Everyone needs to relax... We lost one game in the past 13 months, everything will be alright. We knew how hard repeating would be and yesterday we found out. No need to cry and complain about the play-calling. No need to bitch about the coaching. No need to question book tours or Taylor Swift and Ronda Rousey. This season is not over. The most important game of the season is in 6 days. The OSU-Michigan game is huge because it is our rivalry game. Most importantly, it is the next game. 

But, what I really wanted to talk about was how yesterday was predictable. I knew we would have a rough game. I predicted a loss, just didn't know it would be that ugly. With my fan glasses off, I think yesterday was a loss not because of play calling but because of simple X's and O's. We lost yesterday because a team is only as strong as their weakest link. Our weakest link isn't the coaching staff but the offensive line. Blame Beck as much as you want for the consecutive qb draws and the botched read options. Fans cried about not throwing the deep ball. But, when you pay attention to the game, there was a reason why we couldn't connect on the deep ball. We lost the battle of the trenches on both sides.

It's incorrect to assume our offensive line wasn't prepared. We walked into a  battle with the Giants with Davids and no slingshot. Our weakness all year has been our offensive line. It has been the pig and JT's mobility was the makeup to make it look better. We won the last few games by convincing margins not because the offense "plays better" when JT is in the game but because it looks better when he is in the game. Last night we lost because our offensive line was outsized and out athlete-ed. We have been able to get away with having an average offensive line all season because we played teams who were not as athletic and/or powerful as our offensive line. We dominated the line of scrimmage against subpar because we have one of the strongest offensive lines in the country. But, lean strength only goes so far. Boren is a generous 6'1. He is probably about 275 lbs matching up with a nose tackle who was 318 lbs. Pat Elflein is also around 6'2. I think the smallest defensive lineman MSU played yesterday was Shillique Calhoun. That says something. McDowell is huge, Evans is shorter but a plugger in the middle. Having Evans taking up 2 blockers every play meant Calhoun and McDowell and the other linemen were getting 1-on-1's. If you follow recruiting, this essentially turned every situation into the rush the passer drills in camps like The Opening. This will always put the offensive linemen at a disadvantage. More importantly, that freed up the linebackers like Bulloch and Reschke to sit and read plays. They were able to sit back and actually watch plays happen instead of having to read and make decisions. 

Now, don't get me wrong, the play calling was horrendous. But, at the same time we were really limited in what we could actually do. With the offensive line mismatch, we had to take 2 eligible receivers and turn them into glorified blockers. That means on any given play, we would have roughly 2 receivers trying to get open amongst 4 defensive backs. That's why never saw any completed deep passes. That is why Zeke didn't have his usual 30 carries. They too away both the read and the option, the bread and butter of our success. We essentially are Georgia Tech with a spread offense and better athletes. Better yet, we are like Oregon with only LaGarrette Blount. We have the talent and our players have the will. Football is just a chess match and yesterday our opponents had the better pieces.