u/Byzantine_Merchant

What a difference two weeks makes. That sucked, didn’t make it deep into the second half, it was over pretty quick.

- Not running on 3rd and 4 when you clearly were going for it on 4th down aways to then spot them the ball at midfield was dumb.

- Bringing Fancher in mid drive when Alessio finally found some rhythm was dumb. Once again passed on points to go for it on fourth down.

- That play where four MSU DBs touched the football pretty much sums up things right now. Take your pick of defenses in the post-dantonio era, they all make that play. Oh yeah, Wisconsin had to over come three INTs last week vs a bad Penn state and an INTs vs EMU. So that’s going well.

- Some of these high production lower level pick ups are proving to be depth foundational moves at best. I like Soares, but he lacks the athletic gifts to really be the leader of the defense in any meaningful way. I get the concept of wanting to not overpay, but yeah, looking back letting people like Masunas, Vansumeren, and West walk was pretty bad.

Outlook: Season is probably over at least in terms of bowl hopes. I got us beating Rutgers and that’s about that. I think the effort is there, I think the team is just outtalented on most days and some of the coaching decisions don’t help. We might steal a win or two, I wouldn’t be shocked. But I’m not expecting it. Even if that does happen we’re talking 4-8/5-7.

So what this really turns into is the offseason. Fitz has gotta work the portal hard. Gotta improve the OL, DL, WR, DB rooms. Gotta also not let people walk. The leash should be very short next year as well. We’ll know by game 5 what we have.

Be MSU control the ball game, own TOP for 43 minutes vs 16 minutes. Mostly play well, Edwards and Alessio look good. Definitely fucking around and finding out on some personnel combos. All in all 43 Spartans play. Toledo breaks two off for TDs to go up 20-19. Game never really feels out of control and Sparty is back on top pretty quickly afterwords to win 30-20. Probably could have found 40+ if we needed to. All in all walk out still able to mentally get to 6 wins and having enjoyed most of the game. See UofM fans shit talk about our performance vs a MAC school.

Fast forward a day. Western walks into Ann Arbor, controls the ball game similar to how we did with 49 minutes TOP, takes the lead vs Michigan. Forces 3 turnovers along the way. Michigan can’t run the ball, Underwood looks like shit, OL really not blocking. Offense produces less than 300 yards of total offense. Defense getting worn down like they’re the G5 team. Comes down to needing an obviously bullshit ref ball moment. They actually storm the field afterwords like they just won the damn Super Bowl.

I can’t think of a sadder moment in B1G history and we just watched Rutgers lose to UMass 48 hours earlier. But at least Rutgers is Rutgers. UofM styles itself as a blue blood (based on games from when Hammurabi was writing the code of laws) and its fans act like they’re the leaders of the B1G. Yet somehow all of that happens. They actually storm the field vs a MAC team…in a 13-12 football game.

I honestly can’t stop laughing.

Gave this a solid evening. But overall the game went about how I expected score wise, and better than expected results wise. Personally, I had 31-21 as a final prediction coming in. Here’s some of the things that I noticed. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:

- That was a much better opener to Fitz’ tenure than Smith’s. Better program on their end, probably worse talent on our end than 2024.

- The offense could move the ball and score when it needed to. I got the impression once they got control of the game, they were starting to try things because that was a lot of Alessio passing for a bit there. Based on what I saw, I believe that we could have laid more if we wanted or needed to.

- Fitz mostly had the right blend of when to be aggressive and when to take the points.

- Jayden Savoury looks promising.

- OL looks improved despite missing Sharp and Murowski.

- No long term injuries.

- Our kicker learned how to kick. Might not be able to nail it from range consistently. But otherwise looks good from 45 or less.

- Despite my prediction around the score, it played out different from my expectation. I was expected a gritty back and forth dogfight where we pulled away. Instead, we got a game where MSU controlled most of the game dominated TOP 43:13 to 16:44, mostly took care of defense by forcing punts and a turnover.

The Bad:

- The three players who got dinged up are the three that you can’t have miss extended time if you want to get bowl. They’re expected back “soon”. To me, that translates to back by Nebraska at the latest. Beyond that is an “uh oh” scenario.

