That wasn’t fun.
The first quarter was mostly dominated by Michigan State’s plodding offense and some real bad Ohio State brain farts. Ohio State kept Michigan State’s first drive alive with two boneheaded pass interference calls (Shazier’s penalty was a real head scratcher).
Along with the bad plays, things were definitely getting chippy.
A touchdown pass to Lippet after a long TD pass to Mumphrey put the Spartans up big, 17-0 and Ohio State looked totally out of synch and completely lost.
Buckeyes finally got on track scoring 10 unanswered points to end the first half and scored on their first possession in the second half. Braxton Miller looked much more comfortable in the 2nd quarter and Carlos Hyde was still unstoppable.
After tying the score at 17 a piece, Michigan State looked to be on a decent drive when CJ Barnett stepped in front of a Connor Cook pass and intercepted.
After a stalled drive, Ohio State pinned Michigan State inside their 5, and forced a 3 and out. Buckeyes then marched down the field, almost strictly running the ball. It was pure MANBALL and there was nothing Michigan State could do. Ohio State too the lead 24-17 after scoring 24 unanswered points.
Michigan started their next drive with a big run by Langford. After going for it on 4th and 2, Sparty had to settle for a 44 yard field goal, 24-20 Ohio State.
After a little back and forth, Connor Cook drove Michigan State and capped off a 90 yard drive with a throw across the field to a wide open tight end to take the lead, 27-24.
A punt block by Shazier with a little less than eight minutes left gave OSU the ball on MSU’s 48 yard line. Ohio State had to go for it on 4th down and failed to convert, giving the ball back to MSU with 5 minutes left.
Michigan State would drive for a gutbusting touchdown to take the lead 34-24.
After Braxton’s 4th and 10 pass fell short, Michigan State took over on downs.
I hate sports. Good night.
Too many dropped balls
Too many absolutely crushing, terrible penalties
OSU defense doing what it does best…making the opposing QB look like Joe Montana
Tom Herman…he…he didn’t have a good night calling plays. 1 pass attempt in the 4th quarter before desperation time? WOW…
No Dontre Wilson touches on offense? Wilson averages 8 yards per carry…and didn’t touch the ball once? WOW…
Michigan State just played better. Coached better. Very, very frustrating loss because we all know the players and coaches have far better potential than what they showed vs. MSU.
Moving forward…
Play in a bowl game for the first time since that terrible Gator Bowl years ago…
Fickell has gotta be on the hot seat. Just too many points and yards to average offenses the last two years. This isn’t an isolated incident.
What coaches stay and what coaches go? Does Herman leave? Does Fickell leave?
Does Miller stay or go? If this game is any indication…he has to stay. Just takes him way too long to make decisions to throw the ball.
With regards to the coaches, I think this is a wait-and-see situation. I will give Herman the benefit of the doubt even though his gameplan was suspect. I think Fickell’s seat may be hotter than Herman’s, but I trust Urban will make the appropriate evaluations with respect to his staff.
The absence of Wilson was odd, as were the third/fourth-and-short calls not going to Hyde.
Like you mentioned earlier, Lots of blame to go around. Also a lot of things to be thankful for.
And I think Miller stays.
Many OSU defensive players in msu’s backfield throughout the game being held & not one holding call that I recall. I know it wasn’t our best game but it should have officiated better.
Yep, Bosa was held repeatedly. Calls were lopsided for sure, but like you said, it wasn’t OSU’s best effort. i don’t know if those calls make up 10 points.
In these high profile games momentum means alot and a better officiated game may have made up for 10 points.
Any analysis that doesn’t start and end with “Meyer and Herman refused to use Hyde in the fourth quarter after scoring 24 unanswered points and taking the lead” will be dead to me.
I’m not disappointed with the defense… They performed no differently than we expected. Had it not been for the last TD – which was given up after the game had been lost by the offense – the defense would have kept MSU under its season average.
No, this blame goes entirely on puzzling offensive game scheme throughout. 100% coaching.
I honestly think the coaches out-thought themselves. I think the line of thinking goes “well, this worked (running Hyde), let’s see if this worked (everything else)”. Sometimes it’s mind boggling. We had the offense that was supposed to keep us in games. We didn’t stick to that offense. Even on his bad runs, Hyde was still getting 3-4 yards.
