A Look At Michigan State: Q&A With Kyle Austin
In previewing Michigan State, Blue & Gold Illustrated spoke with Kyle Austin, who covers the Spartans for Mlive.com.
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Blue & Gold Illustrated: After losing many of its key starters from last year’s College Football Playoff team, how did the new faces perform in week one against Furman?
Kyle Austin: Tyler O’Connor played OK, but he’s certainly not Connor Cook. They didn’t ask him to be. He made some shorter throws, he’s very accurate and a couple bad decisions and he had one bad pick where he stared down the guy and threw into coverage. Overall was OK, they kept things easy for him. He’s not out there threading the needle like we saw Connor Cook do for the last three years. He was serviceable.
The offensive line, they’re replacing two All-Americans, that group took a step back obviously. They were OK, I thought they had a couple protection issues. It’s going to take that group some time to get the chemistry back together. If you know anything about them the last couple years, Jack Allen has been their center and was a four-year player. He always made sure everybody was on the right page, guys were doing their assignments.
The defensive line kind of surprised me with how much they struggled. They’ve got Malik McDowell there, the preseason All-American and a guy who will go top 15 in next year’s NFL Draft. The guys around him struggled. Furman really just ran the ball up the gut on them several times for a decent amount of yards, which was surprising because we thought they’d be pretty decent in the interior there.
Everywhere else they were OK, the linebackers were OK. You look at a team like Furman coming in, in the fourth quarter (Michigan State) turned the ball over and Furman had a chance to go down and tie the game with about eight minutes left. That game was closer than you might think than the final score.
BGI: Were there any surprises coming out of the Furman game?
Austin: Michigan State’s running back situation has kind of been a bit of a mystery. They had three guys last year who they rotated fairly equally, they all ended up with similar carry numbers and they finished with very similar yards. Mark Dantonio kind of said going into this year they liked all three of them, but then it turns out they came out and they did really pick a lead guy.
That was L.J. Scott, a sophomore and former four-star recruit from Ohio. He had 20 carries, 105 yards and looked like a No. 1 back. I didn’t really think that they would anoint a No. 1 back, but they did. They’ll work in at least one, maybe two depending on who you ask, but that did surprise me a bit that they picked one guy.
BGI: Is MSU going to be a run-first team that tries to expose the same things Texas did against Notre Dame?
Austin: That’s certainly what they’ll try. That’s kind of where Mark Dantonio always starts. They certainly don’t have anybody at the quarterback position that’s as dynamic as Connor Cook, but they still like their offensive line and L.J. Scott is the best offensive weapon they have as far as a guy that has the power and kind of can break through tackles but also has increased his speed. He’s a guy around here that’s compared to Le’Veon Bell a lot, and a lot of that is warranted.
They’ve got a lot of new receivers, too. There are more questions in the passing game, which is going to lead them to run more. Their run-pass ratio, which they try to get 50-50, was way out whack in week one. That’s what they’re going to lean on and that’s what they feel stronger about. You look at Notre Dame-Texas, they probably do see some opportunities there.
BGI: After underperforming against Furman, how is MSU treating that game? Is it simply a learning experience for the new players?
Austin: You look at, and they had 10 penalties for 120 yards, which is really a lot of the story. It’s not just the yards — they came in bad times. They had several wipe out first downs and forced them to punt. They had stuff that extended Furman drives. There were three personal fouls, a couple late hits, and that was partially them playing some younger guys and partially just that it was opening night.
Everyone was amped up to play, guys kind of played through the whistle a bit. They’re trying to get them to learn from that. They’re pretty confident that they’ll be able to work through that, especially with a bye and get that out of there.
BGI: With a soft opener against Furman and a bye in week two, was Michigan State vanilla in their game plan in week one?
Austin: They did. You look at how they were playing, I don’t think they opened things up. You’re going to see more different packages out of them. They’ve got a guy like Donnie Corley, he’s a freshman wide receiver and their No. 1 recruit. He’s kind of one of these jack-of-all-trades guy and they kept him very under wraps. They’ll have some tricks up their sleeve.
Their schedule lays out pretty similar to the last couple years when they’ve had Oregon for the second game, and they had kind of a soft opening before that and then the big game against Oregon. They kept it very vanilla in week one and we saw very different stuff against Oregon. That’s probably the game plan again this year. They could’ve opened things up a little bit more against Furman and put up 45 points, but they saw more value in keeping it vanilla and having the score a bit closer.
Frankly they feel pretty fortunate that Notre Dame had to go play Texas and they couldn’t keep as much under wraps as Michigan State did.
BGI: Michigan State has an unusual bye in week two. Can you explain how that came to be?
Austin: When Alabama canceled a series on them a couple years ago, largely because they didn’t want to play a true home-and-home, they want neutral sites. They had another game with Eastern Michigan and they canceled on them for some financial reasons. Kind of got put in a late bind and moved some things around and did what they could to get it the way they wanted, but ended up with a non-desirable week two bye.
Mark Dantonio, if you gave him some truth serum he’d say he’s not happy about it, but he’s not a guy that’s going to publicly question or undercut his AD. All he’ll say is that they’re going to try and make the best of it. They have a couple guys that have minor injuries. In the long term (the bye) will be something that’s an issue, but for the Notre Dame game it’s somewhat of an advantage.
BGI: After a bye week for Michigan State, how do you envision this game playing out?
Austin: I’m going to take Notre Dame, just because there’s so much uncertainty with how much Michigan State has lost. If saw a scorecard of their game against Furman, and certainly it’s an FCS, it did not look convincing. The offense did not look good like it has under Connor Cook. The defense played a little bit better, but they lose Cook and they lose Chase Calhoun and two All-American offensive linemen.
Frankly it can be a process to get back to that level where they were, and they’re breaking in too many guys and trying to ask them to go on the road and get it all together. It seems like Notre Dame, which has a lot more coming back, a lot more experience. They could be at that level at the end of the year, but I don’t see them getting it together this quick that early.
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