Poor practice week, lack of leadership might have led to loss
Spartans look to make improvements before heading to South Bend, Ind.
By Chris Vannini (Last updated: 09/13/09 11:47pm)For Greg Jones, something wasn’t right before the game started.
“It started from this week at practice,” the junior linebacker and captain said. “I felt like we didn’t have a good week of practice and that kind of led into the game.”
The poor week of practice, along with an undisciplined effort, doomed the Spartans against Central Michigan as MSU lost 29-27 Saturday at Spartan Stadium. The loss came 17 years to the day since Central last upset the Spartans in 1992.
The Spartans committed eight penalties for 81 yards, including an offsides in the final seconds that gave the Chippewas another chance after a field goal block for the Spartans was nullified. It was a chance that Central kicker Andrew Aguila took advantage of.
“It’s disappointing because it’s an unforced error and that’s how you lose football games,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “It was a lack of discipline, and I am the head coach so I will take full responsibility for that.”
After sophomore quarterback Kirk Cousins led the Spartans on an 80-yard touchdown drive to give MSU the lead with less than eight minutes to go, Central quarterback Dan LeFevour answered with a 71-yard touchdown drive.
But instead of kicking the extra point, Central went for a two-point conversion.
LeFevour’s pass attempt sailed over the outstretched arm of junior safety Marcus Hyde and into the hands of Central wide receiver Antonio Brown. But Brown landed well out of bounds and Spartan Stadium began to celebrate.
However, Central recovered the ensuing onside kick with 32 seconds left and drove down into field goal range. A 47-yard attempt by Aguila was blocked, but the offsides penalty gave him another chance; this one a 42-yarder and he tucked it inside the goalpost.
“We had the game won, we had that game won and it’s a heartbreaker,” senior defensive end Trevor Anderson said. “It hurts. It’s going to linger for the next couple hours but we’ll get over it and we’ll get better.”
The Spartans marched down the field with ease on their first drive of the game with Cousins completing his only two throws for 51 yards. A 39-yard completion to senior wide receiver Blair White was initially ruled a touchdown but a successful challenge by Central placed the ball at the one-yard line where redshirt freshman Caulton Ray finished the drive with his first career touchdown.
Cousins was 13-for-18 passing with 164 yards and one touchdown.
Central answered with an 11-play drive and came away with a field goal. Long Central drives were a common theme Saturday.
In the second quarter, Central opened a drive with a reverse pass from Brown to LeFevour for a 24-yard gain, with an additional facemask penalty on the play. LeFevour finished the drive with a six-yard touchdown pass to Brown to give Central its first lead of the game at 13-10.
The Spartans answered quickly with a four-play, 71-yard drive capped off by a 16-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Keith Nichol to junior tight end Charlie Gantt and the Spartans went into the locker room at halftime with a 17-13 lead.
Nichol finished 3-for-8 passing for 51 yards and one touchdown. He also ran for 17 yards on three attempts.
A 32-yard field goal by senior kicker Brett Swenson was the only scoring play in the third quarter and MSU went into the fourth leading 20-13.
But the Chippewas would not go away and LeFevour seemed to play better as the second half moved on.
“I got a chance to be on a spread team when I was at Cincinnatti with (head coach) Brian Kelly and I know … that spread teams are second half teams,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s words rang true in the fourth quarter.
Central tied the game with a nine-play, 76-yard drive that was helped by three Spartan penalties and ended with a 12-yard pass from LeFevour to wide receiver Kito Poblah.
Tied, and with nerves rippling through Spartan Stadium, Cousins helped the Spartans regain the lead before LeFevour led two scoring drives to win the game for the Chippewas.
“We’re going to find out what kind of football team we have now and leadership is going to be huge,” Cousins said. “We just need to circle the wagons tomorrow, make sure no one is pointing fingers, make sure we’re all on the same page and we’re going to get this corrected.”
Cousins said the team captains — Cousins, White, Jones and senior cornerback Ross Weaver — have called a players-only meeting tomorrow to make sure everyone is on the same page.
For Central Michigan, it was a special victory that won’t be forgotten for a long time.
“I think anytime you play in a great venue like this with 76,000 people, national television, interstate game, it may be a little special,” Central head coach Butch Jones said.
For Michigan State, the Spartans need to refocus because they head to South Bend, Ind. next week to take on Notre Dame in a hostile environment.
One thing the Spartans will work on is the running game. Redshirt freshman Caulton Ray led the Spartans with 51 yards rushing on 16 carries and the team as a whole only had 101 yards.
“We have always said that … we have to be able to establish the run as we go through the course of the game,” MSU offensive coordinator Don Treadwell said. “There are little things that we can fix and try to make better and make some of those shorter runs into longer runs.”
Originally Published: 09/12/09 6:39pm
Fish
09/12/09 6:46pmDantonio has got to name Cousins the starter. Nichol was rushing his throws like crazy and looked completely scrambled out there.
PJS
09/12/09 7:03pmAt least we don’t go to UofM
mvt
09/12/09 9:37pmHate to say it, but if the defense does not get its act together this team will struggle to be a .500 team.
The number of wide open CMU receivers was disturbing and saw many instances of MSU defenders failing to fight hard through blocks to make tackles resulting in bigger CMU gains than oughta been.
