Phil Steele's preseason All Big Ten teams

[Green and White 95]

Gonna try and get as many tix as I can. Going to the WMU game, for sure.

Nice to see you made it over here Keric. It's refreshing to see more Spartans getting on board.

 

[Green and White 95]

uh, good job, I guess.

Admit it. You've been longing for this quite some time now. You're not yourself unless you're arguing with Spartans.

 

[Michchamp]

Admit it. You've been longing for this quite some time now. You're not yourself unless you're arguing with Spartans.

Well, you're partially correct. I do enjoy arguing. But don't flatter yourself... it could be with anyone; Spartans, Fighting Irish, Badgers, Cornhuskers.

buckeyes are the best though; not only is there the rivalry, but they tend to wrap their cause in all sorts of self-righteous language, inspired by books like this:

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and the irony of the whole thing... contrasting that holier-than-thou attitude with a program & coach that mainly succeeded by turning a blind eye to the "thug life" of the jockomos they were recruiting is just too precious.

...you guys don't bring that sort of thing to the table. you're too normal.

when MSU trots out a Three Stooges act like this:

​

... and your fans still rush to defend the program & coach's legacy... then maybe, just MAYBE you could get to their level.

 

[Green and White 95]

Well, Calhoun actually had more QB pressures than William Gholston last year in about a 3rd of the snaps. The DTs will be deeper and have a year more experience. The LBs all return with a year more experience, Norman lost his starting job to Jones midseason and never regained it. The DBs return 6 of their top 7 on the depth chart and Trae Waynes was outpplaying Johnny Adams by year's end. So yeah, the defense is clearly better and deeper on paper. Our defense is returning 17 of 22 players off our two deep and all of them contributed last year on the field. Only 1 player that is gone, William Gholston, started all the games for us last season. Narduzzi rotates all the players, we saw 6+ LBs get snaps every game, we saw 7 or 8 DBs get snaps every game, 9-10 D linemen, these guys have all proven they can play and produce for a top 5 defense in 2012. This year's defense is the culmination of a 6 year process, it's took 6 years and change to produce the kind of depth that you'll see in 2013 for the Spartan defense.

You're not worried about losing the only player that kept defenses honest in Denard Robinson? You're not worried about losing basically all of your consistent playmakers on defense? Don't tell me you've recruited well, you're losing proven producers all over that defense including arguably your 4 best player makers in Demons, Roh, Ryan (Unless you believe that drivel about him coming back in October from a blownout knee), and Kovacs, and other solid starters in Floyd and Campbell. On top of that 2 of the key players you are counting on are recuperating from catastrophic leg injuries in Toussaint and Countess, don't expect them to be who they were for another year. Heck, even Gardner is a question mark at QB, he;s only started a hand full of games and wasn't all that great on a few of them.

Basically, you're going off from what the guys at Rivals and Scout have to say about your players rather than what has been proven on the field. Good luck with that.

Michigan will be decent and an easier schedule will give you some wins, but don't think you can lose all you lost and just replace them with unproven guys and be just as good, just because those guys had a million stars next to their names in high school. You'll be decent because Hoke and Mattison appear to be good coaches, but that team is not close to the point of reloading yet.

I 100% agree with you about our Defense. We bring back a lot from a top 10 ranked D and our only loses will be filled with guys that have some experience and a lot of talent. My biggest concern for us is our offensive losses or loss, with Bell. Our D can carry us so far, but we have an offense that has a lot of the same players that struggled mightily, and our best playmaker gone. Hell, we have a converted LB or S or whatever position Riley played as our RB. My hope is that 2nd year experience will help advance this offense and a new coordinator might give it a jumpstart.

I agree that Um lost a lot, but in all honesty, their easy schedule will give them just as many wins as ours could. They have a lot of talent on the line and at RB, ( it might be unproven, but still good talent) and a mobile QB who did gain some experience towards the end of the year Their D has some holes to fill, but again, they do have talent to bring in, with a pretty good coach in Mattison too. I'm not expecting them to drop off at all, even with some new guys, mainly because, most of the division is weak.

I think both of our teams could easily win 9 maybe 10 games, depending on our offensive play and their Defensive play. I think our game against each other could very well decide who wins the division.

 

[Green and White 95]

Well, you're partially correct. I do enjoy arguing. But don't flatter yourself... it could be with anyone; Spartans, Fighting Irish, Badgers, Cornhuskers.

buckeyes are the best though; not only is there the rivalry, but they tend to wrap their cause in all sorts of self-righteous language, inspired by books like this:

and the irony of the whole thing... contrasting that holier-than-thou attitude with a program & coach that mainly succeeded by turning a blind eye to the "thug life" of the jockomos they were recruiting is just too precious.

...you guys don't bring that sort of thing to the table. you're too normal.

when MSU trots out a Three Stooges act like this:

... and your fans still rush to defend the program & coach's legacy... then maybe, just MAYBE you could get to their level.

Yeah but, how many Buckeys, Cornholers, Domers and Vadgers do you argue with on here. :shrug:

It's all about us, and you got half wood when Sbee and some of the others joined.

To be fair, I am looking forward to football now. It will be nice arguing with a better MSU crowd on board, rather than being piled on by you and your cronies.

