2016 Season Preview: Oct. 1 Michigan State Spartans
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Written By T.J. Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)
Week Four: Michigan State
Date and Time: October 1, 2016 at 8:00pm
Venue: Memorial Stadium, Bloomington, IN
TV: BTN
SPARTANS AT A GLANCE
Head Coach: Mark Dantonio
10th season at Michigan State
Overall Record: 87-33 (52-20 in B1G)
Team Last Year: 12-2
Preseason Predictions
Athlon: 3rd in the Big Ten East
Sporting News: 3rd in the Big Ten East
Lindy’s: 3rd in the Big Ten East
Phil Steele: TBD
RETURNING LEADERS FOR THE SPARTANS
Passing: Tyler O’Connor (13-24, 133 yards with 2 touchdowns)
Rushing: LJ Scott (699 yards with 11 touchdowns and 4.8 yards per carry)
Receiving: R.J. Shelton (43 catches for 503 yards and 4 touchdowns)
Defender: Riley Bullough (77 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss and 4 sacks)
WHY THE SPARTANS WILL WIN
While the Spartans lost a ton of experience and talent from last season’s B1G Championship squad, Mark Dantonio has turned Michigan State into a stable program capable of sustaining itself through personnel losses. Tyler O’Connor is the likely starter at quarterback. While he doesn’t have all that much on-field experience, he’s a fifth-year senior that has been around the program and knows what it takes to win on the road in the B1G. MSU has to replace Aaron Burbridge and Macgarrett Kings Jr., quarterback Connor Cook and three NFL-caliber offensive linemen but they’ve replaced stars before and continued to win so look for players like R.J. Shelton, Josiah Price and top recruit Donnie Corley to step up in the passing game and test a revamped IU secondary.
The best part of this offense is likely to be the running back duo of sophomores LJ Scott and Madre London. Neither of them was spectacular as true freshmen but growth and development is a staple of Dantonio’s program and improvement is expected from those two. IU’s run defense wasn’t dreadful last season but the Hoosiers have a major question mark up front and it’s possible MSU could bully the new four-man defensive line. The Spartans averaged 29.8 points per game in 2015 and they hammered the Hoosiers defense for 52 points and 540 yards in their 52-26 victory in East Lansing. I find it very hard to believe the Spartans will get to 52 points again but they’ll enter Bloomington expecting to put up some big numbers on offense.
The MSU defense returns five starters and they’ll almost certainly have another solid defense. Three starters depart from the defensive line (including top sack-man Shilique Calhoun and both starting defensive tackles) but the linebackers and secondary will probably improve from what they had a season ago. Malik McDowell, Demetrious Cooper, Evan Jones and Damon Knox will probably start on the defensive line. None of those players are stars but they are all experienced and capable of forming a solid defensive line. Riley Bullough (yes, another Bullough brother) will be the leader of the defense at linebacker while Jon Reschke will once again pair with him in the middle. IU may not have Camion Patrick for this one (his recovery timetable has him returning at some point around this game) and he may not be 100% fit when he does return. That leaves Devine Redding to carry the load and MSU did a tremendous job against IU’s running attack in 2015. I expect the secondary to be improved as both starting safeties and a pair of solid corners return for the 2016 season. They’ll be a stiff test for Richard Lagow’s first B1G game.
Michigan State probably doesn’t have the horses to repeat as B1G Champions but they are still going to be a Top 25 squad (and probably will be for as long as Mark Dantonio is patrolling the sidelines) and they’ve beaten Indiana seven straight times (and scored at least 42 points in six of those seven victories). Long story short, when Spartan fans preview their season, they will have this written as a “W” in permanent marker until IU can prove otherwise.
WHY THE HOOSIERS WILL WIN
Let’s begin with the potential atmosphere this game could have. If the Hoosiers can begin the season with victories over FIU, Ball State and Wake Forest, they will enter this contest at 3-0 and excitement should be high for the primetime B1G opener. I certainly hope there would be a large and raucous crowd for what should be IU’s best chance to win the Brass Spittoon in quite some time. While MSU is a very solid program that won’t suddenly fall off of a cliff, they do have to replace a whole lot of pieces and this game is early enough in the season that they may still be trying to find their new identity.
Tyler O’Connor is a fifth-year senior but he hasn’t shown he’ll be capable of being an elite quarterback and he’ll be playing this contest without Aaron Burbridge (128 yards and a touchdown against IU last year) and Macgarrett Kings Jr. (69 yards in last year’s game) and behind an offensive line that is mostly starting over. The Spartans return only 4.5% of their passing production and only 34.9% of their receiving production from 2015 and it would be incredibly disappointing if the Hoosiers surrendered more than 50 points to them once again. New defensive coordinator Tom Allen wants to have an aggressive defense and it’s not a stretch to envision the Hoosiers punishing an offensive line with a lot of question marks, pressuring Tyler O’Connor into mistakes and working the home crowd into a fever pitch under the lights.
MSU’s defense will be stout but they have to replace most of their defensive line and their top pass rushers so IU’s offensive line should be able to have a very good day (as will be the case most of the season) and Richard Lagow will have time to operate. The IU receiving corps is as good as any in the conference and I like their chances to have a nice game against a solid, but not elite, secondary. This game could see the debut of running back Camion Patrick which would add even more punch to the IU running game. Even if he’s unable to go, the Hoosiers should be able to move the ball with Devine Redding and some combination of Devante Williams, Mike Majette and Kiante Enis because they run the ball fairly well against pretty much every opponent they face. Michigan State will be one of the better defensive units IU takes on but Indiana will still feel pretty good about their chances to put up some points.
The final score of last year’s game was 52-26 but that is incredibly deceptive. With five minutes remaining, the Hoosiers trailed 26-31. However, the wheels fell apart as a comedy of errors led to three MSU touchdowns in the game’s final five minutes. This year’s IU team is likely better as a whole and the 2016 version of Michigan State is highly unlikely to be as strong as the 2015 College Football Playoff semifinalists were. In addition, this game will be under the lights and in Bloomington and IU fans may actually feel like this is the year they can break through against Sparty.
FINAL ANALYSIS
Michigan State has an incredibly difficult schedule to begin the season as they take on Notre Dame and Wisconsin before coming to Bloomington. It’s unlikely, but there is a chance the Spartans are 1-2 entering this matchup (I think 2-1 and ranked around #15-20 is the most likely scenario). Meanwhile, the Hoosiers could be 3-0 if things go well in the non-conference portion of the schedule. Although MSU never appears to be overwhelming, they continue to win games at an incredible rate under Mark Dantonio and it would be foolish to predict a sudden drop-off, despite the personnel losses. The Hoosiers will have many reasons to believe they can finally take back the Old Brass Spittoon but it’s very difficult to predict that as the outcome when we’ve only seen two IU victories in this rivalry since 1993.