V-Cast: Is the Michigan State defense for real?
East Lansing, Mich. – There was plenty of good and bad in the season opener for Michigan State, a 16-10 win over Florida Atlantic. In the good column was the play of the Spartan defense. Opposite that was the first career start for quarterback Aidan Chiles.
Afterward, SpartanMag staffers Jim Comparoni and Paul Konyndyk sorted through the mixed bag that was Week 1 for Michigan State in the latest V-Cast.
V-CAST TOPICS
Chiles rough day: Chiles did some good things in this game. He ran for a touchdown and he had a handful of nice completions on accurate throws. This, however, is not the type of performance he envisioned for himself in his first career start at Michigan State. After completing just 10 passes against FAU and throwing a pair of interceptions, Chiles delivered a mea culpa during post-game interviews. Both head coach Jonathan Smith and offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren reminded us on multiple occasions during training camp that Chiles hadn’t started a college game and was still just 18 years old. Those things were apparent in a rocky first start for the Oregon State transfer. The biggest question moving forward is how much Chiles can grow from the experience he gained as a starter in this game.
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Defense saves the day: Throughout training camp defensive players were adamant that things had changed on their side of the ball and that would shock us with their level of play during the regular season. Consider us shocked, for one week at least. The Spartans were good on defense, perhaps even excellent aside from too many penalties and a coverage bust that resulted in a touchdown. The entire defense made plays for Michigan State in the opener, but the defensive line shone brightest against Florida Atlantic. Against an athletic quarterback in Cam Francher, Michigan State totaled seven sacks, the majority of which belonged to the d-line. The most impressive part of the d-line play, however, wasn’t the sack total. The most impressive aspect of the performance by the d-line against FAU was the number of different players that contributed.
Avoidable penalties: Michigan State committed 12 penalties for 140 yards in the win over FAU. Some of those penalties occurred on bang bang plays and were simply the result of aggression that is needed for the Spartans to be successful. There were, however, several avoidable penalties that can be cleaned up, and need to be taken care of as Michigan State moves from this game into a Big Ten match-up at Maryland in Week 2. Playing cleaner football is necessary for the Spartans to put themselves in position to get a Big Ten road victory.
