No treats for MSU
Spartans a step behind in tragic 42-34 defeat
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Matt Bishop
Minneapolis – On a night full of tricks, treats and frights, nothing was scarier than what happened to the MSU football team inside TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday night.
At 4-4 on the season, the Spartans needed to come and put the stamp on a struggling Minnesota team in order to improve their bowl positioning. Instead, what happened was a debacle of the highest order — a stunning 42-34 defeat that forces MSU to win its final three games in order to finish with a winning record.
This game was an epic fail, a fiasco, a catastrophe — whatever you want to call it. The Spartans gave up 42 points to a team that scored as many in its last three games combined. A team that was 112th in the country in offense. A team without its best player. A team that had more penalty yardage than MSU had rushing. A team with every reason to quit.
Instead, what happened was as futile a game that has been seen this season. If this wasn’t a football game and instead a “which team can shoot itself in the foot last” game, MSU wins that one, thanks to senior Kendell Davis-Clark running into the punter on fourth-and-one with less than 2:30 to go, drawing a five-yard penalty and a game-ending first down for Minnesota.
The list of oddities in this game knows no bounds. There were inconsistent officiating and inconsistent booth reviews, there were receivers open all over the field, there was sophomore quarterback Kirk Cousins’ dipsy-doo touchdown pass, and there was Minnesota’s school-record 17 penalties.
But the oddest thing of all was Mark Dantonio not having his team ready to play for probably the first time since he’s been MSU’s head coach.
Although this will go down as another one of the famous losses by eight points or fewer, the fact MSU was down 14-0 before it even took an offensive snap tells the story. Minnesota scored on a 62-yard bomb on the first play from scrimmage. Then, freshman running back Edwin Baker fumbled the ensuing kickoff and the Golden Gophers scored on a 37-yard pass on third-and-long.
There’s no questioning the effort, heart and determination of the Spartans on this night. That was there. A lesser team would’ve been blown out of the stadium. But MSU battled back and even held the lead heading into the fourth quarter.
But something was missing. The intensity with which we saw MSU play against Michigan and Iowa was, like MSU’s defenders on a variety of Minnesota deep passes, a step behind.
Sophomore receiver B.J. Cunningham said he didn’t feel like the team came out ready to play. Cousins said, “It’s frustrating when you prepare and you feel like you are ready to go and it doesn’t happen.” Junior linebacker Eric Gordon said the team needs to find a way to get the emotion back from the get-go.
“All it comes down to is emotion and doing your job and we didn’t do that tonight,” Gordon said.
So the big question is: Where did the emotion go?
That’s what Dantonio and his staff will have to find out this week as the team prepares to play Western Michigan on Saturday. It’s been a streaky season for MSU — three losses, four wins, two losses. To be in a comfortable position for the program’s third straight bowl game, the team will have to be streaky one more time: three wins.
Although a New Year’s Day bowl is now out of the question, this team still has a lot to play for.
Three wins would mean the program’s third straight bowl game for the first time since 1995-97. Three wins would mean a month of bowl practices, which especially are important for the young players who want to get better and improve for the future.
The season isn’t over — that’s the key — but if the Spartans play another game like they did Saturday, they’ll be home for the holidays.
Matt Bishop is a State News football reporter. He can be reached at bishop20@msu.edu.
Commentary
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96 Alum
(11/02/09 9:16am)Report
I think the team came ready to play, they just didn’t come ready to play the Minnesota team that showed up on Saturday. A team full of tricks and improved determination. There were mistakes on both sides of the ball, but it is so frustrating to see calls made by the refs make an impact on the game. Sure, people can argue that the calls didn’t make a difference and that the game was lost because of other mistakes, but the roughing the kicker penalty and the reversed MSU fumble recovery WERE game changing events. Rucker barely touched the kicker and it was so obvious that the Minnesota player on the ground was what caused him to make incidental contact. It’s not like he flattened the kid- he pulled up and tried to avoid contact. He had his hands up and was trying to gain his balance with the Minnesota player on his feet. While so many factors can go into a win or a loss, when will someone step up and call out the refs on these calls? The BigTen Network announcers dance around something being a bad call, the coaches have no comment or an evasive comment and everyone goes on talking about everything else that went wrong. These coaches make big bucks, they’re set for life, so is the fear of a small monetary penalty silencing them? They yell on the field, make hand gestures and then evade the subject during the press conference. Have some guts, look into the camera and let everyone know what a terrible job the refs did. Who cares if it sets you back $25,000 that week. Yes, other things went wrong, but those things were the good or bad choices made by the players (and coaches) playing the game. The players and coaches made the decisions that led them to be in the position they are in. When the refs intervene with bad calls, it mutates that game. It takes away the natural outcomes of the play or the game, it changes the course of the game when they intervene incorrectly. As a fan, it’s very frustrating as we see the replays over and over on the TV and wonder why they can’t make the correct call. The coaches watch it on the stadium big screen and point and scream at the official to take a look. I really feel bad for the players who overcame a shaky start and played their hearts out to weather the storm and end up with the L. I’m proud of the Spartans for continuing to fight, I just wish the someone would stand up and fight for better officiating.
Jason B
(11/02/09 9:47am)Report
Officiating was horrible. I’m sure Minnesota is upset after getting flagged 17 times (the coach said it would not be a good idea for him to comment on the officiating, so you know he was upset) but the horrible calls on us were game changers. The overturned fumble was just unbelievable. The roughing the kicker penalty was one of the worst game ending penalties I’ve ever seen. There was some pretty bad officiating/review calls in the Iowa/IU game earlier in the day. It’s like an epidemic going around.
tedman
(11/02/09 10:18am)Report
The first 2 minutes were a disaster. If that hadn’t happened, MN wouldn’t have been as fired up and actually believed they could win the game.
Townsend
(11/02/09 11:09am)Report
Yeah, there were some bad calls, esp the reversal on UMinn’s receivers fumble we recovered. But to BLAME THIS LOSS ON OFFICIATING IS TOTALLY TAKING THE OSTRICH APPROACH and ignores the fact this team has been the victim of poor plays and coaching (which has consistently been bad, esp on Defense)… In his 3rd season, Dantonio was clearly to have this team competing for the Big 10 and/or a BCS bowl, … now we find ourselves in our usual position (see JLS and Bobby Wms) struggling for a no-name, non New Year’s Day bowl… A huge step backwards and unacceptable because, the bottom line: THIS TEAM HAS TALENT.
Spartacus
(11/02/09 11:10am)Report
Two fumbles in the first two minutes and failing to score in the red zone twice lost the game, just as MD said.
Spike
(11/02/09 11:49am)Report
They won the coin toss and deferred????? Insane! Minnesota has a horrible defense. Why in God’s name would you defer? Take the ball and run it down their throats from the start.
Also, why don’t we blitz? We have zero pass rush and we gave Weber all freaking day to pass the ball. Pathetic. Narduzzi is a comic book coach!