Couch: From playoff to punchless - how MSU fell so hard so fast
EAST LANSING – How does a program on the cusp of playing for a national championship become a team facing the possibility of missing a bowl game entirely in nine short months?
Just as Mark Dantonio wrote the book on how to improbably build an insecure, middling program into national power, Michigan State’s 2016 season is a lesson, chapter and verse, in how fleeting life behind the velvet rope can be.
The Spartans enter this weekend at 2-3, having lost three straight, needing to win four of seven remaining games — with dates with Michigan and Ohio State still looming — just to be bowl-eligible.
It’s all explainable. And, in hindsight, not all that improbable.
MSU’s plight is a result of underachievement and injuries, a sudden void of both leadership and leading-man talent.
“There are two types of people,” senior tight end Jamal Lyles said. “You either be a leader or respond to leadership. And we lost a lot of the leaders from the previous team. And we’ve got a lot of guys who are used to responding to leadership.”
Jack Allen and Shilique Calhoun were personalities and voices that MSU has struggled to replace. Connor Cook, Jack Conklin, Aaron Burbridge, Lawrence Thomas, Darien Harris — these were leaders in their own right, leading with how they performed consistently and under pressure.
Allen, Calhoun and Cook were fixtures at their positions dating back to MSU’s Rose Bowl season — three-year stars who dominated the locker room and the depth chart and who could be relied upon in big moments. MSU’s entire three-year run happened with these guys on the field.
This year’s captains consist of an unproven quarterback, a semi-proven safety and a linebacker who’s missed all three losses due to injury. And many of the players they’re leading are big-time young talents who don’t yet have a clue what it’s like to stop Braxton Miller on fourth-and-2 with everything you’ve dreamed of on the line.
“We’ve got to try to keep explaining, showing these younger guys, ‘You have to put in so much work,’” MSU senior tight end Josiah Price said. “I mean I put in hours and hours and hours of watching my opponent before each and every game, on my own, without the coaches around me, to know the guy I’m lined up across from. And it’s hard to try to teach a guy who’s a five-star All-American, a four-star All-American, they just come in and think sometimes they’re going to do all this stuff.”
That has been one of the strengths of MSU’s program over the last half-decade — how quickly heralded young players are humbled, learning their recruiting stars are as prestigious and meaningful as used toilet paper once they arrive on campus, that everyone begins at zero in Ken Mannie’s weight room. Perhaps there is a gap in that understanding.
MSU, it appears, wound up with a tough mix of veteran underlings unsuited to be frontmen and gifted young players needing direction.
The Spartans knew there were questions at multiple positions coming into the season — on the offensive and defensive lines, at quarterback, cornerback, receiver, kicker. Anyone who watches the program knew this. But there was a sense that each group separately had a chance to turn out OK. Instead, both lines have struggled mightily, quarterback play has been “average to poor,” as Dantonio put it, the younger wideouts have been inconsistent and senior kicker Michael Geiger has missed three of his five field-goal attempts.
The defensive backfield, I believe, has been fairly sound, though a true evaluation can’t be done until MSU begins to manufacture a modest pass rush. Deion Sanders and Ronnie Lott would struggle behind MSU’s defensive front.
Let’s start at the position that is everyone’s obsession — quarterback. Tyler O’Connor is in a tough spot. He is replacing the greatest quarterback ever to play at Michigan State. He isn’t Connor Cook. Kirk Cousins wasn’t Connor Cook. Whatever folks thought of Cook’s personality and leadership ability, the guy had an innate presence in the pocket that few quarterbacks have at any level. He wasn’t rattled by traffic at his feet, he had a gambler’s mentality and, when his shoulder was healthy, he had the arm to make every throw you’d ever want on a football field. It took him a while to develop, but once he did, he was a constant for most of three seasons.
It is fair to wonder why MSU didn’t have somebody with similar upside ready to go under him. O’Connor is a gritty leader, a capable player, a loyal teammate who deserved his shot. I think he’s still the best option on the roster. That speaks to the other options, namely fourth-year junior Damion Terry. Sometimes when a player knows they’re stuck behind another player for several years, there isn’t the urgency to develop. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but, based on his billing, I thought Terry would be at a different stage by now. Someone will likely step up at QB by next season, and MSU will probably be fine at the position. But the options are limited for October and November.
The position most crippling MSU’s offense, however, is in front of the quarterback. Some of what’s happening on the offensive line is simply the effect of losing two All-Americans, Allen and Conklin, and another NFL draft pick, Donovan Clark, in the same year. There aren’t any programs in the country that wouldn’t be impacted by that sort of loss. Part of the problem is MSU only signed one offensive lineman in its 2013 recruiting class, redshirt junior tackle Dennis Finley.
That Finley hasn’t bounced back from a broken leg last season has exacerbated the issue. The line hasn’t come together. MSU is leaning on promising redshirt freshmen Tyler Higby and Cole Chewins and has played true freshman Thiyo Lukusa. They’ve been forced to move senior Kodi Kieler from center to left tackle to give O’Connor or whoever’s at quarterback a fighting chance from their blind side. This is the position group to keep an eye on. It might be fine long-term. But, after this year, it loses three more seniors it's relying on heavily right now.
The troubles on the defensive front began when MSU parted ways with tackle Craig Evans and Damon Knox chose not to return for a sixth season. It forced MSU to keep Malik McDowell on the interior — to this point, at least — and left MSU thin at the position. More than anywhere else, the defensive line is a spot where the old and young have converged, with almost no one ready for the role they need to play. Fourth-year junior defensive end Demetrius Cooper spent three years behind Calhoun. He’s battled injuries, but MSU had high hopes for him this year. It hasn’t worked out. He has 1/2 of a sack through five games. Senior Evan Jones, on the other side, is better served in a complementary role. Meanwhile, four-star true freshman ends Josh King and Auston Robertson are pups who would have redshirted if Calhoun, Lawrence Thomas or Marcus Rush were still in the program.
Some of MSU’s woes are just rotten luck, injuries striking at the worst time — to Riley Bullough, to fellow linebacker Jon Reschke after a great start, to emerging redshirt freshman defensive tackle Raequan Williams, among others.
If Bullough had been healthy these last three games, MSU at least beats Indiana. Maybe the Wisconsin or BYU games would have turned out differently, too. Bullough is THE leader of this team. He is the quarterback of the defense, the voice with the most cachet, the one all these young players listened to all summer while running steps at Spartan Stadium. And now he’s not out there with them.
The key for MSU is for respected voices to develop in its younger ranks, for sweat equity among the younger group to take hold. The Spartans have a small junior class, without a ton of star power, the result of a 2013 freshman class that largely hasn’t panned out. That’s hurting MSU right now. Whatever is next will likely be a two- or three-year run.
In August, I wrote, for better or worse, six players would decide MSU’s football season: Tyler O’Connor, cornerback Vayante Copeland, running back LJ Scott, Demetrius Cooper, then-left tackle David Beedle and Michael Geiger. I’m not always right — often not — but I saw the importance of each of these players. And, five games in, none of them have performed to the level MSU had hoped. And thus, 2-3.
“If you think you got a problem, it can always get worse,” Dantonio said this week. “I don't care whether you're dealing with football or anything else. It can always get worse.
“We have to guard against that and be positive and be strong. That’s what they hired me for here. They hired me to win, obviously. But I think just as importantly is how you handle the problems. That defines you.”
How the Spartans emerge from this season and what follows it will absolutely define them.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.