MSU vs Illinois

[Spartanmack]

IL was averaging almost 450 yards per game, we held them 300 under their average. it's not often you get to say that, they also played good teams in the big ten so far, they just scored 32 against Wisconsin.

a good part of the yardage differential can be attributed to the time of possession but our defense brings it, every week

In the 3 losses prior to the MSU game they averaged 363 yards of offense - that would put their offense somewhere around 95th in the country. Two of those teams gave up fewer yards to Ill than their defenses average. Ill got about 90 yards more than the average team against wisco but the game was out of hand in the 3rd quarter and Ill got a lot of garbage time yards. Shutting them down was great but let's be honest - Illinois sucks. Period. I mean they haven't won a B1G game in 2 years - what more do you need to say?

 

[Spartanmack]

What exactly were your expectations for this team?

I've said all along I expect them to be competitive in every game - to win most and have a shot in every one. I just refuse to pretend we're beating good teams when we're clearly not. At the beginning, I said anything less than 9 & 3 would be a big disappointment and 9 & 3 wouldn't be great based on our schedule. So far we've beaten 1 team that beat us last year. Thanks to the defense (and the schedule), we have a legitimate shot at the Division and the RB but mostly because the B1G is so bad since we're not that much improved from last year, if at all.

I think the thing I've been wrong on so far is michigan has not improved as much as I thought they would.