MICHIGAN STATE PREVIEW: This Is A Big One
Huskers' season will likely pivot against one of 2021's early surprise teams
It seems as if every successive week is a new “biggest game of Scott Frost’s tenure.” Last week was one. The opener at Illinois was another. I think I also remember people saying it about 2018 Purdue???
OK, sure, but … this one actually might be. A win at 6 on Saturday night against Michigan State, and you’re feeling at least semi-hopeful about getting to a bowl; you’d still need to win three of your last seven against some pretty stiff competition, but you’d have one certified dud remaining on the schedule in Northwestern along with other pretty winnable games in Purdue and Minnesota. Get to six wins against this schedule after biffing the opener against Illinois, and I’d say the vibes are pretty strong.
But lose Saturday and you’re getting into VERY BIG YIKES territory. Now you’re talking needing to probably beat two of #19 Michigan, #10 Ohio State, #18 Wisconsin or #7 Iowa to just get to six wins, something you might theoretically be able to do, but … c’mon, definitely not. Then you have no bowls in four seasons and we’re either back in the “furious fanbase making up marital infidelity rumors” zone or outright looking for a new coach. Hardest of passes on either one of those. Let’s just win Saturday instead.
Sorry for getting bleak. Let’s get it back up:
MICHIGAN STATE INFO AND STATISTICS:
COACH: Mel Tucker, 2nd season (5-5 at Michigan State, 10-12 overall)
2021 RECORD: 3-0 (1-0 Big Ten)
SP+/F+ OVERALL RATING: 40th/33rd (Nebraska: 39th/44th)
VEGAS SPREAD (as of Wednesday, September 22): Michigan State -5, 51.5 Over/Under
SP+ NEBRASKA WIN PROBABILITY: 45 percent
SP+ SCORE PREDICTION: Michigan State 27, Nebraska 24
Nebraska is one spot better than MSU by SP+ but will be a very slight underdog with the game on the road. F+ is slightly more bullish on the Spartans.
Tucker has had a long road to finally getting his own head coaching opportunity. Known as an excellent defensive mind, Tucker paid his dues for over 20 years as an assistant under coaches like Nick Saban, Jim Tressel and Kirby Smart. He has some NFL cred, too, serving as a DC and then Jacksonville’s interim head coach for five games in 2011-12. He finally got his shot at a college head job in 2019 at Colorado (I am still REFUSING to talk about THAT GAME) and then took the open Michigan State position the February following his first season with the Buffs. Dude is insane and wears shorts and kinda rules if I’m being honest:
After a pretty meh first season, Tucker brought in 41 new players via recruiting or the transfer portal and has the Spartans ranked in his second year.
PERSONNEL:
BEST PLAYERS:
Kenneth Walker III, Running Back, #9: Walker, a junior transfer from Wake Forest, has been one of the breakout stars of the early college football season. Walker’s game so far has been busting big runs and BEING IMPOSSIBLE TO TACKLE; against Northwestern and Miami (FL), he had 12 runs of 10 yards per more and averaged 8.96 and 4.22 yards after initial contact in those two games respectively.
Matt Carrick, Guard, #56: The 325-pound redshirt senior has started 23 games in his career and has not allowed even a pressure in 41 pass blocking snaps this season. He also has a 90.2 run blocking grade from PFF that goes up to 92.7 on zone running plays.
Xavier Henderson, Safety, #3: The senior is the Spartans’ deep safety and is a very good pass coverage player in addition to being a solid tackler and run defender. He also has two sacks and a hurry this season as MSU has decided to blitz everyone basically all the time.
Drew Beesley, Defensive End, #86: Beesley came back for a COVID-super senior season. He didn’t do much in the first two games but had two sacks and two other hurries against the Hurricanes. He and teammate Jacub Panasiuk were both among PFF’s 20 best pass rushers in the country last year.
