A New Atmosphere
First, a bit about atmospherics and a new experience for me. As I’m Washington, DC-based I was able to attend the Maryland game in person. Thanks to O, press credentials were even wrangled. Though I didn’t need a press-box seat, I did head up the elevator at halftime to go check things out. That ended up being the same time Alan Haller and (I’m fairly certain) Otis Wiley headed up as well. Alan shook my hand and we exchanged introductions – we’ll pretend he knew exactly what The Only Colors is. I’ll send him an email.
As we emerged from the elevator, new MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz and a few others were waiting to head down. President Guskiewicz had been in attendance at an alumni fundraiser hosted by the DC Spartans the night prior. He saw me emerge in my green, held out his hand and we had a brief hello before he spoke with Alan and I continued down the uppermost stadium hall.
At the far end of the hall I saw and introduced myself to the massive Jason Strayhorn who shared that the post-game press conference would be held in a small room on the far-side of the field. Once time expired, the little press corps was to make their way down through the crowd of scurrying turtles to find a grey door attached to the side of the stands marked, “B1G, in use, please knock softly”. Inside, the Spartans / Auto Owners Insurance backdrop hung behind a table as MSU digital team members and a few beat reporters you’d recognize shuffled in, clickity-clacked keyboards, and edited video. After a brief hello to a very friendly Will Tieman at his Spartan Sports Network setup outside, I headed in, grabbed a seat and waited. I was way too early and also apparently missed current NFL’ers Nick Samac and Ben VanSumeren going by.
For the game itself… The atmosphere in “SECU” stadium was definitely not the “Fearsome” three-point standard home team differential it was meant to be against the Spartans. Minimally, because the DC Spartans showed up in force, overwhelming the lower bowl on the good-guy side of the field. The “Go Green, Go White!” chant was frequently louder than anything from the Maryland fans. And the stands were far from full – particularly on that sunny side of the field (when the sun did emerge in the second half). Jonathan Smith even commented on the noticeable support during the post-game presser. The nice people sitting around me on the shady side repeatedly pointed out I should have been sitting anywhere, “over there”.
Our guys must have smuggled the Spartan Stadium playlist into the sound booth as the pump-up music during breaks was right out of our home turf: Thunderstruck, 7-Nation Army, even a little Journey mixed in. Granted, the Terps did have an annoying habit of blasting music right up until Chiles was under center, and lighting up their scoreboard with, “This is not a distraction, per NCAA rule…,” during Kim’s kicks. Overall though, the three point home field advantage, just wasn’t.
Related, I was generally treated pretty decently in my Spartan Green – or at least ignored by the Maryland faithful. Only one doofus offered a, “F— off, Chucklehead” at game’s end as I bumped into him mid-bleachers en route to the press conference. Though, a larger friend of his apologized for the sour grapes. I didn’t mind, I just got waved through by security to run with the MSU overwatch staff (Joe Rossi & crew) down to the field and across to the MSU side of life where players and coaches were electric following the victory. The staff didn’t know who I was, but I was in green and wore Spartan shoes (the Zoom Pegasus, not the Max), so they just nodded and we went.
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Now, the really good stuff. Five Factors!
It’s been a while, so as a refresher, the five factors key to a football victory, as provided by Football Study Hall (and several prior TOC writers), include: Explosiveness, Efficiency, Field Position, Finishing Drives, and Turnovers. When combined, Explosiveness accounts for about 35%, Efficiency 25%, Field Position 15%, Finishing Drives 15%, and Turnovers about 10% of likelihood of win success.
These aren’t the end-all-be-all of game statistics, but the do shape an intriguing story. As the season progresses I’ll dig further into advanced statistics – unless folks aren’t interested.
Against Maryland, MSU solidly won in the Explosiveness and Efficiency categories. I think that is what most fans were looking to improve on from last week. Yards/Play against FAU was an anemic 4.8 across categories and bumped way up against Maryland. When just eyeballing a game, most will just get a feel for a team from essentially those two stats, possibly along with turnovers*. Defense also kept Terp numbers down.
For Saturday’s game though, MSU got edged in the other categories. The Spartans did not have great field position to start most of their drives. Part of that can be lobbed at special teams’ errors – Aziah Johnson did get replaced on kickoffs after two ill-advised returns to the 16. Though for other drives we can look at that as the defense eventually getting stops before drive momentum intensified for the Terps. Not the full bend-not-break of prior years (which is good for our collective blood pressure). Though there was enough for everyone to find room for improvement in the D – despite that side of the ball rising up repeatedly when needed.
“Finishing drives” is insidious. For the game Maryland only got within the MSU 40 five times. However, they converted on four of those with three TDs and a field goal. Their last opportunity was the FG miss that broke the Terrapins’ shell. MSU on the other hand, crossed the opponent’s 40 seven times, but only converted on five – including taking the 3 points, twice. MSU essentially had the ball one extra time and was more productive with it overall, but errors would kill drives regularly (though much less so than the week prior). The receivers looked a lot more in sync and the offense seemed more explosive overall with Aiden Chiles taking what the coverage (and upgraded play calling) gave him early. That allowed the run game to open up somewhat – with 130 yards between Carter and Kay’ron, balanced across carries. It was good to see pair gash the Maryland Defense in spurts. However, one could practically feel the points the run game left on the table as Maryland racked up 6 TFL’s with their two sacks, a QB Hurry (only one?), and three INTs. That one of those INTs was labeled as such, came as a shock to Aiden Chiles in the press conference, as he just thought with the pressure and pocket collapse on that play it must have been a fumble. (Though also, he seems to be able to wipe away errors and reset, quickly.)
Avoiding the QB pressure and boosting the run game is only going to become more challenging going forward, particularly with the injury to Kris “Big Dooley” Phillips. Some additional young meat is going to be shoved into the grinder soon. We’ll keep an eye on how the line progresses as the season goes.
Overall, the team made strides – but against this tougher competition, not enough to dominate the Five Factors scorecard. The Spartans have a immensely winnable matchup against SWAC foe Prairie View A&M this weekend and let’s hope some young depth gets thrown into the experience pool.
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Our Writers’ Scorecard
One last item. Among the TOC writers, two of us correctly predicted the MSU win. With his Palantir unearthed for the autumn season, “O” (aka. “Gandalf”), nailed the score perfectly, predicting a 27-24 MSU victory. We’ll give him a bonus point for that. So in the official-unofficial TOC writiers’ standings. we have:
O: 3-0
Brian: 2-0
Mike: 1-1
Steve: 1-1
The other two of our crew will be hanging their heads in shame for the rest of the week and will slap themselves appropriately for their transgressions until their next prediction.
*Please note, we’ve not incorporated adjusted turnovers yet as that stat depends on an average for which we simply don’t have enough data yet… or I’m doing this wrong. Either way, the Spartans need to cut back on turnovers and grab a few more of their own.