Take Your Gifts and Leave
What happened cannot be explained other than to say the Ghosts of '98 swept into a perfectly tranquil Ohio Stadium and disrupted things for short period of time when five snaps from center resulted in an interception and two fumbles. Two of the three plays wound up as turnovers and 14 points for Michigan State. We were apparently and unfortunately in the gift giving mood so it should be noted our offense really scored 38 points. It was so extraordinary it's worth showing how the play-by-play boxscore read because if there's ever a sequence of events to learn from it's this:
My initial reaction was
to cast all blame to the offensive line. Initial
reactions can be wrong though and after further
processing, Todd Boeckman really shoulders the
interception almost completely. Michigan State sent a
blitzing linebacker who wasn't picked up, Todd made
the correct hot read but the throw was painfully
behind Brian Hartline which made easy work for Otis
Wiley. However, I think the offensive line is to
blame for the sack and forced fumble and, apparently,
Kirk Barton agrees:
It's hard to go out there with your family after a game like this, when you're outclassing a team, and all of a sudden they come back because you give them a couple easy bunnies. Our defense has been lights out, as they have been in every game, and our offense was doing a couple stupid things. It's hard to be calm and not throw a hissy fit right now, but I'm not happy."
And this:
“When your foot is on that jugular, you have to kill that fool. You don't just back off, let him stand up and punch you a couple of times and then knock him back down."
More than anything, I think the offensive line was confused on what would have been a screen to the left side of the field. The entire right side of the line mismanaged their blocks leading to the sack and Boeckman fumble. Sure, Todd could have seen it coming but then again, he barely finished his drop before being blindsided and that has to be on the guys up front. Oh and "kill that fool" (metaphorically speaking) should become the team motto from this point forward or, if not the team, the offensive line at the very least.
The good thing is these three plays, for the most part, were pretty much all that was wrong with the day. I thought the offensive line played very well, especially the first half. It helped that we boot-legged Todd quite a bit and the misdirection confused the Spartans. He started out hitting his first 10 passes including a sterling strike from his own endzone to Brian Robiskie on third and long. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the reemergence of the toss sweep, which helped jumpstart Wells' day early. Overall, It was about as effortless of a 24 point lead as one team could build - and it likely should have been more. I still cannot get over the blatant incorrect ruling in regards to Javon Ringer's fumble. Ruled correctly and Ohio State has the ball again inside MSU's 30 and up 17-0.
And That Defense: Say want you want about who've played, but Michigan State, from all accounts, possesses a fine offense - one that is balanced and has rolled up almost 600 yards on three occasions. Against Ohio State, they scored 3 points and ran only 7 plays on our side of the 50. They also were held to less than 80 yards in the first half and 185 overall. We do this with two starters out for the year - Lawrence Wilson and Curtis Terry.
Trapasso's Value: Special teams players get precious little pub and when they do, it's usually for something bad like a missed FG or blocked punt so I think it's worthwhile to point out the double duty AJ Trapasso's been putting in the last few weeks. We know he's been doing a great job punting the ball but he has now taken over full time kickoff duties as well and to our surprise, he has a cannon attached to his hip. While most teams struggle with the new kickoff rules, AJ can bomb it into the endzone pretty much when he wants. About the only thing that can stop it is a 30 mph north-south wind like the kind we had Saturday.
31/221: The 221 rushing yards by Beanie is good for ninth best all-time at Ohio State. It's even more impressive considering he was docked 13 yards for the fumble, forced by Hilliard graduate Antonio Jeremiah, and subsequent backwards travel until Beanie recovered his own mistake in one of the more fortuitous breaks of the year. All this production from a player with an injury officially diagnosed as a bone chip in his ankle.
Still working on game analysis and accompanying video.
