The penalties were ridiculous<\/strong><\/h3>\nCam Fancher invited many of these penalties with his exploitation of the quarterback slide rule. The Spartans were also on the wrong side of what felt like every borderline call. At the same time, MSU\u2019s lack of discipline was jarring. The TV broadcast mentioned early in the game that the defensive staff was aware of Fancher\u2019s tendency to slide late. Nevertheless, the Spartans seemed completely surprised. It was an issue all night. And it was an issue for multiple players. Malik Spencer was ejected for targeting. Dillon Tatum was whistled for a horse collar a few yards out of bounds. And Jordan Turner was flagged for removing his helmet on the field. That can\u2019t happen, especially with veterans like those players that are supposed to be leaders. MSU got away with it because of their opponent. But that won\u2019t be the case for the rest of this season.<\/p>\n
The offense was clunky<\/strong><\/p>\nI expected a slow start on offense because of all the new pieces. But this performance failed to meet even my reduced expectations. Aidan Chiles completed just 10-of-24 passes and looked shaky in the second half. His best ball of the night, rolling to his right, and finding Aziah Johnson on the right sideline, was followed by an underthrown out-route at the goal line that FAU took the other way.<\/p>\n
Chiles couldn\u2019t get on the same page with his receivers outside of the pocket. He was consistently off-target on throws down the sideline. MSU\u2019s lack of a reliable running game didn\u2019t help. But it appears as if the concerns at receiver are valid. Montorie Foster coughed the ball up in the red zone while no other receiver had more than one catch. Chiles\u2019 first interception was a poor decision, and he put the ball on the ground again in the first half after hesitating on what appeared to be a designed quarterback draw. Maybe this FAU defense will end up being as good as 2022 Georgia, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, MSU needs substantial improvement on that side of the ball to do anything of note this season.<\/p>\n
Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams might be RB1<\/strong><\/h3>\nI thought Nate Carter had all-conference potential coming into this season. But man, it just wasn\u2019t there for him tonight. Averaging 2.5 yards per carry on 19 attempts isn\u2019t good enough. There are going to be games when the ground game isn\u2019t working. But when your counterpart goes for 101 yards on nine attempts, it\u2019s fair to raise some questions. Lynch-Adams looked so much more decisive in his decision-making. He hit the gaps hard. And he made the FAU defense feel him<\/em>. Oh, and his 61-yard score was by far MSU\u2019s most explosive play of the night. Nate Carter is still a valuable asset for this team, but in this scheme, Lynch-Adams might be the better fit.<\/p>\nRyan Eckley is a weapon<\/strong><\/h3>\nIt did not take long for Michigan State\u2019s punter to pick up where he left off in 2023. Ryan Eckley downed his first punt at the FAU one, which led to a Michigan State safety. Credit him with those two points. On the night, he kicked six times for 297 yards. That\u2019s 49.5 yards per kick, meaning Eckley is \u2013 literally \u2013 flipping field position on his punts. That\u2019s going to be a luxury for a Michigan State football team that might need every one of those hidden yards this season.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Smith\u2026 be smarter, dude<\/strong><\/h3>\nPerhaps Jonathan Smith was a little too amped up for his first game. I don\u2019t have any other explanation for his decision to go for it on fourth-and-2 up six midway through the fourth quarter. That\u2019s a kick Jonathan Kim makes 99 percent of the time. Your defense is balling out. At that point in the game, FAU probably only has two possessions left anyway. You might as well force them to score on both. Furthermore, it wasn\u2019t like MSU\u2019s offense was in any sort of rhythm. You\u2019ve got to kick that and extend the lead.<\/p>\n
Most of the drama that ensued late in the game wouldn\u2019t have mattered if MSU had taken the points to go up nine. I don\u2019t expect that to be a theme with Smith. Friday night was out of character. Let\u2019s hope the same can be said for MSU\u2019s offense and lack of discipline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let me ramble for a minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":19053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[565,59,191,189,504],"class_list":["post-19042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-aidan-chiles","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}