Tony
09/13/09 2:54amWe’ll see how Dantonio responds. The defense was simply a disaster. The Def. Coordinator simply didn’t put his players into position to make plays. In the old days, an MSU safety or corner would have picked off one of those screen passes and taken it to the house. This current defense let CMU throw them all day. Bad defensive playcalling lost this game.
Spartalum
09/13/09 3:04am“This current defense let CMU throw them all day. Bad defensive playcalling lost this game.”
I could not agree more. Disgraceful.
09/13/09 3:44amSo when does basketball practice start? At least we didn’t have to wait until the end of the season to be disappointed.
Championship programs do not lose to second tier division one programs. Sorry CMU fans but the BCS wouldn’t give you the time of day because of the size of the school.
Kudos on the win and wish you luck running the table.
TexasSpartan
09/13/09 8:47amOur two players DID cross the line on the FG. They didn’t make contact and as they were getting back the Chip TE lifted…THAT should have been the penalty on the play.
I know….sour grapes.
RCB
09/13/09 10:51amYeah, unfortunately the BCS would n ever give us the time of day. So, we made it our job to make sure they didn’t give State the time of day this year either.
Brian Silbernagel
09/13/09 11:07amThe scholarship players should be stripped of their privileges this week for putting on that pathetic performance. Mark should be ashamed of himself getting a 6 year extension then losing to Central. There should be some penalty for doing that.
MSUAlum
09/13/09 11:08amDantonio and company lost this game. Team totally undercoached. Would take 4-5 months to train the D how to read, where to stand, how to shift on calls, etc. In very big trouble now – it’s too late. MSU/Cousins would have had more points(= win) if Nichols was wasn’t in. MSU desires Nichols for his scrambling ability. This didn’t work for a Atlanta & Vick.
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Walt
09/13/09 11:10amLefevour is the best college qb in mi.. CMU could and probably will EMU & WMU. & they’d beat UM too if they played. I hope we aren’t back to ‘normal’ @ MSU.
Walt
09/13/09 11:12amLefevour is the best college qb in mi.. CMU could and probably will beat EMU & WMU. & they’d beat UM too if they played them. I hope we aren’t back to ‘normal’ @ MSU.
JGatz
09/13/09 12:31pmEven though LeFevour’s outstanding, State looked completely disorganized on defense. The most hopeful assessment is that they weren’t ready for this game. If this mess exposed where the D’s really at on this team, it isn’t going to matter who’s playing at QB. Guess we’ll see this Saturday.
Dan
09/13/09 12:36pmWell Spartans, I hope you are all studying hard in your kinesiology classes, because none of you will ever play pro ball.
mike
09/13/09 12:38pmPoor coaching! This is a KILLER for our program!! Why weren’t the CB’s on “press coverage?” The flats were open all game..CMU’s receivers were NEVER checked!!
mike
09/13/09 12:41pmKirk Cousins gives us the best chance to win! The QB experiment should end!! If we lose to ND, the remainder of the season will not be pretty!!!
Dan
09/13/09 3:13pmI take it that everyone will want to blame the Defensive Coordinator after the harrowing experience of John L. The fact of the matter is, Dantonio has experience coaching just defense with Cincinatti. He’s laughing all the way to the bank with his five year contract extension.
David B
09/13/09 4:46pmAs a MSU alum imagine my surprise to be rooting for Central. What grit! Better to have played a real football team and learned something in Week one. Kudos to MAC, but did they go up or did the Big 11just go down to meet them. Pathetic.
Painful but lets move on & improve
09/13/09 6:30pmThis hurt but lets not over-react and try to pick ourselves up and learn/get better rather than knock ourselves down further.
The main concern I saw was the weakness in our Secondary coverage. Against a better team they will exploit that time and again and with far greater accuracy. That needs to be shored up asap.
We definitely suffered a bit having some injuries and Nitchman being out really left a void up front on the O line. That should partially resolve itself when he returns but we need to get better on moving the ball.
Moss
09/13/09 10:55pmYou mentioned the BCS like we give a crap. It’s nothing but a joke.
Also we went up….we’ve been slaying everything in the MAC for years now and teams that are supposed to be far more superior are either getting beat or barely pulling off wins.
We’re a MAC school and should be getting shut down like the WMU did with U of M and it hasn’t been happening. Give us 10 years and we won’t be in the MAC….our schools been growing a lot.
Ren
09/13/09 11:27pmCMU played a better game…plain and simple MSU made key errors and CMU was able to gain off of that…if state had played a big 10 team fans would be saying well its not that awful..but because they played a MAC team its shameful??? seriously…we are all from the state of Michigan…looks like state needed to focus on the game at hand instead of thinking they had it in the bag and focusing on Notre Dame…hope that Notre Dame focus pays off next week guys.
CHIPMAN
09/14/09 2:12pmState lost for the simple reason that they are overrated by Spartan fans. It was clear that MSU couldn’t handle a mobile quarterback. (Good luck with Forcier! LOL!)
MSU started the season unranked and unnoticed and will stay that way for the rest of the season! Your program has turned around? Looks like the same Spartans to me!
Tim
09/18/09 7:51pmSOS….ad infinitum.
MD gets contract extension and voilla, we promptly lose.
Top to bottom: not ready for prime time. No way….no how.
This is another start to another long and miserable football season. We won’t win 4 games, but MD got his loot.
Thank GOD for Tom Izzo.