MSU-IU Links and Discussion Thread
Posted by kj on Thursday, September 25th, 2008
First, a few basketball links:
- Eric Lacy reports that Athlon has MSU ranked #14 in their preseason magazine.
- Tom Herzog talks about the student part of being a student-athlete. He’s an applied engineering sciences major. (Hat tip: Spartan Sports Page.)
- 24 hours straight (roughly) of basketball on the ESPN family of networks to tip-off the season! The Purdue men (likely) and the Iowa women will be the Big Ten representatives in the line-up of games on Tuesday, November 18.
- A superb discovery on the NCAA home page by Eleven Warriors.
Now to the football stuff:
Ringer already has 143 carries, 30 more than any other FBS back. If Michigan State reaches a bowl game and Ringer maintains his current pace (35.75 cpg), he would finish the season with 464.75 carries, surpassing the FBS single-season record of 450 set by Central Florida’s Kevin Smith last season. Smith, who played in 14 games, broke Marcus Allen’s 26-year-old record for single-season carries (403) and became the first back to eclipse 400 carries in a season since Iowa State’s Troy Davis in 1996.
- Update (forgot this one earlier): On the other hand, those carries are allowing him to rack up numbers comparable to past Heisman winners. From Patrick Hayes of “It’s Just Sports” on Mlive.com.
- G0EL says the Michigan State football team is a cement truck. Also, Pete is an Enrique Iglesias fan. My “embarrassing guilty pleasure music selection”: Jesse, paint your pictures . . .
- Joe Rexrode says Indiana’s new hurry-up offense will probably force MSU into its nickle package.
- The Hoosier Report runs down the “carnage” in the IU secondary. Is this Brian Hoyer’s break-out week?
- Terry Hutchens of the IndyStar says this game may be a “must-win” for IU, coming off their loss to Ball State. Questions the quality of MSU’s schedule to date. I think beating Notre Dame by 16 trumps losing to Ball State by 22 (Sagarin has Notre Dame and Ball State ranked back to back at 53/54, BTW.)
Game time is noon on ESPN. Sagarin says MSU by 10. The FEI forecast is more generous: MSU 35 Indiana 14.
Coffee Talk: Which of those projected point spreads looks more accurate to you? Does MSU grind out another win? Or does the offense put up big numbers this week? Or do we have to consider the possibility that Kellen Lewis (331 rushing yards in three games; 9.5 yards/carry) finds a way to carry his team to the upset?
Filed in football discussion, links3 responses so far
3 Responses to “MSU-IU Links and Discussion Thread”
Benon 26 Sep 2008 at 2:58 pm 1Of course we have to consider the possibility: this is such a huge rivalry game. I’m sure they’ll be fighting tooth and nail for the Ol’ Brass Spittoon — the most storied trophy in sports. Ha.
In all seriousness, I don’t have much to say about this game. I’ve watched Indiana exactly once in the past two years — when we smoked them last season. (Except for the last-second field goal against Purdue last year, which was replayed on the Big Ten Network approximately every four minutes during the offseason.) Their loss last week isn’t exactly impressive, but stranger things have happened than us losing this game.
I still think we win, though. I’ll take 38-24. Hopefully at least 2 of those touchdowns are Hoyer’s.
BTW, kj, just because you were talking about this last week: http://207.179.108.84/ssn/modu.....8&m1=2
Ground Zero East Lansingon 26 Sep 2008 at 3:56 pm 2To answer your questions in order: The first one, yes, but Hoyer still gets over 200 yards passing and a couple touchdowns to boot, it’s MSU, I’ll always be worried about the upset, especially with a talented playmaker like Kellen Davis at the helm of IU.
I’ve posted predictions for all of the Big Ten games here.
Also, I’ll be live-blogging tomorrow’s game at Ground Zero East Lansing. Feel free to stop by, y’all.
kjon 26 Sep 2008 at 5:55 pm 3Fun link, Ben.
See you at your site tomorrow, Pete.