(Long Post)
Last Saturday I skipped out watching Michigan State’s rebound win to instead watch the showdown in Madison (yucky!) and Florida Vs Tennessee. So in making a point to watch a play by play of NW Vs MSU, I offer the following, mostly about the offense:
- This kind of conference road win Vs a typically determined 7 or 8 win, familiar opponent is exactly the kind of encouraging rebound performance needed after the stubbornly coached and offensively frustrating showing Vs Arizona State the week before.
- For one, you can definitely tell the coaches regrouped and applied major adjustments to game plan. For one, the run blocking was MUCH better than against ASU’s front seven. Run plays that only went for 1 yard Vs ASU instead extended for 4 – 6 yards because the OL were much better at getting downfield to keep running lanes open. This is what carried the offense and kept their defense resting on the sideline.
- The bad news is how limited Lewerke will be for the rest of his Spartan career. Even his medium range passes require receivers to adjust mid-route and finish catches with dives or slowing their stride. Lewerke's arm doesn’t create for a deep threat which is doubly negative because none of his skill players have the game breaking ability to balance out Lewerke’s ceiling.
- The good news is Lewerke doesn’t make fatal mistakes. You can tell the coaches have grilled it into his mind to NOT take downfield chances and instead look for Backs in the shallow, throw it away, or take the sack. Lewerke is stability making up for lack of any fireworks. His best play was the TD pass to close out the second half 14-3; Lewerke worked through progressions on his right before finding one-on-one coverage deep-left. Otherwise Lewerke relied on his Backs when his first option closed.
- As for the defense, the gang-tackling mentality was evident from the get-go. As a veteran group they play well together and have the mental toughness and execution to keep a likely underdog MSU in games Vs Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan. I think the defense is good enough to win MSU 2 of those 4 contests.
- All in all the whole set up reminds me of the defensively lead Chicago Bears where the coaches strategize maxing out team strengths while intensively working around innate limitations, namely at QB, where ball protection is especially emphasized in light of almost no playmaking ability, either by the arm of the QB or the skill of the receivers.
