I believe this team is going to make some noise this year.

And for all the Spartan fans here: Spartan Nation with Hondo has a website to talk on now.

http://www.phalanxforum.com/phpBB3/index.php

Will they finish with a better record than Michigan?

Michigan is picked to finish 5th in the Big Ten...
MSU is picked lower...

Link please...

College Football Rankings, BCS Standings - Big Ten Network

Again, mental mistakes and "almost" comes to the fore. Looks like Spartans go down in defeat also.

Paul Konyndyk
SpartanMag.com

Opening statement: Coach's interview post-game

Obviously we left some points off the board in the first half. When you get an opportunity to get down there and you find yourself inside the 30-yard line, you have to come away with points. We missed a field goal. We got a punt blocked. That's 10 points right there. We had some big plays from Otis Wiley in the first half. We had a Ringer touchdown called back because of holding. I think Mark makes an outstanding catch, but they replay it. And BJ Cunningham makes an outstanding catch and we're called for interference.

You get down there, you have to make plays. Credit our guys, we kept playing. I like the way we competed. We played a lot of players tonight. We played a lot of young guys. And give credit to Cal. They played with class, I thought. They have good team speed, and they came ready to play as well.

It was a good football game. I wish we had climbed back in. We had chances. I thought we got momentum back. We had chances to start to turn it, and then boom something would happen and they would make a play.


I thought one of the key plays of the game was Riley's throw when we had him trapped and everything and he just fluttered it up there and the guy made a catch. That jailbreak spring right before that on third down got them the first down. So we had chances, and I think we were down by 3 at that point.

We will go back an critique what we've got and we will be ready to play next week. There is no quit in this football team. We will get better.

Your defense was strong early, but later didn't get them stopped. Were you getting worn down?


I think we got a little worn down. We are playing younger players and they ran some inside zone and we didn't get the guy to ... it was very loud out there, so we are supposed to call a guy into that gap, and he couldn't hear him, and inexperience doesn't allow the guy to get in there and they creased us a little bit.

Things happen out there, but the guys keep playing. We got big plays from Wiley. I thought Hoyer had some big plays. Ringer played well. Mark Dell played well. So we made our share of plays but we came up short. Even at the end, we kept playing. But they crease us for an 80-yarder.

On being held to 80 yards rushing overall?

"We knew we were losing some good offensive linemen from last year. And there were some guys playing for the first time. Joel Foreman played a lot, and he's a redshirt freshman. It's always tough to say until you look at it. But they put a lot of people up there. And when they put a lot of people up there sometimes you have to throw it some. And they tackled pretty well.

They are a good football team. They have won 23 of 27 in this stadium. When they win that turnover margin, they win. And I'd say a blocked punt is significant.

On mental mistakes and penalties:

Well, I'm going to have to look at some of the penalties. But there were some things there that we can control and maybe there are some things that you can't control on those penalties. B.J. goes up and tries to make a play on the ball. And we're down there and we get a hold on the goal line. Those are two big ones. We get a facemask on a reverse and they move them down there.

I know we had a lot of penalties, and that is uncharacteristic of what we did last year. So we have to work on that, and work to change that.

Some people thought your team would make a statement one way or another with this game. What statement do you think you made?


I think the statement that we made if you want to look on the positive end of things is that we didn't quit. We kept playing. I didn't see us loafing out there. I didn't see anybody quitting, because the game could have gotten away from us, but we came back and kept playing to the end.

I think the other statement that you have to make is we need to get better. We can't beat ourselves. That's the first thing we have to do. We can't beat ourselves. There was a bad snap on the punt. It wasn't something they did. It was a bad snap and a bobbled punt. They had one too. Usually sometimes early in the season, those things happen.


And we missed a field goal. There's 10 points. We had a toss sweep for a touchdown and it gets called for holding. That's 17 points (actually 14 because the missed field goal was on the same drive as the toss sweep hold); that's in the first half alone. When those things happen, it's tough to rebound from that.

We came out in the second half and got it to three but we couldn't get over the hump.

On the disappointment of playing close again but losing:

This wasn't quite like the others because we were scratching to get back in it. And we did. But it has no effect on me. We play every game in the present, here. We will get ready to play next week. I promise you we will be ready to play against Eastern Michigan.

What did you see on the last drive?

We got the ball back with 40 seconds left and made a couple of plays. I guess we were high on a couple of them. We didn't convert. But we kept pushing.


Did Weaver come out with an injury?

Yeah, Weaver had some cramps.

Did you have to play second-string defensive ends more because of injuries?

We had some guys nicked up prior to, so Brandon and Trevor did not practice their last week. Those guys (Holmes and Neely) had done a nice job and we knew we had to play a lot of guys. They all played.

__________________
"Like in many situations, though, maybe some people don't understand the job you've done until you're gone," Flip Saunders

8 penalties...two negating TD's...check

Susceptible to big plays...check

Special teams failures...check

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...check

The D-line didn't pressure much and the O-line couldn't get much room for Ringer and forced Hoyer to scramble often and take some shots. Hoyer was shaky to start, but looked more comfortable as the game wore on. Except for being checked out of the play on the 81 yard TD, Wiley looked great with 2 INT's and a TD. Dell looked phenomenal with 202 yds, 1 TD, and just barely missing on another TD catch.

In many ways they looked like the same ole Spartans. Still...I liked what I saw...they didn't quit. Even the Cal players appreciated their effort, hanging around on the field afterward to shake hands and talk with the Spartys.

__________________
"What you drive, drives America.
"http://www.levelfieldinstitute.org/

That about says it all, Detteam. Good post. I would assume they will knock off EMU next week.

Thanks for the article Nemo.

not too discouraged by the loss...cal is a good team. hoyer needs to be more accurate, and they sure do miss caulcrick to get some bruising yards and open things up for ringer. wiley played great and dell looks pretty good.

They rarely played Ringer & Caulcrick together, but Caulcrick might have softened up opposing D a little for Ringer. You're right about Hoyer's accuracy. He threw a number of high hard ones that got tipped by receivers and he's lucky they weren't intercepted.