Two things before this gets going.

Grambling State is an FCS program in the SWAC and this is a paid guarantee game, which is a thing your school also does. You can find the matchup funny. The forty comments we removed last night were not that.

Second, the Michigan State head coach is 28 years old. Discuss it all you want. His family, his high school and the marching band photos are off limits, and we are tired of saying so.

The part I can't get past is the dual play-calling. Not "he's involved on both sides." Not "he has input." He is the offensive play caller and the defensive play caller of a Big Ten team, in his first year as a head coach anywhere, having never coached a college game.

Every time I bring this up somebody tells me it's fine because he hired a real DC, and I keep saying, ok, but that's the answer you give when you're already a little worried about the same thing I'm worried about.

Every year one of these games turns real and it's always a team that spent August talking about culture. Not saying it's this one. Saying it's always one of them.

I've stopped pretending I know what's going to happen. I want the walkout to look good and I want us to not turn it over four times. that's the whole list

the number of people in here who learned our school exists on Monday and have already decided what we are is something. we've been playing football since 1926.

I do not have a dog in this and I'm watching at noon. There is no version of this game that isn't interesting. Either it's fine and boring, which for them is a huge deal, or it isn't fine, and that's a whole different Saturday.

we play them week 4 so I've watched more Michigan State content this offseason than any sane person should. I still could not tell you one thing about their offense. there is no tape. there is no scrimmage video. there is a guy on youtube from three years ago breaking down other people's offenses.

unrelated but did people see michigan state offered Coakley

we're next. nobody is talking about us. that's fine. that's how we like it.

I've been on this sub for eleven years and the thing I'd say to the neutrals is that we're not nervous because we think Grambling is going to beat us. We're nervous because we don't know what our own team is. There's a difference and it's hard to explain without sounding insane.

the thing that actually surprises me is that a Big Ten school hired a 28 year old at all. forget whether he's good. somebody had to sit in a room and sign that.

an option team and a first year defense and a noon kick. this is the most Iowa game ever played and it isn't ours.

I don't need genius. I need eleven guys lined up correctly and I need to not be embarrassed in my own stadium

we get them week 12 and I've already decided I'm going to like this team. not respect. like. those are different

reading this thread as somebody with no stake and the funniest part is that the michigan state fans are meaner about michigan state than anybody else in here

noon kickoffs in september are the best product this sport has and nobody agrees with me

I agree with you actually

calling both sides is not the flex people think it is. it means you couldn't afford two coordinators you trusted. that's usually what it means anyway

we've been the joke for so long that being the curiosity feels like a promotion and that's bleak when I type it out

2,600 comments on a preview thread for an FCS game. this website is unwell and I am part of the problem

one more thing and then I'll leave it. we have played teams like this before. it's not new to us. most of you are finding out we exist this week, which is fine, that happens every year.

set a reminder for noon. that's genuinely the first time I've done that for a game involving an FCS team

Tackle first, because that's the job he's actually done.

A tackle plays in space. The man across from him has to travel to become a problem, and the tackle gets about a yard of room and a second to use it. Length out there is free money. Long arms mean you touch a rusher before he touches you. Tall tackles are normal. Tall tackles are preferred.

Center is a different sport. He's in a phone booth. There is a nose either right over his head or shaded a half man off it, and that man's whole job is to walk him backward into his own quarterback. You win that with pad level. Hips under you, your shoulder pads under his, force coming up out of the ground. Lower pads win, almost every single time, and it isn't close.

So it's not that tall guys are weak. It's that 6'7 has further to travel to get low, and then has to stay there while doing three other things. And his arms, which are the best thing about him at tackle, do nothing when the fight is happening under his chest.

The three things nobody brings up:

• The snap is a one-handed athletic movement made while the other hand and both feet are already committed. Half a count late and the guard next to him is blocking air.
• He IDs the front, declares the Mike, sets the protection, and keeps talking until the ball moves. That's a language and you're supposed to have spoken it ten thousand times. He started in the spring.
• Short yardage. Third and one is decided in about six inches, and a guy who has to sink first and get movement second is a guy who gets moved backward on the one down where backward is a disaster.

