My takes from the preseason game....

[Dawgzilla]

1. BALIS MADE. I've heard all the talk, but now I'm a believer. With the exception of Carmon, every player looked leaner, stronger, and faster than last season. Hard to tell with the competition, but Ballard may be faster. Relf was not gasping for breath after 3 or 4 runs. Even Tyler Russell looked to be in great shape.

2. Jameon "phone booth" Lewis. Okay, maybe he's not cut out to be a returner, but get him the ball on offense. Dude is fast, and elusive, and could be the playmaking threat at receiver the offense has been missing. I hope they can coach him up to be a return guy in the future.

2a (because I forgot this one earlier). As someone else said, the kickoff team brought the lumber!!! I don't think I've ever seen two different kick return men get carried off the field. I'm sorry for their injuries, honestly, but I cant' believe how hard those coverage guys were hitting. I say, kick it right to the goalline every time!

3. Still very nervous about the defense. Linebacker play was poor. The DBs had some good plays, but were not covering the quick outs. Some of that is scheme, and some of that is the players. I'm sure they're already working on some things.

4. I'm not a fan of the up-tempo offense, particularly with the defense so shaky. 3-and-outs will kill you when you run less than 1 minute off the clock. Look for some crazy, shootout type of games if we keep running the offense that way. BTW, I'm not saying its a bad coaching move to go to that offense, I just don't enjoy it much.

5. I was trying to explain to my wife why MSU was relying on a former DLineman at the left tackle position, and she convinced me there is no excuse for that. Its not like Sherrod's graduation caught anyone by surprise; there should have been a replacement ready to go. As a whole, though, the offensive line looked pretty good.

6. Somebody fill us in if Mullen ever explains that fake punt.

7. You could not pay me enough money to stick my hand in a live tiger's cage. Oh, I would do it for a very large sum of money, but you don't have that kind of cash.

8. We don't suck. In fact, we look like a legitimate Top 20 team. I can't wait to get to Auburn next weekend.

 

[Dawgzilla]

1. BALIS MADE. I've heard all the talk, but now I'm a believer. With the exception of Carmon, every player looked leaner, stronger, and faster than last season. Hard to tell with the competition, but Ballard may be faster. Relf was not gasping for breath after 3 or 4 runs. Even Tyler Russell looked to be in great shape.

2. Jameon "phone booth" Lewis. Okay, maybe he's not cut out to be a returner, but get him the ball on offense. Dude is fast, and elusive, and could be the playmaking threat at receiver the offense has been missing. I hope they can coach him up to be a return guy in the future.

2a (because I forgot this one earlier). As someone else said, the kickoff team brought the lumber!!! I don't think I've ever seen two different kick return men get carried off the field. I'm sorry for their injuries, honestly, but I cant' believe how hard those coverage guys were hitting. I say, kick it right to the goalline every time!

3. Still very nervous about the defense. Linebacker play was poor. The DBs had some good plays, but were not covering the quick outs. Some of that is scheme, and some of that is the players. I'm sure they're already working on some things.

4. I'm not a fan of the up-tempo offense, particularly with the defense so shaky. 3-and-outs will kill you when you run less than 1 minute off the clock. Look for some crazy, shootout type of games if we keep running the offense that way. BTW, I'm not saying its a bad coaching move to go to that offense, I just don't enjoy it much.

5. I was trying to explain to my wife why MSU was relying on a former DLineman at the left tackle position, and she convinced me there is no excuse for that. Its not like Sherrod's graduation caught anyone by surprise; there should have been a replacement ready to go. As a whole, though, the offensive line looked pretty good.

6. Somebody fill us in if Mullen ever explains that fake punt.

7. You could not pay me enough money to stick my hand in a live tiger's cage. Oh, I would do it for a very large sum of money, but you don't have that kind of cash.

8. We don't suck. In fact, we look like a legitimate Top 20 team. I can't wait to get to Auburn next weekend.

 

[hotdigitydog]

nt

 

[Xenomorph]

..I stopped reading after that. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF CARMON??... WT17? In the last decade I can't remember a fat body transforming himself the way Carmon has. He's unrecognizable from 2 years ago.

