Michigan State football vs. Washington: Official Hopalytics preview

Michigan State football will be taking on Washington on Saturday evening and here’s your official Hopalytics preview.

Just need to address off the top what has occurred this week in the world of Michigan State football. Given the allegations against Mel Tucker, I have chosen to rebrand my online identity. ChopMan was a character I created based on the team mantra ‘keep choppin’’’ and I felt the need to separate myself from that identity. Adding the word ‘chop’ to everything has been a fun bit but I need to slightly modify moving forward. Indefinitely I will be going by the pen name HopMan.

My current bits will be changed to ‘Hopalytics’, ‘Hop-GPT’, ‘Hop-ometer’, etc. It also makes me laugh thinking about the players saying ‘keep hoppin’’’ after a mental error or mistake.

Now that is addressed, let’s get down to business. The game against Washington has upgraded from the most important game of the season to the most important game in program history. And I’ll tell you why: if you win this game and keep the nucleus of players together, you have a chance to salvage what we can and allow this to only be a speed bump in the program’s trajectory. If you lose this game (likely by a billion if you do), your team will be littered with portal entries and redshirts.  There will actually be a ‘mass exodus’ this time. And not to be dramatic, the program will be set back so far that it might not recover given the changing landscape of college football.

Here is what you need to know:

1. Don’t let Michael Penix bust coverages too quickly
   1. Not a secret but Michael Penix has always had the Spartan’s number even heading back to his days at Indiana. The Huskies are great on first and second  Our pass rush needs to make Penix’s life a living hell. It helps that Mark Dantonio has experience coaching against Penix.
2. Harlon Barnett is a dawg
   1. ‘I’m a dawg, be a dawg!’ – I posted this video from Barnett’s first press conference. Pretty obvious but this is his head coaching debut. Could our game management improve? Dare I say, could Barnett be a permanent replacement?
3. Jordan Hall breakout game?
   1. At this point, why not? I think he is the one recruit this program cannot afford to lose. Screw it, give him a full $95M guaranteed. Granted this is all dependent on Barnett’s performance. One (1) win out of Barnett and I’ll be bought all the way back in.
   2. On another note… Windmon may not play. Is this Jordan Hall’s breakout game?

The first Hopalytics prediction in the history of the world.

Michigan State 31, Washington 28

Kim game-winning 40-yard field goal
7 couches burned
1 HopCat burger for the HopMan

Woof,
HopMan