Now the other way, because it's real and I don't want to be the guy who only argues one side.

The center is not your fifth best lineman. He's in on every call and more combination blocks than anyone. If you have one guy who is clearly the best athlete on the line and also one of the smartest people on the roster, the place that buys you the most is the middle, because everywhere else it helps him and in the middle it helps all five. Watch a combo. Center and guard double a three tech, then one of them has to come off and find a linebacker who is already running. That is the most athletic thing an interior lineman does. And in protection the center is the free man more than anybody. He slides, he picks up the late one, he closes a stunt. Length is an asset there instead of a tax.

So: real costs, real benefits. I've talked myself into and out of it about six times since Monday. I lean skeptical and I would be happy to be wrong. It'll be readable on tape by the second series and none of us have to guess for long.

the part that gets me isn't the height. it's that he's making the calls. he's never made a call in his life and now he's doing it in front of 70,000 people against a team that moves before the snap on purpose

we moved our best tackle to center because we don't have a center. that's what this is. everybody's writing essays about geometry and the actual answer is we don't have a center

lurker here. we did this in like 2018 with a guy and it worked out fine, he ended up playing a long time. it is not the insane thing this sub thinks it is. it's a thing that happens.

my brother in law played center at a d3 school in the 90s and he says the snap is the easy part and everybody who says otherwise never did it. take that for what it's worth, he also thinks the moon landing was filmed in arizona

can somebody explain what a nose tackle shading him means. I've read it four times in this thread and I'm nodding along like an idiot

everyone in here has a strong opinion about a guy nobody in here has watched play a snap of college football at the position he is about to play. including me. I think it's fine. I have no reason.

the guy is 6'7 and reportedly the best athlete on the line. I'm choosing to think that's cool instead of terrifying. ask me again saturday at 12:20

man y'all be overthinking. dude been playing football his whole life. he'll be alright or he won't and either way we finding out in three days

not my team, not my business, but I've seen this move work twice and fail twice and the difference both times was whether the guy could snap it in the rain

the actual bet here is that our coach can see something in a player that four other staffs didn't. that's either the whole reason we hired him or the reason we're going to be sad. no middle

I don't understand a word of this and I read all of it. Good luck to that young man.

saved this to read at the tailgate to people who did not ask

Bookmarking this so I can come back Saturday night and see which half of it aged badly.

wait so is a nose tackle the same as a defensive tackle. genuinely asking, no jokes

somebody in this thread is going to be right on saturday and they are going to be unbearable about it for a month

it'll be me

ten thousand words about a center and the guy hasn't taken a snap yet. we are so far gone

What bothers me is not the decision. It's that the decision was made by a guy who has been here since December and everybody in the building apparently agreed instantly. Milivojevic played through a broken offense last year and did not embarrass anybody. That's supposed to count for something.

I hope I'm wrong. I've been wrong about quarterbacks here going back a long way.

the guy was hired to change the ceiling. you don't change the ceiling by starting the guy who kept it at 6-6. that's it, that's my whole take, I've typed it nine times this summer

he looks fourteen

Quick thing nobody's saying. Whichever one of them starts, the interior line is the same five guys, and against an FCS front it's going to look fine either way. We will not learn anything about protection this week. We'll learn something about the quarterback's eyes and almost nothing else.

y'all are going to feel terrible in november when Milivojevic is still here being a good teammate and nobody said one nice thing about him all week

drive by from a week 3 opponent, we are watching this quarterback situation extremely closely and I want you to know that reading this thread has told me absolutely nothing

My grandson is a freshman there and says nobody on campus can pronounce Milivojevic and everybody can say Hannan. I don't think that's why they did it but I do think it matters more than you all want to admit.