COOLEST NAME ON THE ROSTER:
Hank Pepper, Long Snapper, #31:
Pepper was the NO. 1-RANKED AND A FIVE-STAR HIGH SCHOOL LONG SNAPPER last season and has since rolled in to East Lansing and snatched a starting job as a true freshman. At his Arizona high school he was also the 6A Conference Premier Region defensive player of the year after recording 108 tackles in 10 games. “Hank Pepper” … how is this guy not the most famous player in America.
WHEN MICHIGAN STATE’S OFFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
Unit SP+/F+ Rating:
MSU OFFENSE: 65th/54th
NU DEFENSE: 35th/32nd
Yards Per Play (national rank in parentheses):
MSU OFFENSE: 7.76 yards (8th)
NU DEFENSE: 5.00 yards allowed (55th)
Points Per Drive (national rank in parentheses):
MSU OFFENSE: 3.17 points (24th)
NU DEFENSE: 1.41 points allowed (24th)
20+ Yard Gains Per Game:
MSU OFFENSE: 6.33 20+ yard gains (3 rush, 3.33 pass)
NU DEFENSE: 3.25 20+ yard gains allowed (1.25 rush, 2 pass)
Havoc Plays Per Game (tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
MSU OFFENSE: 6.33 Havoc plays allowed
NU DEFENSE: 11.5 Havoc plays
COORDINATOR:
Jay Johnson, 2nd Season
Husker fans should have plenty of experience with Johnson. He was Colorado’s coordinator under Tucker in 2019 and made one of the most NUTS playcalls I can remember to flip that game:
He also was Minnesota’s coordinator in 2016 under Tracy Claeys. He’s spent time in a bunch of different schemes — pass-happy spreads in his early assistant coaching days to the more single-wing stuff with the Gophers’ Mitch Leidner (remember that guy???) — but has generally seen his scheme codify into a pretty balanced, multiple attack since hooking up with Tucker.
SCHEME
Singleback - Multiple
Michigan State plays primarily in 11 personnel (one running back and one tight end) and does a little bit of everything. Walker’s big plays have all come on zone runs. This dude is a zone cutback FIEND:
But they also run about the same amount of gap scheme concepts per PFF. I saw them run power and pin-and-pull in the Northwestern and Miami games.
The offense is very definitely built around Walker: They want to run the ball on standard downs as much as possible, then mix in play action and bubble screens to quick receivers Jayden Reed and Jalen “Speedy” Nailor to keep people off balance.
(ASIDE: Miami … did not try very hard in this game)
When they get off-schedule or in long third downs, they look much, much, much less impressive, and quarterback Payton Thorne isn’t really going to get you anything on his own. They seem to favor a lot of shallow drags and back-shoulder throws on longer third downs, presumably because they don’t want to put the ball in harms way for their defense.
Formationally, they were about even among under-center, pistol and shotgun. They used tempo a couple times in the games I watched, but as a curveball and not as something they want to do consistently. I’m really trying to be more interesting than this, but it’s hard: Like, if you were playing Madden this would be the default “Balanced” offense or something. It’s clearly working for them, though.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN DEFEND IT:
It’s honestly a very similar attack to how Illinois played NU in Week 0; just done much better. So expect a lot of what I described in the Illinois preview. To get another guy in the box and get extra security on the edge, expect a safety walked down a lot from the Blackshirts, which is their preferred way of playing, anyway. Because MSU uses so much 11 personnel, I think Nebraska will predominantly be in its 2-5 Nickel look for most of the game, also.
But the biggest things Saturday are going to be gap integrity and tackling. Northwestern and Miami both did an awful job of both and gave up monster plays. MSU’s offense did little else outside of those chunks. Nebraska’s defense has given up some yards this year but has been remarkably good at not giving up the backbreakers. They’ll need that to stay true on Saturday.