- That wildcat 4th and 1 can just go in the trash bin. That felt a bit like an unforced error and resulted in the long Toledo touchdown run a couple of plays later. Just kick or call a regular play.

- Alessio threw well overall, he’s accurate, makes good and quick decisions, and has good awareness. But I feel like he left some points off the board there. I remember a play where McCray was open in the end zone. He also doesn’t have the athleticism to escape when the pocket breaks down. That’s probably not getting better. He also lacks deep ball arm strength. That’s also not going to get better.

- Rodney Bullard needs some more reps. Had a dropped touchdown pass and a dropped conversion. Both were gettable. Good news is that the potential to be a decent option is there.

The Ugly:

- The defense giving up explosives. It’s game 1, so we can forgive it. But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t concerned about blowing an assignment that led to a breakaway touchdown catch and run and then another fuck up that led to another break away touchdown run to put Toledo up.

Grade: B- I think we could have scored more if we had to. I also think the defense’s big play liability means we’re gonna have to. I think the game plan was done well, the calls were mostly good, outside of the big plays the defense did well enough to help control the game, etc. I do think that there’s a lot of room to grow with pass catchers and the defense.

Next 4 Games: These next few games will tell us all we need to know on the season. The way I see it, you got 1 win, 1 loss, and 2 swing games. Expecting a similar plan for EMU. I think that’ll probably be less of a problem than Toledo. ND probably will take care of business vs us. Nebraska is going to be a key game, good chance to get to 3-1 and they appear to be currently struggling vs Ohio (I don’t expect this to be the final result), Wisconsin has a lot of questions as well, good chance to walk in and win.

If we start 2-3 then the season is a wrap most likely. If we start 3-2, then there’s a bit of hope but I’d lean towards 5-7. If we start 4-1, then we’re probably making a bowl. If we start 5-0, Fitz is getting us to a playoff lmao. I think 5-0 isn’t realistic. 4-1 is but I’m not banking on it. 3-2 I think is more likely than not. 2-3 is realistic, but I’m not banking on it either.

Purely a post for fun.

Personally, I’m probably at about a 7/10 on the excitement scale. I think Fitz had an idea of what he wanted year 1 to look like and an identity that he was trying to establish given that his primary pick ups focused on OL and running the ball. I think that’ll shine through and that with this schedule bowling is at least possible on paper.

My minimum expectation would be to see the team improve week to week and look like they actually want to be on the field during the final weeks. Especially if a bowl is on the line. All in all I can see 5-7 happening that’s about the line for me.

Ceiling would probably be 7-5. I could see us Holding an L vs every ranked team and dropping some leans or toss ups. Or a mix of opponents being worse and better than expected and just trading wins. IE: Washington ends up being meh but Wisconsin ends up being good.

All in all, most of my chips are in the winter portal. At that point, those are your guys, your team is set. Either prove your point in 2027 or get out.

I played the hell out of 25. Barely played 26 beyond a sim dynasty that I got maybe 3 seasons deep into. Wasn’t sure I’d buy 27, glad I did. This has been a lot of fun so far! I like that the recruiting feels harder if you’re at a small school and that the management side is more in depth without being overwhelming. Also love the customization of the experience.

That said I was definitely rusty. Was throwing picks left, right, and center at first haha.

- Will also highlight trench recruiting in general is something that feels up.

- I also feel like we’re better coaching away from a bowl. 2023 we had a couple of winnables and blew them. 2024 same deal. 2025 definitely. I think it’d be harder to go backwards.

- As LOS said, the schedule is doable. Cross ND, UM, and Oregon off. You basically have leans and toss ups. I personally am at 5-7 until I see reason to think otherwise. But if we can steal a Washington or Illinois or even one of the cross offs. Then it’s a totally different season.

It’s sounding like he applied to Virginia Tech, Purdue, and Wisconsin. Dude was jonesing to leave. So to be clear, we fired our previous do nothing front office. Then actively sabotaged and harassed the people that we hired less than two years ago until they fled town. All while they were succeeding in the tasks that we specifically brought them in for.

Most Spartans saw Mike Hart’s little brother comment as a high insult and rallying cry. The BOT saw it as actual words to try to live by and a mentality to embrace.

I guess the moment just got too big for poor little ole MSU.