I'll say the boring one. It's Grambling. Whoever plays quarterback should be fine and we won't actually know anything until week 3. everybody in this thread including me is arguing about a game that hasn't happened using information nobody has.

every august this sub decides the quarterback question is settled and every october we're back in here

my kid is in a class with a guy on the team and says everybody in the locker room likes both of them and there's no drama. that's third hand from a nineteen year old so weigh it accordingly

whatever happens saturday people are going to say the other guy would have done it better and there will be no way to prove anybody wrong. that's what makes quarterback threads eternal

can we not do the thing where a 19 year old gets a nickname before he's played a snap. it never ends well for the kid

we've had this exact thread nine times about our own quarterbacks and it has never once been useful. carry on though

we do this every year with somebody. remember when everyone was sure about the transfer guy. exactly.

the kid has a bigger arm. that's the reason. everybody keeps digging for a deeper one and I don't think there is one

I'll be honest I could not pick either of them out of a lineup and I've had season tickets since 2004

the honest version of this whole thread is that nobody here has seen either of them throw a football in a competitive setting in eleven months

whichever one plays, block for him. that's it. that's the post.

we get one week of this and then the poll comes out and we're #4 behind two teams that played nobody. I've made peace with it. no I haven't.

we play them week 3 and I genuinely cannot tell if that's now good or now much worse

USC was the only Big Ten team that played in week 0 and they won and nobody has mentioned it once. incredible conference we've built here

Four people have now DM'd me asking why the coaches poll is different. It is a different poll. Voted on by different people. I am not answering any more of these.

we're 5th and I refuse to look at it directly. if I look at it it goes away

the actual best two games this week are Louisville at Ole Miss and SMU at Florida State and this entire subreddit is going to spend saturday morning watching an FCS game in east lansing instead. we are not serious people.

being #1 in a preseason poll is the worst thing that can happen to you and I'd like to formally decline

the poll not updating is actually correct and everyone yelling about it every year is wrong. one week 0 game is not a season. you'd all hate it more if it moved forty teams on a tuesday.

Kam Robinson had two forced fumbles and two recoveries in week 0 and I have not seen his name once in this thread. y'all only watch the top ten.

every michigan state fan in here is doing math about week 3 in september. we play grambling in three days. we are not well.

jeremiah smith is going to win the heisman and this thread will not have mentioned him once by the time it's archived

2nd preseason and we will be 2nd on sunday and nothing will have happened. love this sport

preseason polls are a guess about a season that hasn't happened and we treat them like a document. every august. forever.

somebody in here told me on sunday that it was a fluke. 42-6. a fluke. I think about it every hour.

we're going to south bend in two weeks. I'd like everyone in this thread to stop talking about how angry they're going to be

I did not know the poll worked like this and I've watched this sport my whole life. thanks OP

I want to say the unpopular thing gently. We are not "in on" Carson Coakley. An offer went out.

He is the number one player in the country. Everybody offered him. Georgia offered him, Texas offered him, the schools that have actually signed a five star this decade offered him. Us sending one is not news, it's a form.

What IS interesting is the rest of the board, and nobody wants to talk about the rest of the board because the rest of the board is guards.

James Thomas is from Flushing. I've watched that kid play in person three times. He's not a superstar and I don't care. Getting a Flushing quarterback to take Michigan State seriously again is a bigger deal to me than the Maryland thing and I know that makes me a small person

ok dumb question. what does an offer actually cost them. like is there a limit

the leon kid's dad played here. that's the only one of these I've told a coworker about

we're going to go 0 for 21 on this board and everybody in here is going to act surprised

Neutral who follows recruiting closely. The interesting thing here isn't any single name, it's that MSU's board looks like a different school's board than it did eighteen months ago. Whether that converts is a completely separate question and probably a no. But somebody in that building decided to stop being polite about who they're allowed to call.

