Game is in East Lansing on Sat. morning. Michigan opened up at -6.5. Early love for Michigan has already brought that number up to -7.5.
I'll start from the Michigan State perspective:
A lot of injury details affecting the o-line and receiving crew...
For the early part of the season, Sparty's offensive line (returned four minus center) has dealt with injuries . LG Beedle is out, the centers had rotated, the right tackle was getting crushed. RG Jarvis is injured and listed as 'questionable.' But there may be some hope for improvement. Veteran LT Chewins is very important and he's been back. Sparty simplified and changed some things on the o-line and it had a running back who averaged 5.5 on eight carries, another who averaged 4.0 on 15 carries. Both had a run of 26, 27 yards respectively. That's at least something. Some holes were there.
The WR crew has also suffered injuries. Five of them have been banged up. Cody White is out, Stewart and Nailor are listed as 'questionable.' Sowards' status is unclear but he can't do anything anyways. Chambers played with a bandage and his injury hindered his effectivity. Nelson was going to be redshirted but he played and played well against PSU. It's obvious that Lewerke is overwhelmingly reliant on Felton Davis especially on third down and in the red zone.
So basically Lewerke's supporting cast merits some serious doubt. 21 points against Penn State, seven came off a pair of trick plays. 19 points vs NW the week before, seven (Sparty's sole touchdown) of which came off a sweep to Davis. Lewerke threw 52 passes, the one INT came because a receiver hit the ball in the air so really wasn't his fault.
Lewerke threw it over 50 times in each of the past two games. Thats not something that Dantonio typically wants to do. But Sparty doesn't have much of a run game because of its o-line mostly. No running back averages 4 yards per carry. Pass protection gets to look better because of Lewerke's mobility, he has the ability to beat a defensive end to the edge with his speed. He has good awareness downfield, he can go through his progressions and find someone when the play breaks down, but when he hurries a throw like when he throws on the run he relies too much on his upper body and the throw often won't make it to the receiver, which is frustrating.
So the point is that the o-line and receiving crew have really struggled with injuries. Its really the receiving crew that explains Lewerke's high INT total, not so much Lewerke's ball placement and even less so his decision-making. So I think that the health of the receiving crew is something that needs to be monitored. Davis will be Lewerke's top guy but he needs other guys as well. Nelson is brand new although he had a nice first performance and not just whether Chambers plays but whether he's catching balls easily again is important.
Also: LJ Scott is still out at running back.
Defense is a lot simpler to explain:
Sparty's run defense had been highly touted. The stat sheet is skewed. Sanders had two long runs, one was a piece of schematic brilliance whereby the Sparty defense was split wide a hole was opened in the middle for Sanders to dart through. The other long run was Sanders producing a highlight reel, bouncing off of several tackles and going for a touchdown. On the one hand, Sanders did nothing outside of those two efforts. But the long runs are concerning given the fact that Sparty's run D hadn't really been challenged.
Sparty's pass D looked much better. That's also a matter of deceiving stats. Sparty's pass D really struggles against up-tempo offenses and against dink-and-dunk because its linebackers struggle in pass coverage. Sparty contained Trace well, didn't let him run like crazy as he did against OSU. My judgement is that Sparty defends teams who like to go deep (ok there was one blown assignment against NW and a deep pass against a backup seeing his first action on a beautifully thrown ball by Thorson...exceptions: Sparty ranks 23rd in opp yards per completion but outside top 100 in yards allowed per game.) and struggles against the Northwesterns and Indianas of the world who dink and dunk and the tempo teams like Utah State and Arizona State and, again, Indiana (Sparty's defeat of Indiana was very flukish in some regards--- a couple very unlucky 4th down failed conversions early messed things up for Indiana, etc etc.) Josiah Scott still out. But Justin Layne has awesome speed to go with his size. Khari Willis at safety has looked superb and carries the responsibility for containing Trace. So there are strong pieces in Sparty's secondary to go along with the pretty awesome run-stopping linebackers above all Bachie. The defensive line isn't anything to write home about, Willekes has been a positive surprise as a former walk-on, that's all.
Sorry I totally lost the forest for the trees here.
Basically worried about Sparty's ability to score outside of some trick plays that Michigan will need to watch out for. I really like Lewerke, but who does he have to throw to. How meaningful were Sparty's schematic changes in the o-line--i..e. evidence for real improvement or reflective of Penn State's issues at d-line.
I want to know about Michigan: if the pass attack is more dink-and-dunk like Indiana and Northwestern, or more inclined to go deep.
Sparty's run D, I would say, definitely didn't pass the hype test because of the two long runs that it allowed to a back who combines both size and speed and freakish athleticism too. 14 points could easily be the difference in this game and Michigan has not one but two strong running backs.