 

[Shmuley]

licking his chops. I'm taking the over regardless of where vegas sets that MFer. It's going to look like the f'n WAC out there.

 

[Buford T. Justice]

5. I was trying to explain to my wife why MSU was relying on a former DLineman at the left tackle position, and she convinced me there is no excuse for that. Its not like Sherrod's graduation caught anyone by surprise; there should have been a replacement ready to go. As a whole, though, the offensive line looked pretty good.

That can be blamed on Croom. O-lineman must be recruited several years before you need them. They need redshirting, teaching, and maturation. When Dan came from Florida in December we had Sam Watts and Gabe Jackson verbally committed. Dan was unable to secure any more O-line commits so late in the recruiting season. The next year he brings in Clausell, Muniz, Day, Lawson, and Robinson. The problem is that they are all redshirt freshmen. Next he brings in Maiden, Knox, Malone, Trapp, and Redmond. They are true freshmen (except Juco Trapp). It will take a little time to balance the lines from the Croom error.

 

[dawgstudent]

and without watching the game on DVR and watching it in person - I thought Carmon played pretty well.

 

[MSUArrowCS]

he must have been nervous in the return game with the live action. Hopefully he gets the kinks worked out, because that's a great way for him to get some touches.

Also (and related):

could be the playmaking threat at receiver the offense has been missing

I was unaware we had been short on playmakers at receiver. Seems like we're pretty loaded there. Lewis has to compete with Heavens in particular for touches there, and Carr also lined up for some of those sweeps and runs last year.

 

[Dawgzilla]

But she wasn't buying it. Get a JUCO, do something, but get someone ready besides a converted Dlineman.

 

[EAVdog]

I've got to chalk that up to nerves. And for the defense we played a ton of in-experienced guys, Mullen said something like 20, Freshmen or Redshirt Freshmen played.<div></div><div>The camera work was pretty bad, I had a hard time telling numbers on jerseys at time. Or maybe I'm just getting old. But either way I saw a lot of new jersey numbers I wasn't sure who they belonged to.</div>

 

[Dawgzilla]

A playmaker is a threat to score everytime he touches the ball. Ballard is our only playmaker right now. Bumphis is the closest thing the receiving corps has, and I think he's an underachiever. Lewis has a chance to be that guy.

 

[Dawgzilla]

Compared to other lineman, he looked really fat. I did word that poorly in my opening post.

 

[Shmuley]

nm

 

[Hector.sixpack]

Dawgzilla]4. I'm not a fan of the up-tempo offense, particularly with the defense so shaky. 3-and-outs will kill you when you run less than 1 minute off the clock. Look for some crazy, shootout type of games if we keep running the offense that way. BTW, I'm not saying its a bad coaching move to go to that offense, I just don't enjoy it much.

5. I was trying to explain to my wife why MSU was relying on a former DLineman at the left tackle position, and she convinced me there is no excuse for that. Its not like Sherrod's graduation caught anyone by surprise; there should have been a replacement ready to go. As a whole, though, the offensive line looked pretty good.

6. Somebody fill us in if Mullen ever explains that fake punt.

4. The uptempo stuff is a great thing to have in your arsenal. We will use it some, but it won't be our identity. I suspect we will ease into and out of the uptempo offense. Remember last year we threw zero passes at Florida in the 2nd half. I think game management will be priority, esp on the road.

5. As someone stated before, this is partially due to Croom.Also, Carmon's frame is for an offensive tackle. Had he been coming out of HS, that's where our current staff would've put him from the get go.

6. Mullen is going to call some fakes and reverse passes sometimes, its just a risk/reward thing. Game in hand, why not?

 

[Johnson85]

It's only the first game with a lot of new faces, so things could look a lot different in a few weeks, but the D changed my outlook for the Auburn game at least. I was thinking it was a probable win. Now I'm thinking it's a toss-up.

 

[Dawgzilla]

A few times last year the offense would go no huddle, and it generally seemed to work out well. I have nothing against mixing things up with the occasional up tempo move. I'm not a fan of that being the standard offense, though. We'll see how it plays out.