can we please have one week where we're normal about recruiting. it's game week. there's an actual game. saturday. against people. with a scoreboard

the Vaeao kid is a center and we are currently having a nervous breakdown about our center. somebody in that building has a sense of humor

Tyreke Carter is Jalen Carter's brother and that's the only fact on this entire board I've been able to get a normal person to care about

anybody else notice how many defensive backs are on this. four corners and two safeties. that's a staff that decided something about what they want to be

reading a list of teenagers' names and hometowns like it's a stock report. we are so strange as a species

21 names and I know two of them. that's normal right

The Bowser kid from Cass Tech is the one I'd actually watch. Detroit lineman, technically sound, not a freak. If they actually stay on him through December then the in-state stuff is real. If he signs somewhere else in October then it was a list of names.

we're going to lose the cass tech kid to michigan and I'm going to have to read about it for a week

the Fajardo kid is ranked like 500th and the write ups on him are better than half the four stars. that's the one I'd bet on in three years

63 opens at 7. we get there at 6:40 like always. there will be a guy in a folding chair who will tell you the lot is full. it is not full. he does not work there.

band person here, marched 00-03. get there for pregame. I know everybody says that and I know you don't. this one's going to be different and I'm not going to explain why because I'll start crying at my desk.

bringing my dad. he hasn't been to a game since 2019 and he won't tell me why. do not ask him. I'm posting this in case any of you see us

concessions question, did they change the beer setup or is it the same three stands with a 25 minute line

this is the only calm thread on this subreddit and I've read it three times

driving up from toledo with three guys who have never been to a college game before. one of them asked me yesterday if there's a halftime. genuinely excited to ruin their entire fall

every year I tell myself I'll do the whole day properly and every year I get there at 11:50 sweating. this is my year. probably not.

bathroom tip since nobody ever posts it. the ones by the northwest ramp are always empty at halftime because people forget they exist

bringing my nephew, he's seven, first game. he don't care who wins he just wants to see sparty. that's the correct way to do this and I'm a little jealous

reminder that the student section is going to be full at 11:45 for the first time since like 2015 and half of them are there for a guy who was in the band. it's a weird year

Practical one. If you are bringing somebody who has never been, tell them it's loud before the game starts, not during. People get overwhelmed in the tunnel walk and then feel stupid about it.

anyone know if they're doing the alumni band thing this year or is that just homecoming

reminder to drink water. it's going to be 74 and everyone is going to act like it's 55

bring cash for the guy selling water outside gate 3. he's been out there twenty years and the machines never work

6 is too low. this is the most watchable meaningless game of the entire weekend and it is not close. I do not care about Michigan State. I will be watching Michigan State at noon.

thank you for putting a real game first. I have read nine of these lists this week and six of them led with the FCS one.

Small note on the MSU game since OP mentioned it. "FCS tune-up" is doing a lot of work. An option offense against a defense that installed a bunch of new stuff in fall camp is a real football problem, and the reason is boring: you don't beat option with talent, you beat it with the same eleven guys doing the same dull assignment forty straight times.

Talent still wins most of these. It just doesn't win them at halftime.

where did you have us

34 games and we're not on the list at all. perfect. exactly right. no notes.

6th is higher than we've ever been on one of these lists and I'm aware it has nothing to do with us.

where's the pac 12 content. I'm kidding. there is none. I know.

I hate that our game is on this list. I want to be 34th. I want to be the game nobody checks in on

we already played. we won. nobody put us on a list. I'm going to keep saying it in every thread until somebody acknowledges it

list is fine. you have us too high. we are never as good as the list says in week 1 and we are always better in week 9

6th most watchable game in america and the entire premise is "will they be embarrassing." incredible achievement by this program

you have BYU too low again. you do this every week and you did it all last year too

put us 34th please. beg you.

You're not insane. You've just been conditioned. Everybody in here has watched this program lose a game it had no business losing at least once in the last decade, and once that happens the number next to a team's name stops feeling like information.

