Part One - Part Two - Part Three

To preview Michigan State’s Capital One Bowl matchup with SEC power Georgia, a preseason favorite to win the national championship, I’ve invited UGA grad and flag football legend Jason Barbas to help the Mitten break down the matchup. We’ll do it in a series of posts, starting with this summary of the 2008 seasons for the Spartans and Bulldogs.

Season in review: Georgia. (Special to the Mitten from our Official UGA Correspondent, Jason Barbas.)

Georgia’s year basically began at the end of last season when many declared them one of the two hottest teams in football (along with USC), and then Georgia went on to annihilate overmatched Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Next came the number one preseason ranking and a whole lot of hype from Bulldawg Nation. And it basically went down from there.

Georgia was plagued by early injuries on both sides of the line, but generally underachieved on defense and special teams. The two key moments of the season came in the two most embarrassing losses in several years. The first was the “black-out” against Alabama on a national stage, where Georgia dressed for its own funeral (a phrase coined here by Alabama’s strength coach). But humbling as the ‘Bama game was, it was Florida that dealt the death blow, eliminating the Dawgs from both BCS and SEC title contention. The loss to Georgia Tech was an afterthought.

On offense, the accolades for QB Matthew Stafford, RB Knowshon Moreno, and WRs A.J. Green and Mohamed Massaquoi are piling up—Moreno and Green are first-team All-SEC, Stafford and Massaquoi second-team—but kudos must go to the patchwork offensive line, which used four different starters at left tackle and laid the groundwork for one of the most productive and balanced offensive attacks Georgia has ever had.

The defense, on the other hand, was an utter disappointment, and was one of the worst and most undisciplined in Georgia history (25.6 points allowed per game, second-worst in UGA history), allowing 38 points or more in four of the last five games. Georgia also had an SEC-worst 18 sacks. This is especially embarrassing for a perennial contender in a conference that prides itself on defense. Georgia was also the second-most penalized team in the country, trailing only Texas Christian, and the worst of those penalties were committed by the defense.

Even Georgia’s wins were sloppy. It barely escaped South Carolina, Kentucky, and Auburn, somehow getting last-second stops to win. And winning against a then top-ten ranked LSU team turned out not to be so impressive because LSU finished 7–5.  So, in short, Georgia lost to the three best teams they played, and could easily have gone 6–6.

Season in review: Michigan State.

Mark Dantonio’s successful 2007 debut in East Lansing had Michigan State fans optimistic heading into 2008–by MSU standards, anyway. Expectations were tempered because many of the players who emerged to propel MSU out of obscurity to last year’s Champs Sports Bowl were seniors: WR Devin Thomas, TE Kellen Davis and DE Ervin Baldwin were drafted, and the Spartans also lost other major contributors like DE Jonal Saint-Dic, RB Jehuu Caulcrick and OL Pete Clifford. The Spartans finished 7-5, not including a loss to Matt Ryan and Boston College in the bowl game, so this 7-5 2008 preseason projection from beat writer Steve Grinczel was pretty typical.

Besides, even though MSU showed improvement in 2007 and avoided another late-season collapse with November wins over Purdue and Penn State, earlier losses to Iowa and Northwestern gave fans cause for concern that State was still vulnerable to an ugly fade during the Big Ten’s stretch run.

So even as Michigan State got out of the box quickly in 2008, there were still doubts about how the team would finish. In starting 4-1, MSU answered some of the questions about units that looked thin after losing impact players from 2007. On offense, Javon Ringer showed he was still an impact back without battering ram Caulcrick there to wear down defenses. Instead, Dantonio gave Ringer the ball over and over (and over)—370 times in all, plus 25 pass receptions—and Ringer responded with an All-America season. At receiver, Mark Dell and B.J. Cunningham flashed big-play ability if not always consistency, and Charlie Gantt capably filled Kellen Davis’ void at tight end. On defense, Trevor Anderson put pressure on opposing quarterbacks and Greg Jones emerged as a star at linebacker, while Otis Wiley was dominant in the secondary and as a kick returner.

When MSU reached the meat of its schedule, the team responded with wins over Iowa and Northwestern. That set up a showdown game against Ohio State and Dantonio’s mentor, Jim Tressel. The Spartans were humiliated, 45-7. QB Brian Hoyer looked awful, an echo of his terrible performance in the 2007 Champs Sports Bowl, and the Spartans again looked nowhere near ready for prime time.

In contrast, Beanie Wells and Terrelle Pryor led an Ohio State rushing attack that burned the Spartans for 216 yards, exploiting a serious weakness in MSU’s defense. Stopping the rush is a major concern heading into the Georgia game, because MSU ranks 83rd out of 120 Division I schools in the average yards per carry it allows: 4.25 yards per rush, or almost half a yard worse than the Georgia defense that Jason is so ashamed of.

Amidst the gloom of the OSU game, though, one MSU player had a breakout performance: receiver Blair White caught six balls, twice as many as his previous best effort. And over the next several weeks, he exploded, leading the Spartans to wins over Michigan, Wisconsin and Purdue, gaining more than 300 yards against the Wolverines and Badgers, then catching a 49-yard bomb against the Boilers.

At that point, MSU was 9-2 and assured of a successful season. Fans’ confidence was restored, and MSU had a chance to sneak into the Rose Bowl heading into the final weekend of the conference season. But instead of a win against Penn State, MSU got another OSU-style beating, falling behind 49-7 and losing 49-18.

These aren’t the same old Spartans, who would score big upsets and then lose games against mediocre competition. These Spartans are much more consistent: they take care of business in games against average competition. But they also haven’t shown up in games against the big dogs. That’s grim news, because despite its three losses and #16 ranking, Georgia’s talent level is closer to that of Penn State and Ohio State than anyone else Michigan State has played this season.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where we’ll look at how Michigan State and Georgia match up.

Part One - Part Two - Part Three