Everyone needs to come down from the ledge....it was a WIN. An SEC win on the road against a decent team in a hostile environment. MSU was very motivated and played like it. They were tough and played determined, but they ran out of gas and are short on talent. MSU will win some ball games this year because of their D alone. We gave up 250 total yards on D. 250!!!! Against a team that put up over 600 the week before, even if they did play the Memphis School for the Blind.
Add in the fact that they were given a TD - TWICE via a muffed punt and MSU recovering their own fumble at the goal line AND the onside kick, I think we came out pretty good.
We have tons of things to work on. Dyer is a stud. Fannin needs to take a seat on the bench. McCalebb at this point simply needs to be a change of pace back. That was a great front 7 we played against. Ziemba was missed in the 2nd half. He will be a high NFL Draft Pick and you don't really get BETTER losing an NFL caliber lineman in the 1st quarter. Stevens is being missed more than most realize, because of the aforementioned comments on Bynes and Freeman (slow and out of position constantly).
Not making excuses and most know I don't drink Chizik kool aid, but all of these conditions combined with the short week had the makings of a sloppy game. Kudos to Roof for getting his shit together even though he is handicapped by the perpetual slowness of Bynes and low FB IQ of Freeman.
I don't want to go way overboard with any juggernaut breakdown skills here, so I'll say ditto. I'll add some things too.
Cam got crucial 1st downs. He's pretty good. He did throw a pick, and also a TD that was a BB. He's not great on the whole as a passer but nowhere near inept either.
Dyer and McCaleb are a good one two punch. Both are averaging @6 yards a carry for the first 2 games. Bitch all you want about the way McCaleb looks doing it (I agree on how it looks), but he carried the ball 12 times for 68 yards last night. People have bitched and moaned about the play calling, and some of the crazy shit Malzahn has done, and last night they played very consevative, and folks don't like that either. Fucking choose! You can't have it both ways.
The defense...what I thought would be a weakness this year, so far has been the stregnth...the DL. The two units that returned solid, experienced players, the DBs and LBs, have taken step back. Yet, last night, when they had to, they stepped up. They weren't smothering, and there were a lot of "if MSU had hit this, or done this"...but there were also some stops, and a couple of dropped INTs that could have swung it our way. That's football. The DBs are suspect, and the LBs are too. There's some issuses with the DBs...they don't turn and look for the ball...they cover great in man...meaning they can keep up with WRs, then they go all tard and start waiving their hands, or hand fighting with the WR instead of looking for the ball. That's coaching...not Roof, that's Lolley. Ultimately that falls to Chiz to fix, and I don't think you can fix that during the season. Like GH said, I think Stevens may be missed more than we know. Some things that folks haven't noticed or commented on. Mullen pulled out the true old Veer Option last night. Leaving our DE unblocked, and reading him. Their FB had a few good carries. Then they pitched off our DE, and the QB kept a time or two, and they even ran the "nasty" (I think that's what Mullen/Meyer call it)...the underneath pitch to the FB/TE. This triple option drives defenses crazy today because it takes very specialized coaching to coach defending that, and if you don't prepare for it, you can get burned with it before you can adjust. Yet, we adjusted and shut it down later in the game, and never got completely burned by it. That's very good. Often teams never adjust to this. We didn't blitz all night, but when we did, it was timely and effective. Just a side note: Fairley is a beast. So there were positives to take from this game.
In the end, we went on the road in the SEC, and won a close game. We played poorly at times, and still managed a win. Today, as expected, "that was just MSU and y'all struggled" is what I heard from the bammers on the radio. Some Auburn folks sound that way too. Y'all know that game went off with us as a 1pt dog in Vegas. Not that it really matters, but that's the fact, or at least that's what I heard late yesterday evening on the radio.
I'm not on the ledge. We have lots of improving to do. It was a short week by the way. Some things I think can and will improve, IE offense will get more consistent, and Malzahn will learn exactly what the "tools in his belt" can do, and use them properly. I don't think the DBs will imrove much. If Stevens comes back, maybe the LBs will. Overall, because it was a road win, and won largely on the stregnth of running the ball and defense, I'll give it a C+.
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