I'm not nervous about losing. I'm nervous about the first drive. if the first drive is a three and out with a false start and a timeout I'm going to feel it in my whole body

nah you good. everybody in here acting like nerves is a character flaw. it's football. it's supposed to make you feel something. that's why we do it

my wife asked me last night why I was up at 1am and I said I was reading about a center. she did not follow up and I think that's the healthiest thing about our marriage

I'm the opposite and I feel weird about it. I'm just excited. it's football again. we haven't had anything to be excited about in a long time and I'm not going to spend the one good week being scared

yes

I've had the game on my calendar since january with no reminder set because I didn't want it to buzz at me

you're not insane, the nerves are correct, option teams have beaten better rosters than ours in week 1 before. it happens like once every two years somewhere

I'm going to be fine until the band comes out and then I'm going to be a mess for four minutes and then I'll be fine again

nope. not insane. I've been nervous since the schedule came out in february and I marched in that band, I'm supposed to be the calm one

you'll feel better by the second quarter. you always do. we all do. and then in november we do this again

my sister asked me why I care this much about a team that has made me miserable for ten years and I didn't have an answer. still don't. going anyway.

nervous is the correct setting. calm people get blindsided. stay scared, live longer

the honest ranking of Big Ten week 1 storylines is 1) Michigan State, 2) nothing, 3) nothing, 4) whether Indiana is real, and we all know it and hate it

Our board has three separate threads about Michigan State's home opener. Three. Against Grambling. I've asked people to stop and they will not stop.

eleven home openers and about four of them are against teams you have to look up. the sport is fine everybody

genuine question for the MSU people, and I'm asking because we've been the punchline plenty. is the vibe there hopeful or is it dread. I genuinely can't tell from your posts and I've been reading them all summer.

we get them week 13 and by then this will either be the best story in the conference or a completely different coach. no in between. I've watched enough of these.

every year I come into these threads convinced this is our year and every year I leave having agreed with a Purdue fan about something. week 1 is a beautiful time

please stop agreeing with me it makes me nervous

the michigan state offer to a Maryland kid got more coverage in the DC area than our entire week 1 slate. no notes. love it here.

we get them week 5 at home and I have zero read on what that team will be by then. genuinely none.

eleven home openers against nobody and one of them is the most discussed game of the week. the sport is in a strange place

we play them week 8 in the rose bowl and I will be there with about four thousand other people. come out west, it's nice

we get them week 6 and I refuse to think about october in august

the little helmet killed me

every single one of these threads has one guy in the replies explaining pad level to people who are laughing at a doctor's office poster

laughing at this in the parking lot at work and then remembering it's our team

this sub has produced more content about a Michigan State center this week than about a 36 point loss involving a top 5 team and honestly good for you all

ok but he might be really good though

sent this to my group chat and one of them asked if it was real. she thought we hired a 6'7 center as head coach

the crop on this is atrocious and it's still the funniest thing on the front page

we are the meme team now. two years ago nobody made memes about us at all. I'm choosing to see this as growth

saved

I don't understand the joke but the little hat is cute.

printed it. it's on the fridge. my wife has asked twice.

the part where he said the bar has moved to "please play a normal football game" and then just repeated the word normal like eleven times. I was crying

I've been listening to that guy since college and I cannot tell anymore when he's doing a bit and when he's actually mad. today felt actually mad

the caller from Alma was the funniest part of my entire week. he waited on hold through all of that to ask about lot 79

locked on was better today if anyone wants the calmer version. shane spent ten minutes saying he doesn't know and I found it soothing

I like Dave. He's been yelling on my radio for twenty years and I would be sad if he stopped.

the callers this week have been unbelievable. a guy called in to complain that the coach smiles too much. that was the complaint.

radio in this state has been in a bad mood since 2016 and I don't think saturday is going to fix it either way

I've stopped listening to that station in the mornings and my blood pressure is measurably better. that's not a joke, my doctor mentioned it.