 

[MSUArrowCS]

And maybe it's just the years of Croom and Jackie, but all of those guys are capable of making a man (or 2) miss on any given play and taking it to the house. Don't get me wrong, I think Lewis is an awesome addition, but he will have to beat out Heavens in particular for touches at receiver. Bumphis, Heavens, and Clark all 3 averaged over 14 yards/catch at receiver last year, and alot of that has to do with making plays after the catch or on a screen. Carr only had 8 touches from scrimmage all year, but 18 yards per catch and 10 yards per carry. Gotta like those numbers.

 

[Xartox]

I said it as soon as it happened and I still say it today... "That was COMPLETELY designed for Auburn to see." The game was out of hand already. We weren't going to lose to Memphis. Mullen wanted to give Auburn one of those WTF was this guy thinking moments in the film. You never know, he might pull it out again and the next time it might work and it might not. BUT it accomplished what he wanted it to accomplish and that is it will make Auburn consider the possibility he'll do it again.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

..whose brief tenure @ MSU will be affecting MSU football for the next 100 years.


Really, when are you people going to finally abandon your Croom Derangement Syndrome?


Let. Sly. Croom. Go.


He hasn't coached @ MSU for 3 freakin' years.


Blaming Sly Croom for anything that is happening to the MSU football program currently is like blaming Dwight Eisenhower for Afghanistan.

 

[Shmuley]

nm

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

..being fed ******** by all your premium subscription recruiting gurus then running here to share it so you can be the center of attention for 15 minutes.

 

[Seinfeld]

but it seemed like the fake was simply botched moreso than it was a bad call. It looked like one of our players was supposed to get a little "lost" in the blocking area and then suddenly break out in the open to catch a pass and run downfield. From what I saw in live action, though, it seemed like Baker threw it too early and the receiver was still buried in the middle of a bunch of blockers when he caught it. Not only that, but it was so early that the Memphis players that were downfield hadn't even begun to turn their backs yet so they were staring right at it. Just never had a chance.

 

[Shmuley]

How about you make a f'n prediction about ... hell, I don't know .... ANYTHING?

 

[VirgilCain]

a bad play.... seems like it would work well in theory, but didn't work in live-action. Let all of the rushers of a punt block formation rush by and basically make a screen pass to a sneaky up-back. In reality though, there were still rushing defenders all over the intended pass area.

I thought that Perkins needed to break out into the open more for the screen pass, and if he did that then he was gonna gain 30+ yards. But upon review, if Swedenburg had waited any longer, then he would have had to push up some daisies before making the "free throw" pass (i.e. he would have been drilled into the turf)

 

[TBonewannabe]

Essentially Memphis's guy sucked so bad he couldn't run through even though we were trying to let him.

 

[drt7891]

But now that I think about it, it was not a calculated risk/reward thing for the game at all... it was to either 1) Throw some utter ******** on the gamefilm for AU and LSU to see... to make them consider the fact that we can potentially run a fake punt or 2) a complete experiment to see if that play would really work. (since you already pointed out that the game was out of hand)

No way that was a "Hey, let's catch them off guard!!! They won't see it coming!!!" kind of fake punt. No way.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

..I predict you will be as full as ******** tomorrow as you are today.

 

[markymark.sixpack]

Our defense is not as bad as some of you are making it out to be. Our d line, without cox, was getting a great push, especially when our first string was in playing together. After the first two series, we were playing back ups and freshmen, or at least mixing them in. Our d line is a little thin, but it's not bad.

Linebackers-we have two good ones. Wells was all over the field, but again, he was subbed out a ton. Wilson looked pretty good as well. Cam is just too slow to play this scheme, either that or his play recognition sucks. He is always a step behind. Maye did not impress me. Skinner looks like a decent backup.

Carmon-I too thought he did ok after the early bs. However, watching him only on the dvr, I'm not so sure. He knows all of his assignments and he gets in good position, but his blocking is not good. He's not mean enough and he's too timid. He is a weak blocker, and that is going to give us trouble in the sec.

Ballard is a beast, obviously. Perkins was not involved in the offense at all, and Ballard got 10 touches. We still scored 59. Our offense will be fine.

 

[Shmuley]

nm