long way for the season.

Spiders on Defense

The Spartan offense vs Spider defense will absolutely be the more intriguing of the two matchups, as this UR defense gets a chance to prove how much of the preseason hype was worth it. This isn’t the sole factor in how successful they can be however a strong showing in the FBS game would be a great sign that they’ve taken the next step. They did everything they could’ve done last week (besides scoring) to put us in a spot to win so the confidence will be there to stand up against the FBS opponent and push back. I’m not saying we are going up to East Lansing to push MSU around but this front-7 could make a big statement by standing firm and making this a fairly even game in the trenches.

Getting just as big of a test will be this UR secondary. MSU averaged nine yards per attempt and over 15 yards per completion, as there was no shortage of chunk plays against CMU. They had five players that each had a play of 20 yards or longer, so this offense isn’t aimed at being a slow, ground and pound team like so many B1G teams of the past. Despite losing their top QB and top WR to the portal after the spring it seems a few weapons have emerged and it will be worth watching how we balance the 4-3 & 4-2-5. Can’t imagine we don’t start in the typical base 4-3 but if the front can hold up we should be able to switch to the 4-2-5 fairly seamlessly.

I’m very curious to see how Michigan State attacks us, as they threw it just as often as they ran it in week 1. I don’t think any Big Ten team would shy away from running the ball against their FCS opponent but I’d imagine they know they’ve got a much better shot beating us in the air. If we can’t slow down their rushing attack nothing else will really matter, however if we can get generate some pressure and a few negative plays early we might be able to let these veteran safeties make a few plays in the backend and keep things close.

What I’m watching for

Even battle up front – I know, that’s wildly optimistic. Yet so often it’s clear who the FCS team is in these matchups just by looking at the movement on the line of scrimmage. Games get out of hand with excessive running early on and the FCS teams can’t hang in the trenches. I know I’m probably the only person with any optimistic thoughts after last week but I really am excited for this test. I don’t know if we can do it for four quarters but this group truthfully has a chance to hold their own in a Big Ten matchup. Murray looks good, the depth is there, and we know what we’ve got in Wheeler. It’s a great showcase game for a few guys (Coll, Wheeler, Louis) so I’m expecting some real resistance to be put up by this Spider front.

Personnel groupings – D’Angelo Stocker grabbed his first INT against Morgan State but they threw it so few times that I don’t think it helped to sort out the competition of him vs Tomlinson too much. Aside from that position battle we’ll still have the opportunity to play the 4-2-5 a fair amount as Michigan State isn’t the Power-I team they once were. Probably makes sense for us to be in the 4-3 more often than not to help up front but based on what they ran against CMU we’ll have plenty of opportunities to play the 4-2-5. If the Spartans try and exploit our secondary early in the game I’d expect Coach Wood to get his two senior safeties (Banks & Jarmo) on the field as much as possible.

FBS success

I brought this up in the running backs and safeties preview but it’s worth mentioning again. Both Savon Smith and Aaron Banks have great history when it comes to FBS matchups over the past two seasons. Everyone talks about Savon’s three TDs so far however Banks also has three forced turnovers of his own. To finish a career with four TDs or four TOs forced would be a career achievement so I’m hoping at least one of these guys gets to that mark on Saturday.

FCS Preview

Next Post

Michigan State recap (Monday)