I have many thoughts on this game, its aftermath, Jonathan Smith's approach, and where we go from here.
I'll start with a hill I'm willing to die on. Coach Smith not fully grasping the rivalry had 0 impact on the game. Smith has coached at 4 schools on either end of an in-state Rivalry. And based on the game plan, execution, and effort throughout the night, I don't think anything was lacking in terms of prep or intensity leading up to the game. And frankly, I don't believe the in-game dynamics changed much with it being the UM game. Smith not knowing how intense and hatred-filled it is, has nothing to do with not calling a timeout to prevent a delay of the game, the play call before half where Chiles fumbled, the decision to go for an onside kick, etc.
He played at Oregon State and faced a huge in-state rival in Oregon, which is not dissimilar to our rivalry with UM.
He coached at both Idaho and Boise State when they played each other. While on the staff at Idaho from '04-'09, the team went 0-5 vs BSU. From '12-'13, he was on the BSU staff and went 2-0 vs Idaho. Yes, smaller scale but I can assure you those fanbases dont like losing.
He later coached at Washington from 14 to 17, facing in-state rival Washington State in the Apple Cup. Washington went 2-2 during those four seasons. There were years when both sides years depended on beating the rival.
My point is that he gets how rivalries work. This isn't new. Lastly, both Dantonio and Tucker had the benefit of being assistants at MSU and facing UM, so they knew what to expect before becoming the head coach. Smith didn't have that luxury, so this was him experiencing it firsthand for the first time. And now, as he said, it's "crystalized".
On to the game itself. We were the better team. If you told me we'd have 100 more yards, complete 73% of passes, run for 163 yards on a 3.9 average, and only have one turnover, I'd say we won comfortably. Yet somehow, we lost.
We started the game strong, dominating the run game and driving down to the red zone. As we are about to go for it on fourth down, Chiles/Smith fail to call a timeout, resulting in a delay of game. This forced us to attempt a FG. Kim missed his first attempt within 50 yards. With an expected outcome of 3-7 points, this was a loss.
We could have been up 14-0 after two drives.
Nearing half-time, the staff did what most teams do: let's run the ball to run out the clock, but if we spring one, we can get a bit more aggressive. Sure enough, Carter breaks one. So now we can dial something up, but I don't want to be too risky. We call it a play-action with a shot deep, but there are not many other options. Chiles holds on too long, gets hit, fumbles. I have 0 issues with the play call. My problem is with Chiles. He needs to know the situation. Throw it deep (who cares if they pick it off at their own 30 or 40). Instead, he fumbles, resulting in 3 points the other way.
So we shot ourselves in the foot for 6-10 points by halftime. Before the Chiles fumble, with 1 minute before the half, we had a 63% Win probability. Only 60 seconds later, UM had a 55% Win Probability.
Zooming in for a minute on special teams. In my prediction, I noted we had an advantage for both FGs and Punting. We missed the FG chip-shot, which is brutal. Kim did make a long FG later. On the punting side, that advantage was as predicted. We only punted 3 times, with an average of nearly 52. Arguably Eckley's best performance. Doman, on the other end, had 5 punts, averaging 36.6. So we flipped the field, while UM gave us a better field position. Obviously, the glaring issue was the fair catch. The new rule is that if the returner calls a fair catch, the ball is placed at the 25, a good deal. But if anyone other than the returner calls a fair catch, it's placed where the hand is raised, in this case, the 5-yard line. This was a huge deal, as it's an immediate 20-yard loss. Lastly, I disagreed with the decision to go for an onside kick late in the 3rd quarter, down 16-10. It's a one-possession game; our defense has been pretty solid, and our offense has been moving the ball. It just seemed unnecessary.
I still appreciated the game plan of running the ball in the second half, as we had so much success. But it was clear that we needed to pass the ball once we were down 16-10 in the 3rd quarter. With UM's start corner out, we had a decent match-up with Foster and Marsh on the outside. And MArsh showed early on what he could do. While Marsh finished with 4 receptions, it feels like a game where we win if he has 6 or 7 catches.
Other Notes:
This game bucked the trend of the winning team having more rushing yards.
Somehow UM finished with 0 penalties. They average 4.4 penalties/game (4/game at Home). While they are in the Top 10 for the least amount of penalties/game, not getting one is incredible.
Credit to Carter for playing his best game in the Green & White, finishing 19-118-1 rushing, and 2-56 receiving. This was the best run-blocking performance by the offensive line. Back-to-back weeks we've seen a major improvement.
UM QB Davis Warren finished 13/19 (68%) for 123 yards (6.5/attempt). He averages 67% completion and 6.2/attempt on the year. The issue was he made conversions when they mattered. And UM's 58% 3rd-down success rate (going 7-12) was in large part to big throws. We had 0 sacks and forced 0 TO's. Waren entered the night with 6 interceptions across the 3 games he played this season.
MSU was the better team for most of the night. And one paper should have won. But again, we left points off the board and failed to convert in the red zone. And once again, we had a combination of player errors and coaching decisions that came back to bite us. While we had an opportunity to tie the game later, we dug ourselves too deep of a hole to climb out of. Now, all we can hope is to compete with a red-hot Indiana team and finish the season strong against three weaker opponents to get to bowl eligibility.
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