Michigan State 41, Eastern Michigan 13, read off the tape instead of the scoreboard. Three plays that made a cornerback’s second bad Saturday worse than his first, four sacks that all belong to one man, and what South Bend would actually settle.
This page has more work to do than it did a week ago. It is now the place on this site where the tape gets read straight, which means naming the man who lost the rep instead of describing a unit that had a difficult afternoon. Nobody enjoys that part.
Start with what the numbers are and are not. Michigan State gained 495 yards at 8.3 a play, converted 8 of 10 third downs, made 27 first downs, never punted, and was not penalized. Those are outstanding numbers against a MAC team, and about half of them were compiled after the game stopped being competitive. The competitive part of Saturday was the first twenty-six minutes, and Michigan State was outplayed for a good chunk of it. Eastern Michigan led 10-7. Braydon Bennett had 111 rushing yards and 55 receiving and did most of it before halftime. The Eagles converted four of their first six third downs.
Then it flipped, completely and for the rest of the day: three points allowed after halftime, two sacks, two interceptions, one of them returned 71 yards. Both halves are real. Every entry below carries a Notre Dame line, because the Irish are the first opponent on this schedule capable of punishing any of it, and because a road stadium in South Bend is a different exam than a noon kick at home.
Movement comes from what a man did on his own reps, weighted by who was across from him and by whether the play mattered. A 44-yard touchdown catch on third-and-one in a one-score game counts. A 12-yard gain in the fourth quarter of a 28-point game does not, and there were a lot of those.
The best individual performance by a Michigan State player this season, and the cleanest one to evaluate, because it was one receiver against one corner for three hours. Caleb Dobbs played him soft and inside through the first quarter and Smith took the hitches and slants that alignment hands you. Dobbs crowded him in the second quarter, and on third-and-one Michigan State took a shot down the boundary that went for 44. The first touchdown was a back-shoulder throw in the end zone against tight coverage, which is a timing rep between a quarterback and a receiver more than it is an athletic one.
Two hundred forty-one yards and 14 catches through two games, no drops on Saturday after the one he confessed to a week ago, and 53 yards after the catch on seven receptions. He is being used at all three receiver spots. That is a staff telling you who it trusts, and it is not the name printed first on the depth chart.
Michigan State opened with an all-pass drive, which was a read on Eastern Michigan’s secondary and not a philosophy. Then it tried to establish Cam Edwards inside and could not, because Warren-Stevens Tayou was two yards into the backfield on most of it. Nine early carries produced almost nothing. The adjustment was to stop running at Tayou and start running around him, get to the perimeter, and use the tight ends against a safety who could not cover either of them. That happened inside the first quarter and a half, not at the break.
The result is a run game that finished with 209 yards on 39 carries at 5.4 and a passing game that finished at 13.6 a throw, with each of them created by the other. Eight of ten third downs. Twenty-seven first downs. No punts. The one call that failed was the fourth down in Eastern Michigan territory before halftime, a slant to Smith into coverage that was too contested to complete, and it went on the board as a turnover on downs.
The caveat is the size of the opponent. A MAC defense will let you find an answer. It is still the most convincing three hours of coaching this staff has produced, and it happened against the only structural problem Eastern Michigan actually presented.
Last week this page put him at flat and said the reason was that Michigan State barely played its base defense against an option team. Base personnel came back on Saturday and the entry came with it. Five tackles, two of them for loss on run fits from the slot, two pass breakups, and an interception he returned 71 yards for the loudest moment of the young season. The two tackles for loss are the part that matters more than the touchdown: they are the exact job the move was designed around, a fifth defensive back who can fit a run without being removed from the field.
He has two interceptions in two games. He is also, by his own account, reading the quarterback rather than the receiver from that alignment, which is what the position buys you and what an outside corner cannot do.
