From the listeners perspective

I listened to the “game” Saturday while watching a couple other events on TV, as I am not a Dish subscriber and thereby not privy to the Big Ten Network. I don’t want to spend a lot of time rehashing that which was truly painful, but I did want to focus on a couple of positive things that happened. (I have 5 pages of not quite play-by-play notes that I took, I’m not going to post those, but I will hit some assorted "highlights"!) I also will make mention of a few other not so positives that my review of my notes reveals to me.

Our first possession occurred at the same time LSU and Kentucky were entering their first overtime period tied up at 27 all. The IU possession resulted in Kellen Lewis running it 59 yards for a touchdown. I had hope. And then, we kicked.

Here’s where my “negative” comes in. Our special teams simply could not stop them after a kick. Their starting field position was strong on basically every single possession they had. Ringer and Thomas were the major players here, giving the MSU offense great starting field position that was just one more powerful advantage over us. They took those strong starting field positions and were able to consistently convert them into points. James Bailey had a huge kick return late in the first quarter, running it back to the MSU 27, and was then further assisted by a late hit penalty on Michigan State, giving us half the distance to the goal- we started a drive at the 13, and had to kick a field goal. Lewis was sacked on the 2nd down play, we took a delay of game penalty, and the 3rd down yielded no open receivers. That series, which started out so strongly, was a real blow to our morale, and I believe we never really were able to recover mentally.

The Austin’s had some really positive moments in this game- shall we call them the silver linings? Austin Starr broke Pete Stoyanovich’s existing school record for consecutive field goals with 3:42 remaining in the first half after kicking the 11th straight. Austin Thomas had clones with him on the field, having been credited for 22 tackles in the game, 14 of them solo. Additionally, Lewis connected with James Hardy for a 51 yard gain (which led to Starr’s record-breaking kick), and Tracy Porter managed to snatch up a fumble and run it back 74 yards for a touchdown (Nick Polk credited with causing the fumble).

We knew going into this game that Ringer and Thomas were going to be tough to contain. Caulcrick was also deeply involved and between the three of them, we just had no answers. That’s ok. I still believe that we’ve come a long way, and that despite the strength of MSU, we had some really good plays, unfortunately, just not enough of them. Focus Points? We converted very few 3rd downs, I hate delay of game penalties, and we need to work on some blocking and tackling in general. Bring on Penn State.