You have to give Sparty credit, Dantonio took unranked recruits nobody else wanted and created superior players out of them. Quite an accomplishment against some of the most elite classes OSU ever recruited. Conner Cook ignored at all those Ohio HS camps while Miller got star treatment got the revenge he waited years for. You could see it in Braxton’s eyes at the end of the game the haunting memories of those camps.
@jimmy -Miller’s eyes gave me the creeps too, indeed revenge is a powerfully motivating force. When Denicos Allen played in Hamilton, Ohio he waited all year for a letter from OSU, it never came. Well when the crucial 4th down play came Denicos delivered his own message to OSU by stuffing Braxton Miller for the game. “You’ll remember me forever!”
Unranked recruits? That’s a bit much, no? It’s not like OSU was playing East Montreal Tech…MSU is an outstanding program littered with truly elite athletes. Making them out to be a well coached bad news bears is…umm…
Cook was the beneficiary of one of the worst OSU secondaries in recent memory. This secondary has made some very average QB’s look great.
What I’ll remember forever is a terrible call on a 4th and two…running to the short side of the field against the number 1 defense in the country with a stacked box. Numbers and space was not in OSU’s favor on that play. OSU’s window dressing on that play didn’t work and a T.O. should have been taken…or an audible called.
So many things went wrong in this game…
@Kade- calling MSU “littered with truly elite athletes” is a bit misleading, MSU has had only 4 Top 100 recruits the entire decade while OSU has had 34. jimmy was probably just referring to facts like the Buck’s 5 year average class ranking 6th to 7th nationally compared to MSU around 37th. Considering Dantonio has led MSU to three 11 win seasons in the last 4 years with actually only 2 elite recruits (one already in the NFL and the other hurt most of this season) that’s rather remarkable.
Both Dantonio and Narduzzi are up for national coaching award consideration, maybe we can call it a “bad news bears” type of achievement. Depending on how things work out, word has it Texas as well as Alabama eventually may come after Dantonio. Connecticut already wants Narduzzi as HC.
Your right a lot of things went wrong but the season showed the Bucks as a good team not a great one. Other than Hyde and Miller there wasn’t much development of other offensive weapons. College ball has some interesting stories, one of them is when a bunch of 3 star recruits years later beat the crap out of the elite players from those classes. As much a Buckeye fan as I am, it’s kinda interesting just saying.
It’s not misleading…I don’t believe there is an enormous difference between being ranked 7th to 37th when it comes to players that have played literally zero downs of college football.
MSU has elite athletes that are well coached, as does OSU. MSU won. It happens.
Football is the ultimate team sport. It takes star players, unsung players and good coaching along with help from the zebras and some luck.
FYI…a 3 star player IS elite…recruiting services are a crap shoot and there is no way to properly rank all players.
The ultimate way to rank them is on the field on a college setting.
But with all that said I take umbrage with classifying MSU’s athletes as unranked recruits that no one wanted…that is just silly.
Disagree, recruiting rankings can be used to create a realistic baseline for expectations. They have already done studies on this showing players and teams statistically tend to perform within the vary narrow range their initial recruiting rank suggest. That is true regardless of examples of 3-star prospects like Johnny Manziel defying the criteria.
MSU beating OSU is an anomaly. Overwhelming evidence supports a 7th ranked class consistently at an advantage over a 37th. The Wolverines are the only team in the B1G that should consistently give OSU trouble. That is why this side story of a couple overlooked Ohio boys at MSU is so compelling, the odds of what they helped pulled off is astonishing in a statistical sense.
For the 2008-2012 period Rivals classifies MSU within the 3 star group of schools and OSU & UM within the 5 star schools. (side note: Alabama is in a category of it’s own). Within this period a study of incoming signees shows the odds of a 3 star becoming an All-American are 1 in 56 where as a Top 100 1 in 6, a 5 star 1 in 4 of becoming an All-American.
jimmy should have classified MSU’s players as 3 star instead of “unranked” but we get his point, evidence based on accumulated rankings support his point.
Agree with your statement “star players, unsung players and good coaching …the zebras and some luck” in the sense of helping MSU defy the odds.