We all know Mark Dantonio shuffled the deck among his Offensive coaching staff during the off-season and now some folks are awaiting with bated breath for the Spartans to roll out an high flying aerial attack with video game scoring, but those folks are going to be summarily disappointed.
Let’s put it into perspective; Offensive shoot outs are a dangerous way to earn a victory:
If some folks including Spartan fans are looking for aerobatic passing, and video game scoring from the Spartans in 2019 they are following the wrong team.
Those folks need to turn on Washington State…Texas Tech…or Ole Miss (#1…#3…and #5 Passing respectively in 2018) each of whom averaged more than 350 Yards Passing per game in 2018, yet only Washington State posted a winning record.
So, don’t look for a revamped Spartan Offense to roll up “eye glazing” passing stats because it’s not in the Spartans DNA especially with Mark Dantonio overseeing the game plan. More importantly, the Spartans don’t need video game scoring, because they have a lock down, scoring stopping Defense!
Whilst some fans may admire Oklahoma for averaging more than 570 Yards of Offense in 2018 including nearly 325 Yards Passing, and nearly 250 Yards Rushing including 48 points per game, that game plan won’t work in the Big Ten in inclement weather from mid-October through the end of November.
And let’s underscore this point: “shoot outs” are a dangerous way to earn victories. It’s notable that Oklahoma Defense yielded more than 40 points in 6 games last season inclusive of yielding 45 points to Alabama in a season ending 31-45 beat-down in the CFP and here is the point: it is hard for an football team to control their destiny in a shootout.
So, don’t look for the Spartans to start recklessly throwing the football all over the yard, because Spartan Defense is their “key” to victories.
Defense is (and will continue to be) Mark Datonio’s calling card:
Defense will continue to be Mark Dantonio’s calling card, not video game offense…
By all measures, the revamped Spartan Offense simply needs to be efficient, and that “sweet spot” is probably 200 Yards passing…200 Yards rushing…and 30 points per game, because Mark Dantonio has proven that his Defense is capable of controlling a football game with modest scoring from his Offense.
So I expect that is exactly the game plan that Brad Salem, the Spartans new Offensive Coordinator will deploy when the Spartans host Tulsa on Aug 30.
There is no need for Offensive heroics or Offensive shoot outs, because Defensive consistency during the Mark Dantonio era means not having to rely upon video game scoring. The Spartans Defense is Dantonio’s tool that discombobulates opposing Offenses, and takes them out of rhythm.
And specifically, the Spartans front 7 has consistently dominated the line of Scrimmage causing mayhem for opposing Offenses, and that enables Mark Dantonio to deploy a conservative yet efficient Offense…No Heroics needed.
Let’s take a look back:
Since 2014, the Spartans Rushing Defense has ranked #1 twice…#2 once…and #11 once. By any name, that spells “Defensive Dominance”. When we measure Defensive dominance in terms of yardage yielded, the Spartans Rushing Defense has yielded less than 100 Yards per game in 3 of the past 5 seasons and it would be fair to say, anything less than 125 Yards per game can be considered “game changing”…while anything less than 100 Yards per game can be described as dominant.
Take a look at the Spartans Rushing Defense and average points yielded in 4 of the past 5 seasons*:
- 2014: #1, yielding 88.5 YPG…21.5 Points per game
- 2015: #11, yielding 116 YPG…21.7 Points per game
- 2017: #2, yielding 95.3 YPG…20.0 Points per game
- 2018: #1, yielding 77.9 YPG…17.2 Points per game
(Note: I consider 2016 to be a statistical anomaly and therefore not cited).
Said another way, in 3 of the past 5 seasons, the Spartans Rushing Defense has ranked amongst the Top 1% of 129 Division 1 football programs…and if you include 2015, the Spartans Rushing Defense has ranked in the Top 10% in 4 of the past 5 seasons.
