The Michigan State Spartans visit Illinois on Saturday for a 11 a.m. contest at Memorial Stadium. The game is televised on ESPNews.
The Spartans (2-6, 0-5 B1G) fell to No. 2 Michigan last week at home, 32-23, while the Fighting Illini (2-6, 1-4 B1G) dropped a 40-17 contest in Champaign to Minnesota.
Saturday’s game marks the 46th meeting between Michigan State and Illinois. The Spartans lead the all-time series 26-17-2, including a 13-9-1 record in games played in Champaign.
Michigan State has won 12 of the last 13 meetings in the series, including a 42-3 victory in the last meeting on Oct. 26, 2013, in Memorial Stadium.
OrangeandBlueNews caught up with Jim Comparoni from SpartanMag.com to get the lowdown on Michigan State ahead of Saturday's contest. Follow Comparoni on Twitter @JimComparoni.
The obvious question first. What has gone wrong? Michigan St. entered the season ranked No. 12 in the nation in the AP preseason poll and was expected to compete with Michigan and Ohio St. in the Big Ten West. What has contributed to the disappointing performance on the field?
Jim Comparoni: It’s a number of things. First of all, first-year QB Tyler O’Connor was a bit deficient in September. That hurt MSU’s chances against Wisconsin, their first loss. Third-down pass defense was terrible that day, and it has continued to be a problem, with a revolving door of players playing in the back seven due to injuries.
In the first five games of the six-game losing streak, Michigan State was terrible in the fourth quarter. Michigan State ranked dead last in the country in fourth-quarter scoring margin, heading into last week’s game against Michigan.
Michigan State led Indiana and Maryland heading into the fourth quarter of those games. BYU and Northwestern turned close games into blowout situations due to fourth-quarter surges. The coaches never arrived at a good reason for the fourth-quarter problems, but last weekend’s loss to Michigan didn’t include the usual fourth-quarter swoon.
Indiana trailed Michigan State 14-0 late in the third quarter. Indiana scored 21 straight. MSU tied it to send it into overtime. And then O’Connor made a couple of bad decisions in overtime which sealed MSU’s fate in that game.
Indiana’s comeback was made possible via four big plays on offense, all coming in the last 20 minutes of the game.
MSU did well to hold Indiana scoreless for nearly three quarters but still found a way to lose. That’s Michigan State in a nutshell. Michigan State is not a terrible team. Holding Indiana scoreless for nearly three quarters, and rushing for 200-plus yards against Michigan are things that a 2-6 team shouldn’t be able to do.
MSU’s run defense was terrible against BYU, getting worn down in the fourth quarter and sudden, inexplicably, suffering from gap assignment issues in the third quarter. Gap assignments hadn’t been a problem prior to that game, or since. But they were on that day.
Strange things crop up as problems each week. But a lack of a pass rush on defense is a consistent problem.
When Michigan State’s losing streak began with the first and second game, we heard that there was a split between the seniors and the younger players. They get along, but there isn’t a healthy leadership component. The older players felt the younger players didn’t know how to commit to watching film and those types of things. This apparently is still a problem, sited by Mark Dantonio’s statement that many players in the program “were born on third” meaning they didn’t have to work to get to third base.
In addition to the problems with graduation, and most seniors not stepping up as effectively as expected, the Spartans have also been slammed with injuries, especially in the defensive back seven and recently at QB.
Tyler O’Connor out-played Brian Lewerke in the Northwestern game. O’Connor threw for 281 yards in less than two quarters of that game. We assumed O’Connor would regain his starting job the next week. But then he injured his foot in practice and couldn’t play the next week at Maryland. They missed him at Maryland, and lost.
MSU had breakdowns in secondary coverage in that game, and wore down in the defensive front, allowing chunk yardage on the ground.
Michigan State lost five of its best eight defensive linemen from a year ago - three due to graduation, a retirement, plus dismissals of two players who were expected to be d-line starters this year. Those two players will likely end up on SEC rosters and are of NFL talent.