I'll start from the Michigan State perspective:
A lot of injury details affecting the o-line and receiving crew...
For the early part of the season, Sparty's offensive line (returned four minus center) has dealt with injuries . LG Beedle is out, the centers had rotated, the right tackle was getting crushed. RG Jarvis is injured and listed as 'questionable.' But there may be some hope for improvement. Veteran LT Chewins is very important and he's been back. Sparty simplified and changed some things on the o-line and it had a running back who averaged 5.5 on eight carries, another who averaged 4.0 on 15 carries. Both had a run of 26, 27 yards respectively. That's at least something. Some holes were there.
The WR crew has also suffered injuries. Five of them have been banged up. Cody White is out, Stewart and Nailor are listed as 'questionable.' Sowards' status is unclear but he can't do anything anyways. Chambers played with a bandage and his injury hindered his effectivity. Nelson was going to be redshirted but he played and played well against PSU. It's obvious that Lewerke is overwhelmingly reliant on Felton Davis especially on third down and in the red zone.
So basically Lewerke's supporting cast merits some serious doubt. 21 points against Penn State, seven came off a pair of trick plays. 19 points vs NW the week before, seven (Sparty's sole touchdown) of which came off a sweep to Davis. Lewerke threw 52 passes, the one INT came because a receiver hit the ball in the air so really wasn't his fault.
Lewerke threw it over 50 times in each of the past two games. Thats not something that Dantonio typically wants to do. But Sparty doesn't have much of a run game because of its o-line mostly. No running back averages 4 yards per carry. Pass protection gets to look better because of Lewerke's mobility, he has the ability to beat a defensive end to the edge with his speed. He has good awareness downfield, he can go through his progressions and find someone when the play breaks down, but when he hurries a throw like when he throws on the run he relies too much on his upper body and the throw often won't make it to the receiver, which is frustrating.
So the point is that the o-line and receiving crew have really struggled with injuries. Its really the receiving crew that explains Lewerke's high INT total, not so much Lewerke's ball placement and even less so his decision-making. So I think that the health of the receiving crew is something that needs to be monitored. Davis will be Lewerke's top guy but he needs other guys as well. Nelson is brand new although he had a nice first performance and not just whether Chambers plays but whether he's catching balls easily again is important.
Also: LJ Scott is still out at running back.
Defense is a lot simpler to explain:
Sparty's run defense had been highly touted. The stat sheet is skewed. Sanders had two long runs, one was a piece of schematic brilliance whereby the Sparty defense was split wide a hole was opened in the middle for Sanders to dart through. The other long run was Sanders producing a highlight reel, bouncing off of several tackles and going for a touchdown. On the one hand, Sanders did nothing outside of those two efforts. But the long runs are concerning given the fact that Sparty's run D hadn't really been challenged.
Sparty's pass D looked much better. That's also a matter of deceiving stats. Sparty's pass D really struggles against up-tempo offenses and against dink-and-dunk because its linebackers struggle in pass coverage. Sparty contained Trace well, didn't let him run like crazy as he did against OSU. My judgement is that Sparty defends teams who like to go deep (ok there was one blown assignment against NW and a deep pass against a backup seeing his first action on a beautifully thrown ball by Thorson...exceptions: Sparty ranks 23rd in opp yards per completion but outside top 100 in yards allowed per game.) and struggles against the Northwesterns and Indianas of the world who dink and dunk and the tempo teams like Utah State and Arizona State and, again, Indiana (Sparty's defeat of Indiana was very flukish in some regards--- a couple very unlucky 4th down failed conversions early messed things up for Indiana, etc etc.) Josiah Scott still out. But Justin Layne has awesome speed to go with his size. Khari Willis at safety has looked superb and carries the responsibility for containing Trace. So there are strong pieces in Sparty's secondary to go along with the pretty awesome run-stopping linebackers above all Bachie. The defensive line isn't anything to write home about, Willekes has been a positive surprise as a former walk-on, that's all.
Sorry I totally lost the forest for the trees here.
Basically worried about Sparty's ability to score outside of some trick plays that Michigan will need to watch out for. I really like Lewerke, but who does he have to throw to. How meaningful were Sparty's schematic changes in the o-line--i..e. evidence for real improvement or reflective of Penn State's issues at d-line.
I want to know about Michigan: if the pass attack is more dink-and-dunk like Indiana and Northwestern, or more inclined to go deep.
Sparty's run D, I would say, definitely didn't pass the hype test because of the two long runs that it allowed to a back who combines both size and speed and freakish athleticism too. 14 points could easily be the difference in this game and Michigan has not one but two strong running backs.
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