How successful have the Spartans been by deploying a dominating Rushing Defense? In 3 of the past 5 seasons the Spartans have posted double digit winning seasons, and during those 3 seasons the Spartans posted a cumulative record of 33 wins offset by just 7 losses, that’s an 82% winning percentage, including 2 Bowl victories and a trip to Football’s Final Four.
If you sit in Mark Dantonio’s chair and have to sign off on Offensive game plans, given the dominance of his Defense, the Offensive Game Plan is simple: manage the game, move the chains with efficiency, don’t commit momentum stopping penalties, and post a positive Turnover Margin.
Let’s use 2015 season as an example:
It’s interesting to note that 2015 was one of the best seasons in Spartan annals.
The Spartans posted a record of 12 wins and just 2 losses which earned them a Big Ten East Title…a Big Ten Championship…a #5 final Ranking in the land…and a trip to Football’s Final Four. Yet the Spartans Offense ranked a modest #73 (the bottom 50 percentile of 129 Division 1 schools) by averaging just 385 Yards of Offense per game. Moreover, the Spartans Rushing Offense ranked a dismal #93 (bottom 30% of Division 1) by posting a meager 150 Yards Rushing per game.
Nevertheless, the Spartan Offense was efficient: they averaged 30 PPG (29.5)…converted 3rd Downs at nearly 50% (48.5%)…and posted a plus 1 (+1) Turnover Margin and that was a winning combination because the Defense controlled the Line of Scrimmage and yielded less than 22 Points per game.
In fact, the Spartans won the Big Ten Championship game in 2015 by the incredibly low score of 16-13 (the lowest cumulative score in Big Ten Championship Game history), by way of holding Iowa to a just 261 Yards of Total Offense…while totally shutting down Iowa’s normally efficient running game by yielding a meager 52 Yards Rushing, while forcing 3 Turnovers for a +1 Turnover Margin.
To put those stats into perspective, Iowa averaged 182 Yards Rushing during the regular Big Ten season and yet the Spartans yielded just 52 Yards Rushing to Iowa in the Championship game, which was 130 Yards below Iowa’s Rushing average for the regular season. Incredible!!!
Mark Dantonio does what few Coaches do: he recruits Defensive players with an appetite for fighting in the trenches, which enables the Spartans to dominate the Defensive Line of scrimmage with consistency, and that Defensive success enables the Spartans Offense to focus upon Ball Control as opposed to throwing the football all over the lot.
A preview of Tulsa:
In a few days I will put forth a game plan for Tulsa, but here is a preview.
For the past 4 years Tulsa has been coached by Philip Montgomery, who earned his stripes in the high flying Offense of Art Briles at Baylor from 2008 to 2014, but Tulsa hasn’t come close to the success of Baylor during the Art Briles era. Tulsa has posted just 21 victories offset by 29 losses over the past 4 years with just one winning season, and 1 Bowl victory.
Tulsa will be a great proving ground for the Spartans revamped Offense because Tulsa Defense is decidedly deplorable.
In two of the previous 4 years, Tulsa Defense has finished a dismal #125 and #127 out of 129 Division 1 schools yielding an “eye glazing” average of 537 Yards in 2015, and 529 Yards in 2017. In fact, just last season Tulsa yielded an average of 408 Yards per game which ranked #76 in the land (bottom 50 percentile of Division 1 schools), and while that was a modest improvement compared to 2015 and 2017, yet Tulsa posted just 3 wins and 9 losses while yielding an average of 30 Points per game.
At the bottom line:
The opening game vs Tulsa should be a great opportunity for the revamped Spartan Offense to set a winning tone for 2019 which means the Spartan Rushing Offense should be able to achieve a ground pounding rhythm, meanwhile the Spartan Defense in 2019 could very well set the tone to establish itself with the great Spartan Defense of 1965 that held Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State to negative Rushing Yardage.
Look for a Michigan State vs Tulsa preview on Wednesday.
