by

2018 Season Rewind: Michigan State

2018 PREDICTIONS

WHERE I WENT RIGHT

Michigan State returned nine starters on a top ten defense in 2017 for last year’s campaign.  They were top ten yet again and that keyed MSU to pretty much all their wins.  I wrote about some of the unknowns on offense and there were some duds that MSU lost like the 9-6 game at Nebraska but there were also duds that MSU won like the 14-10 game versus Rutgers.  All in all, MSU was right where I thought they would be.

WHERE I WENT WRONG

Clearly I got the Big Ten mark dead on but where were the extra losses / lack of regular season win?  Simple answer: Arizona State and the worst bowl game ever.  My league mark would have been right if MSU had played to expectations against Nebraska, but they exceeded expectations in the upset of Penn State, so that’s a wash.  The ASU game was a sloppy 16-13 defeat to Herm freaking Edwards of all coaches.  Then in the bowl, Oregon beat Michigan State in a snooze fest, 7-6.  See what I mean about that erratic offense?  Flip either of those games and MSU hits the eight wins I expected them too.  Moral of the story is stop playing Pac 12 schools, Sparty.

SEASON-DEFINING MOMENT

Heading off to State College, Michigan State was 3-2 (1-1) but the eye test showed them to be more lucky than good.  The Utah State game could have gone the other way, MSU failed to beat up on Central Michigan, and the offense performances were woeful in losses to Arizona State and Northwestern.  They really had no expectations of winning at Penn State, but in true Dantonio fashion, MSU found a way.  The defense did some bending but never broke and the offense connected on just enough plays to scratch out the 21-17 victory.  The upset devastated PSU’s chances at winning a title and gave Michigan State a clear path to a bowl with four manageable games remaining out of their six and for that week gave them a little life in the eastern race.

MVP

Joe Bachie, LB – Obviously the MVP race was defensive oriented and Bachie snags the award by leading the team in total tackles and finishing second in solo tackles.  He defended five passes, picked one off, forced two fumbles and recovered one.  He was also one of the captains of this team.

  • Honorable Mention: Andrew Dowell, LB, Khari Willis, S, and Kenny Willekes, DL – As you can tell Sparty was a little one dimensional last year so for them to win seven games and make a bowl, the defense had some absurd performances.  All three of these honorable mentions had great seasons and could have easily been MVP, so I split hairs and picked Bachie since he had the most tackles but these guys were every bit as good as Bachie and Joe would probably be the first to agree.

Leave a comment