Paracheck three catches for 51, Whiting three for 63. Eastern Michigan gave Paracheck to safety Bryce Llewellyn and it did not work once, and the second half of the game plan ran through that fact. Both tight ends were also on the field for the run game that produced 209 yards, which is the less visible half of their afternoon and the half that made the perimeter work.
Neither is a mismatch weapon in the way the offseason discussion of this offense assumed. They are two competent starting tight ends who were asked to block and catch on the same drives and did both, which is worth more in September than a highlight.
Two tackles for loss and a sack from a sophomore playing his second game inside after spending the spring on the edge. Eastern Michigan’s center, Nicholas Gallegos, was displacing Michigan State’s interior for most of the first half. Simmons was the one player on that side of the ball who won reps at the point of attack while that was happening.
He was in this column’s other half a week ago. That entry stands as written and this one does too. A second-year player got beaten in the opener and was in the backfield three times seven days later, and the second fact is the more useful one for anybody trying to figure out what he is.
The rating is 222 and the honest version of the day is narrower than that. Hannan threw fifteen passes in the first half and six in the second. Two hundred yards, both touchdown throws and his own one-yard rushing score came before the break. After halftime Michigan State ran it and he executed the run game, cleanly, without a fumbled exchange and without a pre-snap penalty in the entire game.
The throws that moved him: the back-shoulder ball in the end zone to Smith, which required placing it where only the receiver could adjust; the 44-yard shot on third-and-one, a call that only works if the quarterback is willing to hold it an extra beat behind a line that had already given up sacks; and a first-half sequence where he took the checkdown three straight times instead of forcing anything. He has now thrown 44 passes in two starts with no interceptions.
What has still not happened: a competitive second half. Through two games he has not taken a snap with the outcome in doubt after halftime, which is not his fault and is the reason nobody can honestly grade him yet.
Twenty-two for 158 with a long of 20, which means no single run did the work. The early carries went nowhere because there was nowhere to go. Once the runs moved outside, the yards came in bulk, in the second half, against a defense that knew what was coming and was not able to do anything about it. Two straight weeks of 150-plus at better than seven a carry.
He also spent his availability handing the credit to the tight ends and the playcaller, and he was right on the football. That does not change his price. He is the best player on this roster and Saturday was the first time this season he had to be patient before he was good.
The second bad Saturday in a row, and worse than the first. Take the plays one at a time, because most of the arguing this week has been about a cornerback in general rather than about three specific snaps.
The touchdown. Second quarter, Eastern Michigan at the Michigan State 44. The Spartans showed five and rotated the free safety away from the field, which left Brantley alone on Nick Devereaux with nobody inside twenty yards of him. Devereaux stemmed two steps inside. Brantley opened his hips to the inside and had to flip and run, and the separation went from nothing to three yards by fifteen and six yards by twenty-five. Kim’s throw was ordinary. Devereaux caught it in stride at the 22 and slowed down at the 5. Forty-four yards, walk-in, 10-7 Eastern Michigan. This is the play with a coaching share in it: five-man pressure that did not get home, no help over the top, and the best receiver on the other roster. Mansour has taken that one publicly and he is right to. The technique on the stem is still the corner’s.
The missed tackle. Same quarter. Checkdown to Bennett in the flat, Brantley came downhill unblocked with an angle and a two-way go, went in low and to the outside, and Bennett ran through his near shoulder for about twenty more. No scheme involvement whatsoever. That is a defensive back arriving without his feet under him against a back everybody in the stadium knew was hard to tackle.
The fourth quarter. Third-and-9, Michigan State up four scores. Brantley aligned eight yards off, a receiver ran a 12-yard comeback in front of him, and he was still moving backward when the ball arrived. Twenty-two yards. Eastern Michigan kicked its second field goal five plays later. Nobody schemed that either.
