On Friday Michigan State took on the in state Central Michigan Chippewas to start the CFB season. Michigan State won 31-7 and shut out the Chippewas in 3 0f the 4 quarters, the Spartans will now look forward towards the Richmond Spiders on Saturday looking to start the new season 2-0.
Recap
On the first drive of the game MSU fans had no idea who would be coming out as the starting QB for the season, when out trotted redshirt junior QB Noah Kim. On the first play of the game Michigan State would hand it off to transfer Nathan Carter who would break it off for a 31 yard gain and an MSU first down, but the offense would quickly stall following a 4 yard run, 2 incompletions and a turnover on downs on 4th and 1. Central Michigan now had the ball following the MSU turnover, and Bert Emmanuel started driving, getting the Chips down to the MSU 2 yard line before turning the ball over on 4th and Goal. Noah Kim and Michigan State’s second drive wasn’t much better than the first and after 7 plays Punter Ryan Eckley came out to punt the ball away to CMU. Central Michigan got the ball and punted right back to the Spartans, MSU got the ball but a Noah Kim incompletion would force the Spartans to kick the ball back to the Chips with the score still at 0-0 now in the second quarter of play. Michigan State’s defense would get off the field forcing a Central Michigan punt. To this point the offenses were both stalling and neither team could get anything done, Noah Kim heard the boos in Spartan Stadium and threw a 23 yard completion to Tre Mosley on the first play, putting MSU in field goal range, the offense would yet again stall and the Spartans would send out Jonathan Kim for a 47 yard attempt, he drilled the kick right down the middle and MSU was up 3-0. 2 possessions later Bert Emmanuel found Chris Parker for a CMU touchdown putting the Chips up 7-3 with just 1:51 left in the half. Noah Kim went out and threw 2 30 + yard passes to Jaron Glover and had MSU down at the goal line with 48 seconds left in the 2nd, Nathan Carter got the call and ran it in from 2 yards out to put the Spartans up 10-7 at the half. So at halftime in a very slow paced game the Spartans were only up 10-7 on Central Michigan. But at the start of the second half Bert Emmanuel threw an interception on his first drive giving MSU the momentum and the ball. After a couple punts by each team MSU had the ball with 5:32 left in the 3rd Noah Kim drove the Spartans down the field 41 yards where at the CMU 12 Jalen Berger found the endzone to put Sparty up 17-7. After another Central Michigan punt Noah Kim launched a ball to Christian Fitzpatrick who broke a tackle and took the ball 72 yards down to the Central 10, Kim then dropped back looked left and threw the ball to the endzone where Tyrell Henry was running a fade route with a man on him, Tyrell went up, covered by the CMU defender and made an insane one handed grab for a touchdown putting Michigan State up 24-7. The MSU defense forced a 3 and out and got the ball back to the now red hot offense, where MSU drove 55 yards and threw an 8 yard TD pass to TE Maliq Carr to put them on top 31-7. Both teams would get the ball twice more and would punt until the end of the game. Michigan State moved to 1-0 on the new season with a quality win over Central Michigan.
How did MSU win?
Without a shadow of a doubt the reason for this win is the MSU defense, shutting out Central in 3 of the quarters and letting the Spartans offense find its footing. Forcing either or a turnover or a punt on 12 of the Chippewas drives was one of the bright spots for this young Michigan State team. Scottie Hazelton was able to draw up some rather good plays and shut down the Chips offense. Central Michigan was simply outmatched in the trenches and the Spartan defense was just more physical.
What to look forward to next week
Next week the Spartans will take on the Richmond Spiders in a game that should be over relatively early, look for QBs Noah Kim, Katin Houser, and even Sam Leavitt to get playing time in this game. This game should be a stepping stone for MSU and should be used to get all the players more comfortable in this offense, I’d like to see Noah Kim get more familiar with this offense next week, we saw this week that when Kim is comfortable he’s a top 5 QB in the conference, but the problem is getting him to feel comfortable and familiar, he was rather streaky against Central Michigan only throwing 18 completions on his 31 attempts. Michigan State should look to establish themselves next week and get everybody more comfortable before taking on a top 10 Washington team the week after Richmond.
Stat Leaders
Noah Kim 18-31 279 Yds 2 Tds
Nathan Carter 18 Car 118 Yds 1 Td
Javon Glover 3 Rec 75 Yds
Cal Haladay 10 Tack 1 Tfl 1 Int
Responses
Great analysis!