somebody clip the part where he says "I'm not asking for the world" four times and then asks for the world

I've never listened to sports radio and after this thread I don't think I'm going to start

what does a game like this actually do for the program. and I mean logistically, not spiritually

ok I'll use one of the halftime questions. how long do you all practice that

is the option a scheme thing or a personnel thing for you guys. like did you choose it or did it choose you

do you think you can win

what do you make of their coach. genuinely curious what it looks like from the other side

best thread on this sub in months and it's a guy from an FCS school patiently answering the same question forty times

backing him up on one thing. the "do you think you can win" question gets asked with two totally different tones and you can always tell which one you're getting

Thank you for doing this. Genuinely. Our fanbase has spent nine months talking about ourselves and it's been embarrassing to watch from the inside.

what's the trip like for your guys. is it a bus, is it a flight, when do you get in

what should we wear. is there a color thing. I don't want to be the person who shows up in the wrong green

how much does the surface matter to what you run. asking because most of the option teams I've watched play on turf now

see you saturday. hope it's a good game and I hope your people have a good trip.

this thread made me feel worse about saturday and better about people in general

twelve men on the field. if we don't do it once I'll go to bed happy

Mine is boring and pre-snap. Are they lined up and set with time to spare, or is somebody sprinting to a spot as the ball moves. You can tell how well a team has been taught in about four snaps and it has nothing to do with talent.

Second thing, and this one's specific to this game: whether the same guy has the same responsibility on the option all afternoon. Not whether we stop it. Whether the assignment stays put.

the sideline. if something goes wrong I want to see what the sideline looks like. that's my whole thing and I know it's not football

Cam Edwards getting a clean crease at some point. that's it. if the best player on the team never gets a clean look at anything then we already know the problem and it's the same problem as last year

third down. that's mine. I want to see one third and six where we call something on purpose instead of throwing it at somebody's feet and punting

the scoreboard. sorry. I'm old. it's the scoreboard.

tackling. we been bad at it for years and it don't matter what scheme he's running if guys is falling off. that's the one thing you can see with your own eyes without knowing anything

penalties. under six. that's normal to me. last year we had a game with twelve and I turned it off in the third

the crowd still being there in the fourth. that's mine. I've seen that stadium empty at 24-3 and it was the saddest thing I've ever seen at a football game

I want to see one RPO where he pulls it and throws it. just one. then I'll know the offense is real

the stadium sounding like a stadium. that's mine and I know it's not measurable

Whether the young men look like they're enjoying themselves. That's what I watch for and it has never once been wrong.

substitutions. if we're subbing cleanly against a fast tempo option team then somebody in that building can organize a football team

Thanks everybody. Better thread than I expected. I'll be watching the pre-snap stuff now and I resent that.

The fact that "they lose" is polling at nine percent is the entire Michigan State experience compressed into one number.

voted 25-34 and I want to be clear that I have no information. none. I looked at a number and picked the middle one.

the poll is basically useless because the range on a first-year staff's first game is enormous. same roster, same opponent, could be 45-7 or could be 24-17 and both are perfectly explainable afterward. that's not a cop out, that's just what week 1 is.

whatever it is, we get the leftovers next week and nobody will have voted on us at all

35+ and I'm not being brave, I just think the talent gap is enormous and everybody in here has convinced themselves otherwise because we're bored

voted 14-24 purely so I can quote myself later. that's the only reason anyone votes in these

voted 25-34 because that's what a normal team does to an FCS team and normal is the whole thing we're asking for

41,000 votes. on this. in august. we all need a job

voted 1-13 and I'd like everyone to know I'm the reason that bar looks like that

two tickets section 22 at face, my brother in law bailed. dm me. not trying to make money I just want somebody to use them

long shot. lost a green quarter zip at the spring game. it has a coffee stain on the left sleeve.

my roommate who has never watched a football game in her life is coming saturday because she thinks the coach is hot. that's it. that's the reason. I'll take it