 

[Sbee]

either way I see about 9 wins for us, hopefully we're good enough to make the big ten title game

 

[keric9823]

either way I see about 9 wins for us, hopefully we're good enough to make the big ten title game

Anything less than 8 wins is a disappointment, IMO. Easy schedule.

 

[Spartanmack]

8 would be a disappointment because to "achieve" that we would have to lose to the three decent teams (nd, mich and neb) and 1 bad one or pull off a mild upset and lose to 2 bad teams...5 of our 2013 B1G opponents won 3 conference games or less last year.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

either way I see about 9 wins for us, hopefully we're good enough to make the big ten title game

I think it will be hard to make the big ten title game with 9 wins. Of Michigan/Neb/NW/MSU one of us has to have at least 10 to make the title game - if not 11.

 

[Sbee]

I think it will be hard to make the big ten title game with 9 wins. Of Michigan/Neb/NW/MSU one of us has to have at least 10 to make the title game - if not 11.

i'm counting ND as a loss and assuming we go 6-2 in big ten play. Michigan will likely to lose to OSU and at least one other game, most likely at MSU or Nebraska, possibly @ NW. Nebraska's schedule is easy, no tough crossovers unless you want to count @PSU.

I guess if you look at the Michigan, MSU, and Nebraska games, whoever wins 2 of 3 head to head will more than likely go to the title game. Michigan is at a bit of a disadvantage since they play OSU, less margin for error there.

 

[Spartanmack]

I think the same re: our record. nd is a bad and beatable team but we've been struggling against them the last 2 years and that will likely continue. But I wouldn't count osu at mich as a loss for the wolverines just yet. osu was nowhere near as good as their record last year and they hardly dominated them in columbus - losing at half and scoring a whopping 6 points in the 2h to win by 5 at home. there were a lot of really bad football teams in the B1G last year and osu almost lost to 3 of them.

 

[Green and White 95]

I think we lose to ND, Nebraska and either Um or N'Western. ND has owned us lately, and I don't think we have ever beaten Nebraska. N'western is going to be pretty good, and they seem to always give us fits.

 

[Spartanmack]

Agreed but that means we probably lose to every one of the teams on our schedule that doesn't flat-out suck. Thats ZERO quality wins - pretty discouraging considering the state of the league. And none of those 3 teams are great so the fact we expect to lose those game is also telling.

 

[Green and White 95]

I think the B1G will be down this year, with the exception of OSU. They can easily run the table with our conference being so weak and make the NC, and then get throttled again by another SEC team. We could be in the B1G championship game or we could have another year like last year. Our D should be solid again. Our offense is the key to a real good year, or another dissapointment.

 

[Spartanmack]

Yeah the league will be down again this year but it was worse last year and look what happened. Still, less than 9 wins will be a disappointment and a year like last year means we are B1G doormats. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial.

Maybe I'm missing something as I seem to be the only person not sold on osu's (relative) greatness - last year they almost lost at home to Purdue, barely beat us and took most of 60 minutes to beat Indiana. Their schedule is a bit easier i suppose but swapping in NW & Iowa for MSU & neb isn't that much easier, esp if you think NW could be better than MSU.

 

[Sbee]

Yeah the league will be down again this year but it was worse last year and look what happened. Still, less than 9 wins will be a disappointment and a year like last year means we are B1G doormats. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial.

Maybe I'm missing something as I seem to be the only person not sold on osu's (relative) greatness - last year they almost lost at home to Purdue, barely beat us and took most of 60 minutes to beat Indiana. Their schedule is a bit easier i suppose but swapping in NW & Iowa for MSU & neb isn't that much easier, esp if you think NW could be better than MSU.

OSU was far from dominant last year, they could have lost a lot of games, they were kind of the opposite of MSU. don't make too much out of their 12-0 record but they are clearly the best team in the big ten going into this season

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm definitely not making too much of their record - in fact, I'm heavily discounting it. I don't think there is a team that is "clearly the best team in the big ten going into the season." Last year, that was supposed to be us - lesson learned. I'm waiting until the ball is in the air but I expect a few teams to have 2 or fewer losses. osu is probably one of them but rather than starting them out w/ the crown, I'll put it on shelf and let everyone fight it out.

 

[johnny2x2x]

I agree on Ohio State, they could have easily had 4 or 5 losses. The officials blew a call against us that cost us a TD. Purdue had them beat. Cal came close to beating them too. Purdue absolutely gave the game away. Wisky took them to OT. And Michigan was in that game. They're a good team, but talks of a National Title are premature IMO.

 

[Sbee]

I agree on Ohio State, they could have easily had 4 or 5 losses. The officials blew a call against us that cost us a TD. Purdue had them beat. Cal came close to beating them too. Purdue absolutely gave the game away. Wisky took them to OT. And Michigan was in that game. They're a good team, but talks of a National Title are premature IMO.

it's a good thing they weren't eligible last year, they would have lost 35-0

 

[Green and White 95]

Yes, OSU wasn't a great 12-0 team last year, but they still found a way to win all their games. They are strong at almost every position and have IMO, the leagues best QB. Our conference appears to be even more down than last year ( according to the few articles I have read ) and they have a fairly easy schedule as well. Anything can happen, but they are talented, well coached, and in better position than any other B1G team. Of course, they will get steamrolled by an SEC if they make it to the NC, just because they're OSU, and thats what they do.