The through-line across two weeks is transition. Week 1 was two contested balls lost on third down to an FCS receiver, which one game could reasonably be written off as a bad afternoon at the catch point. This week it showed up three different ways: opening the hips on a stem, breaking flat-footed on a comeback, arriving high on a tackle. All three come back to the same half-second. A corner who is late out of his stance loses all of them.
What has not happened: he was not taken off the field for a single defensive snap, and he is still the kick returner, where he had three returns for 58 yards. That is a staff decision and it is a defensible one. It is also the only thing anybody outside the building has to go on, because the head coach will not grade a player publicly, has said so five separate times this week, and is not going to start. That policy is his and it is consistent. The tape is not covered by it. The tape says a starting corner has been the specific reason for points in back-to-back games.
Warren-Stevens Tayou had all four of Eastern Michigan’s sacks and two of them came through Sharpe, who was the primary man on him for most of the afternoon. Beyond the sacks, the reason Michigan State could not run inside for the first quarter and a half is that Tayou was living a yard and a half deep in the backfield in the A and B gaps. Sharpe was a week removed from being one of the better graders on this line against Grambling.
The honest read is that he was outmatched by a good player and got no help until the staff schemed around it. A MAC defensive tackle should not require a game plan to be rewritten.
He gave up one of the four sacks and several pressures on top of it, which is the second consecutive week this column has had to write down pressures allowed by the right guard. Last week the qualifier was that nobody had actually been sacked. That qualifier is gone.
He also lost the rep that produced the fourth sack in a roundabout way: Tayou looped from Vincic’s side and Rustin Young was late coming off his man to pick him up. Two interior linemen, one loop, four seconds.
Braydon Bennett is small, is not a burner, and ran through Michigan State’s defense for the better part of a half. He carried 18 times for 111 and caught eight for 55, nearly all of it before the break. The film is repetitive: a Spartan defender arrives alone, arrives high, arrives without his feet, and Bennett keeps going for four or five more.
The third downs were the more serious failure and got less attention. Eastern Michigan converted four of its first six, and on those conversions the receiver was standing there uncovered. That is a communication and alignment problem before it is a coverage one. Michigan State was fine on first down and fine on second down all afternoon, which is the pattern that produces exactly this kind of half.
The fix was small and it worked completely: play it slower, let it come to you, fit it with two defenders. Three points after halftime. That does not un-happen the first twenty-six minutes, and this column does not grade on second halves against MAC teams.
He had gone eight for eight on extra points in the opener without attempting a field goal, and this page said at the time that nobody had learned whether there is a placekicker here. Saturday was the first data and it was bad: the field goal missed, and one of six extra points missed as well. Two misses on seven kicks.
It cost nothing on a day Michigan State scored six touchdowns and never punted. There is a version of the schedule about eight weeks from now where two misses is the entire afternoon.
Most of a roster does not move in a 28-point win over a MAC team. Some men were fine. Some had numbers that hide a mixed afternoon. Some never got asked a question worth answering. Everything below is here because a movement arrow would have been a lie.
Eleven tackles, a tackle for loss and an interception, and the interception was a ball thrown to him. Tackle totals for a linebacker are partly a measure of how many plays reached the second level, and a great many of them did. By his own account he had Bennett in the hole three times before halftime and Bennett got out of two of them. That is on the tape and it is not a small thing.
The second half was excellent and it looked like the player everybody thought was the best defender on this roster. Two halves that far apart average out to no movement.
Against him: he gave up the fourth sack, late off a combination to pick up a looping edge, which is a recognition rep rather than a strength rep. Eastern Michigan’s Gallegos, a conventional center, was consistently moving Michigan State’s defensive front off the ball in the same game, which is not a direct comparison and is the comparison people are going to make anyway.
For him: the exchanges were clean for a second straight week, Michigan State was not penalized once, there was not a single procedural error in 60 snaps, and the line calls came out fast enough that a first-year offense converted eight of ten third downs. The specific objection to the move was that identification would be slow from a player learning the job. Two games, zero pre-snap penalties.
