Couch: As Michigan looms, Spartans unravel at Maryland
MSU is cracking everywhere as frustration, desperation intensifies
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – So, Michigan week, eh?
That ought to go well.
Michigan State’s swift plunge reached the point of madness Saturday night. Desperation, frustration, an absence of confidence — it all coalesced in the Spartans’ 28-17 loss at Maryland.
The most veteran and reliable Spartans — two defensive captains, a revered head coach — temporarily lost their minds.
Each week right now is a new low for the Mark Dantonio era of Michigan State football. Next week might feel like the end of time.
Michigan week — the week in which Dantonio first built his legacy, flipping the script on four decades of bullying by a smug rival. Big Brother looks fit and ornery now. Payback for the last eight years could be ugly. And, after Saturday, it doesn’t look as if MSU has a prayer of preventing a bloodbath.
Dantonio might want to channel Preacher Purl from the film “Hoosiers” for next week’s pregame speech: “And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen.”
Hickory High was outmanned in its semi-fictional state championship game. But at least it had winning ingredients.
MSU has forgotten how to win. And even its proudest members are cracking as they try to force it.
“Before we focus on Michigan, we have to figure out what we’re doing wrong,” MSU junior linebacker Chris Frey said emphatically Saturday night. “We have to figure out what we can do to win games. We need to fix the small things that we’re messing up on. That’s what we’re going to do (Sunday). We’re going to go in, we’re going to sit in the film room. I really don’t care if we’re there for 10 hours. We need to figure out what’s go wrong. And we need to fix it.”
It’s the right response. And wishful thinking. This isn’t entirely reversing itself in 10 hours or seven days or several weeks.
“There is no going back down the road,” Dantonio said. “This is not a computer game. You cannot hit reset. It’s real life. It’s real tackling, real blocking, real catching the ball.”
The Spartans, losers of five straight, aren’t very good at it right now. They are off to their worst Big Ten start (0-4) since Muddy Waters was coaching this program. And while there are a stockpile of reasons for it, the worst of it that’s in their control is on the defensive side of the ball. MSU played six true freshmen on defense Saturday, a response to injuries, lack of productivity from underperforming veterans and, lastly, foolishness from senior middle linebacker Riley Bullough.
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Bullough committed three needless personal foul penalties on MSU’s first two defensive stands, the last a targeting call ejecting him from the game in the first quarter. The Spartans then burned the redshirt on true freshman Joe Bachie because, Dantonio said, he was their next best middle linebacker.
Bullough obviously meant well. But in an effort to save a defense that crumbled in his absence with a shoulder injury, he repeatedly lost his head until he was no longer allowed to play. His final line: 45 yards in penalties, two tackles and then whatever yards and plays Bachie allowed because he didn’t know what he was doing. That’s on Bullough. That’s on the situation. The losing, the embarrassment. It’s getting to these guys.
Fellow captain Demetrious Cox hasn’t had a great season. But it hasn’t been because he’s been completely out of place. Saturday night he blew a coverage that resulted in Maryland’s second touchdown. A mental lapse. A veteran making new mistakes, faced with mounting pressure and youth around him.
Even Dantonio, calm and steady in his postgame reflections, had a bizarre brain cramp at the end of the first half, calling for a fake field goal — attempting to turn kicker Michael Geiger into Red Grange — with 1 second left, rather than letting Geiger try a 46-yarder with the wind at his back. Geiger later made a 34-yard field goal in the same direction that would have been good from 46.
“Geiger ran down to the 2-yard line before (in his career on a fake),” Dantonio explained. “I thought it was a good play. I thought they were set up for it.”
It was not a good play. It was not a well-reasoned play. It was the play of man known for his gutsy and successful fake kicks thinking he could change the course of a game and season with his magic touch.
“I thought points would come (in the second half). I was looking for a big payoff,” Dantonio said. “That was the gamble we took. That’s on me.”
It was a desperate gamble. Desperate gamblers rarely win.
That’s not how MSU is going to claw its way out of this.
The Spartans might have won Saturday if any of several variables were different — if Bullough had stayed in the game, if Monty Madaris hadn’t fumbled at the 5-yard line, if Tyler O’Connor had been healthy enough to play quarterback. Redshirt freshman QB Brian Lewerke made some fantastic plays with his arm and feet. He did well for himself. But he also made errors befitting his meager experience.
When asked if there was one play he’d like to have back, he replied, “Probably when we were down driving at the 15-yard line, Donnie (Corley) ran a slant and I threw it right at his feet. That would have been a walk-in touchdown right there, put us up by a touchdown.”
It was one of many plays that, if executed correctly, would have made a difference. Only enough to make MSU Maryland’s equal. That’s what MSU football is right now — on par with the Terrapins. Not as a program. But in the present.
MSU rushed for 270 yards, ran it 44 times — including Geiger’s 4-yard run — averaged 6.1 yards per carry and lost.
Because, on the other side of the ball, it allowed two running backs to rush for more than 100 yards each, and for Maryland QB Perry Hills to throw for 200 yards, and for the Terrapins to amass eight plays of 20 yards or more and 12 plays of at least 15 yards, and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
“That’s just eye control,” MSU receiver R.J. Shelton said. “On the defensive side — offsides, guys blowing coverages, guys not in their gap.”
Dantonio has been coaching defense for a long time.
“A long time,” he repeated.
So how far away is this defense? What’s the fix, I asked.
“That’s a deep question,” he replied.
He then talked about blown coverages and being disciplined and tackling in space against uptempo offenses and not getting beat on inside zone and counter plays.
“You’ve got to be able to make adjustments,” he said. “That’s coaches, that’s players. That’s all inclusive.”
The problem is the fix is complex. It’s nuanced. It’s people. It’s growth. It’s time.
“I’ve been through these types of situations before,” Dantonio said. “Not in a while. But we have. And these are things, some of life’s experiences that should pay dividends later on. I said it when I came into summer camp, some of our guys, our young guys have really been born on third (base). They really have not experienced this. Now they’re experiencing it. They’ll understand how hard they have to work and what they have to do to play more successfully at a later time.”
Not in time for next week, though.
“It’s a rivalry game,” sophomore safety Khari Willis said. “It always starts 0-0.”
Michigan might be able to pick the final score.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.