Shucked and sent home

Wow, 255 comments, figured I should throw up a new post.

    So who's getting more of the hammering, Kirk Cousins or Dan Roushar? I'll check back later to find out. The two easiest targets for fans are the starting QB and the OC, and it's fair to say neither of them had great days in Memorial Stadium. It's also fair to say Nebraska's defense did -- but I know a lot of you probably don't want to hear that.

    I'll take some heat, too, for my key stats. MSU got the 100 yards rushing (101 on 30 attempts). Nebraska didn't reach 200 (190 on 58 attempts). Yet it's a three-touchdown win for the Cornhuskers. MSU simply couldn't get its receivers open downfield, it seemed like there were a lot of deep routes, B.J. Cunningham was bracketed all day and Cousins forced a lot of passes into coverage -- but I can tell you from this view, it's not like he was failing to throw to other guys who were open. MSU put an emphasis on protection, Nebraska put an emphasis on coverage, and I still can't figure out why the Spartans didn't try to run the ball more.

    “They just had Cover 2, they played it well," Keshawn Martin said of Nebraska's defense. "And then the plays we were running, they played right into the Cover 2 they were doing, so there wasn’t really nothing we could do there. But those guys, they’ve got good athletes, the defensive line had a couple sacks, they just overall had a good game.”

    Martin was then asked about MSU's adjustments.

    “I mean, we made adjustments, you always make adjustments at halftime," he said. "But I mean, it just wasn’t there for us today. I don’t know what happened but it just wasn’t there.”

    The defense was great early, kept MSU in the game for a half, then appeared to fade and made some crucial mistakes in the third quarter.

    Nebraska looked more like the team it was supposed to be this season, with that defense finally living up to its billing. And the offense is going to wear down defenses because Rex Burkhead is an absolute load.

    Still, it was a 3-1 month for the Spartans and they're in position to win the division because their schedule is much easier than Nebraska's in the next month. You'll obviously be rooting hard for Penn State on Nov. 12 -- and you might have to break out the maize foam finger on Nov. 19. But at least those games will matter. At the beginning of this month, I can't say I expected MSU to be in this position. Did you?