The one thing still untested is the objection that started the argument: pad level against a nose playing directly under him in short yardage. Michigan State has not been in short yardage often enough for anybody to know.
The player listed first in this receiver room caught one pass on a day the offense gained 495 yards. He had two touchdowns and five punt returns in the opener and he was on the field for most of Saturday. The ball simply went elsewhere: to the man beating a corner all afternoon, and to two tight ends against a safety who could not handle them.
This is worth flagging without punishing him for it. A receiver with one catch is either being schemed away from or is not winning, and one game does not distinguish those. Eastern Michigan also punted only three times, so the return work that was half his value in Week 1 was mostly unavailable.
Two carries for three yards and a touchdown, which is a nice Sunday for a redshirt freshman and tells you nothing about the reason he is on the field. The mismatch bet was always about whether a defense has to adjust when he detaches, and against Eastern Michigan nobody adjusted to anything because nobody needed to. He blocked in a run game that produced 209 yards. He did not fumble.
A week after a fourth quarter that emptied the sideline, he did not throw a pass in a game Michigan State led by four scores for most of the second half. That is the entry. Whether it reflects a shorter leash on the mop-up window, a run-heavy fourth quarter, or nothing at all is not knowable from here, and this page is not going to guess.
The first half: 111 rushing yards to a back who is 5-foot-9, four of six third downs converted, receivers standing uncovered, a 44-yard walk-in touchdown, and a stadium that went quiet. The second half: three points, two sacks, two interceptions, a 71-yard return, and an offense that could not reach midfield.
The adjustment in between was small. Depth, patience, two men to the ball. That argues that the first half was a correctable error rather than a structural one. The counter is that a defense which needs a correction against Eastern Michigan will not get twenty-six minutes to find one anywhere else on this schedule. Both readings survive Saturday intact, and Michigan State has now had a bad first defensive quarter in both games it has played.
The Irish lost 42-6 to Miami, lost 38-10 at home to an unranked Wisconsin team, then beat Rice 52-10 and returned to the fringes of the poll. Those are three data points and they support three different conclusions. A team that gets physically beaten twice in a row is usually a team with a real problem. A team that hangs 52 on somebody is usually not finished.
The relevant facts for Michigan State are narrower. Notre Dame has better players at more positions, an offensive line that has been starting together for years, and a home stadium roughly half of Michigan State’s two-deep has never played in. It is also a program having the worst September it has had in a decade, which is going to make South Bend an extremely unpleasant place to visit on Saturday.
Sateki Vaeao named a top five with Michigan State leading. So did Devin Jennings. So did Tyreke Carter, with Georgia hovering. James Thomas cut to three finalists with Michigan State first. Jalen Peacock is now a coin flip against his hometown school. Diego Fajardo leans Michigan State over Virginia Tech. Marquise Southerland, Josh Ingold and Roosevelt Edwards are all trending the right way; the Edwards recruitment is a straight in-state fight with Michigan. Jake Landing is going the other direction. Carson Coakley still has his official scheduled and no news. Patrick Paul cut Michigan State loose.
The most interesting item is the one that looks like a loss: Michigan State dropped Marvin Officer III. A staff that offers a player and then stops calling him has decided its hours are worth more somewhere else. It is the one item on this list that Michigan State did rather than got told.
Nobody covering this, this page included, can tell yet whether a board full of leaders reflects real institutional pull or a coach who is extremely good on the telephone. Both explanations fit every fact currently available.
Notre Dame is the first opponent this season that can beat Michigan State without Michigan State making a mistake, which changes what is worth watching. Ignore the score until the fourth quarter. Count four things instead: how many Irish receivers are uncovered on third down, how many pressures come through the two guard spots, whether a Michigan State defender arrives at a ball carrier alone, and how many snaps go by with somebody looking at the sideline after the offense has already lined up. Those four have now been the same four for two straight weeks, and every one of them travels.