East Lansing, Mich. - I don’t think most Michigan State fans expected the Spartans to be competitive with Ohio State on Saturday.
They know what the Buckeyes are. They know what the Buckeyes have been. They know what the Spartans are.
Yet, this is one of those rare occasions when I think the coach is more surprised, upset and disturbed by a lopsided Michigan State loss to Ohio State than the fans are. And that’s probably a good thing.
Mel Tucker has stood before Spartan fans, via the weekly post-game press conferences, and voiced various levels of concern and irritation after bothersome losses to Rutgers, Iowa and Indiana.
But this 52-12 loss to Ohio State, against a legitimate superpower, seemed to surprise and anger Tucker the most.
He must have thought last week’s victory over Northwestern was a breakthrough, and he expected this week to achieve the level of consistency and discipline that he’s been chasing since they put on pads for the first time in September.
Instead, Michigan State was slapped with another of these 21-0, 28-0, 35-0 deficits.
In Ohio State’s last game, the Buckeyes led Indiana 35-7 at one point. No one in Bloomington freaked. They were just happy to be invited. Indiana rallied and made the game close and chalked up a moral victory.
There were no comebacks or moral victories for the Spartans on this day. Only a stark look in the mirror.
Michigan State fans knew what the Buckeyes were likely to reveal to their Spartans. But Tucker seemed to think a degree of behind-the-scenes progress had been made this week, similar to the secret steps that were achieved during the canceled week prior to the Northwestern game. That’s why Tucker ranked first among the most disappointed on Saturday.
“Days like this only fan the flames,” he said.
You think fans are demanding of immediate progress? Try the coach.
“We have to get better faster because I’m not about this long-term deal,” he said. “We need to get something done right now. Whether it’s what we do on the field, things that we do off the field to prepare and give ourselves the best chance, and then the recruiting, we need to grind that out and be relentless on that front as well. Because quite frankly I believe we’re better than this. Some may disagree. But based upon what I see on tape, we’re better than what we showed today.”
Tucker is caught between a constructive level of impatience and realism.
On Feb. 13, the day after Tucker was hired, and the week after Ohio State signed another Top 5 recruiting class, and a month after Ohio State was a late interception away from beating Clemson and playing for the National Championship, no one would have expected Tucker’s first team to be within three touchdowns of Ohio State in 2020.
But by Dec. 5, Tucker certainly did. He expected to be well within three touchdowns of the Buckeyes.
Michigan State is at a severe talent deficit in comparison to Ohio State. So is every other team in the Big Ten, and probably 123 of the other 128 teams in the FBS. In order to be competitive, Michigan State needed to play a clean game, free of unforced errors. And Michigan State needed to play above its head on a handful of plays.
That was just to stay competitive.
Michigan State was competitive at the line of scrimmage for the vast majority of plays. Tucker will see that when he goes over the film.
He came away from film of the 49-7 loss to Iowa seeing that his team had executed 15 “efficient” run plays. He didn’t define what “efficient” entailed, but it represented more than half of MSU’s run plays in a dreary day. It didn’t mean anything at the time to most of us, but he saw the beginnings of what eventually manifested itself as a surprising 195-yard ground game outing in last week’s upset of Northwestern.
Ohio State rushed for 322 yards against Michigan State. That’s one of the more deceiving stats I’ve seen in years.
Ohio State gained 156 of those yards on three plays. Ohio State spent 45 carries gaining the other 166.
I know, I know. Those 156 yards count. They came on a 44-yard zone read keeper by twinkle-toes quarterback Justin Fields, a 64-yard TD run by Trey Sermon and a 48-yard run by back-up quarterback CJ Stroud.
Ohio State flexed its explosiveness in two of those three plays. The third one came in garbage time.
On the other 45 times that Ohio State attempted ground plays, Michigan State held the Buckeyes to 3.6 yards per carry - well below OSU’s seasonal average.
Ohio State tailback Master Teague came into this game averaging 5.2 yards per carry. I watched film of him all week. He’s an athletic tank. He’s not as explosive as other great Ohio State running backs of the past, but he’s a good back with fall-forward toughness.
Michigan State held Teague to 3.3 yards per carry on 14 attempts.
You can say these stats are for losers. You could say the same thing about Tucker’s 15 “efficient” run plays from the Iowa game.
I suspect you can find 35 or 40 “efficient” examples of Michigan State run defense in this game.
That didn’t help Michigan State remain competitive in this game, because enough complementary help did not come from other areas of Spartan football on this day. But some day soon when Michigan State stones a good opponent’s ground offense, I suspect Tucker might be able to point back to some building blocks that took place on this day which were a continuation of decent run defense against Indiana and quality run defense against Northwestern. But these 35 or 40 efficient downs of run defense were against the best running attack in the Big Ten.
My question coming out of this game is what needs to happen in order to prevent those two or three outlier plays from breaking loose.
WAIVING THE 24-HOUR RULE
I’m wondering if Ohio State was likely to get those 44-, 64-yard runs one way or another at some point regardless of how well Michigan State played. Or did Michigan State put itself in position to give up those plays partly because Michigan State flat-out didn’t do enough on offense to sustain drives, score points of its own and limit the Buckeyes’ offensive mojo?
That’s part of what Tucker set out to research when he waived the 24-hour rule and walked across Shaw Lane to his office at the Skandalaris Center right after his postgame press conference to begin dissecting film and start preparation for Penn State.
As far as I can tell, every coach in the country observes “the 24-hour rule.” I used to think George Perles invented it, but it's pretty much universal. For the first time that I can remember in 33 years of covering this program, Michigan State is stepping away from the 24-hour rule today, and I say go for it.
“Whatever we have to do to get that is what we’ll do,” Tucker said. “We have to build it the right way, build it to last so that we can win on a consistent level. We need to be more tough mentally and physically. That’s going to come through practice and preparation throughout the week.
“It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be uncomfortable for everyone involved. But it takes what it takes.
“At some point we will be consistent and we will be able to play at a high level and we will be able to beat good teams. I’m looking for that to happen sooner rather than later because even though there’s a certain amount of patience that you have to have in order to build and establish a culture in hammering the process, there’s a certain amount of patience that you have to have, there is also a high level of urgency and intensity that goes with that.”
He talks patience, but it’s clear he’s losing his. We’re learning that Tucker has a natural drive about him. I would say it’s a champion’s drive.
Some of his players have it too. Not all of them have champion’s ability. But they didn’t get the most out of themselves in this game and they felt sick about it.
Antjuan Simmons likely played his final game at Spartan Stadium on Saturday. There were no parents and family at the stadium due to state-wide COVID-19 regulations, and no Senor Day festivities.
Simmons is a senior. He has a chance to return to Michigan State next year because the NCAA is not counting this season against anyone’s four years of eligibility.
“I’m not thinking about it,” Simmons said. “I just wanted to show up and play and give it my all and try to put my team in position to win a game.”
That’s the pat answer that every underclassman gives when asked if he’s coming back to college the next year. We usually don’t believe those words, and respect them for what they are.
In this case, I truly don’t think it was on Simmons’ mind. He’s a competitor who is angry that his team was blown out again. And he’s focused on the next step of progress, starting immediately.