WHEN MICHIGAN STATE’S DEFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
Unit SP+/F+ Rating:
MSU DEFENSE: 19th/21st
NU OFFENSE: 44th/51st
Yards Per Play (national rank in parentheses):
MSU DEFENSE: 4.73 yards per play allowed (45th)
NU OFFENSE: 6.64 yards per play (35th)
Points Per Drive (national rank in parentheses):
MSU DEFENSE: 1.65 points per drive allowed (40th)
NU OFFENSE: 2.06 points per drive (69th)
Havoc Plays Per Game (cumulative tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
MSU DEFENSE: 14 Havoc plays
NU OFFENSE: 8 Havoc plays allowed
20+ Yard Gains Per Game:
MSU DEFENSE: 5.66 20+ yard gains allowed (3 rush, 2.66 pass)
NU OFFENSE: 6.25 20+ yard gains (1.25 rush, 5 pass)
COORDINATOR:
Scottie Hazelton, 2nd Season
Hazelton came to East Lansing from Kansas State, where he coordinated Chris Klieman’s initial defense for the Wildcats. Hazelton’s also done stints at Wyoming and USC, but he’s not the important one here — Tucker runs the defense.
SCHEME:
4-2-5 - Even Front - Single-High
The Spartans defense under Tucker is one of the most aggressive units in the country. They have blitzed a ton, and they line up in some absurdly in-your-face stuff and dare you to beat them in it. Check out this one from the Miami game where all 11 players are within 6 yards of the line of scrimmage. On a third and 5! From, like, the other team’s 20!
Part of being aggressive means playing a lot of single-high safety looks; MSU was 22nd and 15th nationally last year in the rate they respectively ran Cover 1 and Cover 3 — the two primary single-high coverages. Henderson is the deep safety — the guy tasked with covering the whole field and cleaning up the corners’ messes in those coverages — and he’s really good at it.
MSU primarily runs an even four-man front and has one of the best units in the conference. The only other teams last season to have a duo in the top 20 in PFF pass rush grade besides MSU with defensive ends Beesley and Panasiuk were Oklahoma and Ohio State (RIP to Nebraska offensive tackles), but interior defensive tackle Jacob Slade is a good player, too.
On third downs, Tucker loves to line up in a simulated pressure look and then … actually bring the blitz. A lot of teams want you thinking that they’re blitzing, but then drop into normal coverages. Not Tucker:
HOW NEBRASKA CAN ATTACK IT:
With so much Cover 1 and Cover 3, expect NU to test this defense out wide in the passing game with stops, gos, and crossing routes. This will be a big day for the receivers winning their one-on-ones — luckily, Nebraska has some pretty good receivers. A giant, athletic, physical dude — like, say, one named Omar Manning? — could really do some damage against this defense. That would be a real shame.
In the running game, I expect to see the new Down-C play a lot to take away some of the aggressiveness and interior pressures like in the .gif above, especially now that NU has tight end Travis Volkolek back from injury to maul people in the running game.
Also expect a lot more run-pass options in this game to make the overly aggressive MSU defense “always wrong”. The Stick-Zone RPO Nebraska likes to run would work well to get the ball out fast on the passing side and hit some open, overexposed holes on the rushing side.
SCORE PREDICTION:
Nebraska 24, Michigan State 21
Watching Michigan State, they did not seem like the No. 20 team in the country. The numbers also back that up. But even if MSU is a top-35 team and not a top-20 team, that’s still an extremely tough ask for NU right now. Especially on the road in a tough environment.
This game will come down to big plays — can Nebraska stop the big ones from Walker, and can the Huskers’ offense make MSU pay for the risks they take? The Spartans’ offense has gotten a majority of its production from plays where Northwestern or Miami wasn’t in position — the former for a lack of talent, the latter because they seemed disinterested in playing football that day — but I don’t expect that to happen against a veteran Blackshirts group whose signature has been putting a lid on things. I do think this is essentially a toss-up. But for my faith in the defense and to be positive, I’ll go NU by a slight margin. GBR.