MSU’s starting defensive tackles include a grad transfer from Nebraska, and a guy who started at right offensive guard in September. The back-ups are a redshirt freshman and a true freshman. A third freshman saw time against Maryland and was terrible.
The problems are wide-ranging. MSU isn’t terrible in any particular area in terms of personnel and talent, but MSU is a C-plus in many areas, and occasionally executes at a C-plus rate in other areas, resulting in being just good enough to lose every week.
I assume Tyler Connor plays quarterback for the Spartans on Saturday. What does he bring to the field? How does the injury to Brian Lewerke impact the team?
JC: Losing Lewerke is hurtful for the future. In some ways, these last four games and final 20 practices should set the tone toward reestablishing winning habits for 2017. But now the QB who is likely to lead the team next year isn’t a part of it. This is hurtful for next year.
Last week marked the first time that Lewerke out-played O’Connor in a game, in my opinion. Lewerke provided a spark in other games, but then fizzled out - including the two games he started.
He was relieved by O’Connor in two of the games he started. He would have been relieved by O’Connor in the Maryland game if O’Connor had been available.
I think in four of the last five losses, the starting QB was relieved by the other. The exception was the Maryland game, in which O’Connor wasn’t available.
Losing Lewerke prevents MSU from having a spark in the bullpen. We have no idea whether O’Connor will play well in this game, which he is capable of doing, or if he will struggle again.
Some of his early-season struggles were due to things out of his control such as receivers running routes at the wrong depth at key moments, or pass protection by sophomore running back LJ Scott (especially in the loss to Wisconsin). There have been widespread examples of downturns in what I would call quality control. Some of those areas have improved lately.
MSU’s run blocking was terrible against Northwestern. MSU attempted only 11 tailback run attempts in that game, the lowest of the Dantonio era. Then the o-line’s manhood was challenged and they came back in the following two games with 200-plus yards rushing. This inconsistency makes little sense.
As for the QBs, O’Connor’s foot might still be less than 100 percent. If he has to come out of this game due to injury, the No. 3 QB, Damion Terry, is fully capable of losing this game on his own. The junior is a pretty good runner, but been yippy and bad as a passer throughout his career. If Terry has to play more than two quarters in this game, Michigan State’s chances of winning will dip dramatically.
Wide receiver R.J. Shelton is having a nice season. Is he the guy the Illinois defense needs to stop? Who are some other playmakers to watch on the Michigan State offense?
JC: I think the first thing Illinois needs to do is try to contain MSU’s ground game. MSU has shown it can rush for 200-plus yards two straight weeks and still lose. But that’s still the first component that needs to be contained.
Shelton is a good receiver, a productive one, but not a dominant one. He dropped a TD pass in the second half against Maryland. One possession later, another senior WR, Monty Madaris, fumbled inside the Maryland 5-yard line. MSU only had the ball four times in the second half. Those two errors aborted the mission on two of the four drives.
As is the case with all other areas of the team, the WRs have had their moments, but in the end have been just good enough to lose.
Tailback LJ Scott is coming off a strong performance against Michigan. Will he stay strong, or will he and other Spartans have a letdown now that they aren’t playing the rivals?
Traditionally, MSU plays its best game of the year against Michigan, and then maintains much of the good from that game for the rest of the season. In a lot of ways, MSU played its best game of the season last week, in terms of fight and physicality and ground defense inside the tackles (but allowed 52 yards on a couple of WR reverses that drove Dantonio nuts, because it was a play they had scouted and should have been prepared for. But a freshman defensive end and others didn’t communicate the tendency when it showed itself at pre-snap. “Sometimes our guys don’t know how to watch film individually,” Dantonio lamented. Their use of freshmen and a revolving door of first-year players and new starters on defense has taken a toll.).
How do you expect the game to play out on Saturday? Keys to the game? Score prediction?
JC: I suspect that Michigan State will indeed channel some of the positives from the Michigan game, build off of it, and find a way to win this time. But if O’Connor’s foot becomes a problem, and Terry has to play, then Illinois becomes the favorite.
