SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Michigan State Spartans (Big Ten #2; East #2) |
 #18 |
2014 Results |
AP #5 USA #5 | Strength:#7 Success:#12 Overall:#7 |
| Record: 11-2 | Bowl: Beat Baylor 42-41 (Cotton) |
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| 2015 Outlook |
Picks: AP #5 | USA #6 | Lindy's #6 | Athlon #7 | Steele #11 | ESPN #14 |
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| Record: 9-3 | Bowl odds: 99.2% Playoff odds: 6% | ||
Michigan State has a pretty clear path to an undefeated season—if you take away those pesky games against Oregon and Ohio State, last year's two national championship contenders.
| Offense 6 ret. starters |
2014 Scoring Offense: #6 (raw) #6 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #11 (adjusted) |
A depleted backfield might cause a dip in ground offense, but the passing game will keep rolling along.
| Passing Game |
2014 Passing Rank: #37 (raw) #45 (adjusted) | 2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #5 |
| 2015 Projected Passing Rank: #45 (adjusted) |
2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #5 |
Connor Cook (3,214 yards, 24 TDs, 8 int) heads into his senior season with quite a bit of momentum from a successful 2014. The trouble this year is that his top two receivers, Tony Lippett (1,198 yards, 11 TDs) and Keith Mumphery (495 yards) are gone. He does have Macgarrett Kings (404 yards) and four others who topped 100 yards back. It all balances out and we see another solid year, but perhaps no better than the previous one.
| Rushing | 2014 Rushing Rank: #21 (raw) #16 (adjusted) | 2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #35 (adj.) |
Jeremy Langford led the team with 1,522 rushing yards and 22 touchdowns, and Nick Hill added 622 and 9. Both are gone, as is the #3 rusher leaving #4 RJ Shelton (148 yards), a WR, the leading returnee. The starter this year will be either redshirt freshman Madre London or Gerald Holmes who had 44 yards in 2014. The offensive line isn't in bad shape, with starters Jack Allen, Donavon Clark, and Jack Conklin back, while Kodi Kieler started more than half time. With unproven talent at running back we see a decline.
| 2014 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #1 Pass Defense per-game: #64 Per-attempt: #21 | ||
| Defense 6 ret. starters |
'14 Scoring Defense: #24 (raw) #20 (adjusted) | '14 sacks: #8 | '14 picks: #10 |
| '15 Projected Scoring Defense: #31 (adjusted) |
'15 sacks: #15 | '15 picks: #47 | |
Three starters return to the defensive line to try to keep the Spartan rushing defense at #1. Gone is Marcus Rush (7.5 sacks) while Shilique Calhoun (8 sacks) is back. At linebacker Taiwan Jones (8.5 tackles for loss) departs and Ed Davis (7 sacks) was lost over the summer to a knee injury. The secondary has two starters back but top tackler Kurtis Drummond (11 pass breakups) is gone. With 3 of the 4 top tacklers gone the defense looks a bit weaker.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Kicker Michael Geiger (14 of 22 field goals) is back but punter Mike Sadler (41.2 average) is gone.
- Return Game: Macgarrett Kings (6.1 average) is back to return punts, and kickoff returner RJ Shelton (25.6 average, 1 touchdown return) is back, too.
- Turnovers projection: The Spartans were very lucky with fumbles last year and ended up with a +10 margin, which probably won't happen again. The defense also appears unlikely to match last year's 18 interceptions.
Coaching Hot Seat Ranking: #120 (COLD)
Mark Dantonio had a few rough moments early in his Michigan State tenure but he's had 11 or more wins in 4 of the last 5 seasons, making his job one of the safest in the country bar none.
Recruiting 2015 Recruiting Rank: #34 2014 Recruiting Rank: #30
Recruiting this year went about the same as it normally does, with a good but not great class. It's one of the best in the Big Ten as the conference didn't really excel at recruiting this year, with only Ohio State and Penn State making the top 25.
2014 Recap
Michigan State only had one win over a bowl team after 9 games; most of their 'street cred' came from losing only to Oregon (46-27), and Ohio State (49-37), the two teams that ended up playing for the national title. The Spartans were dominant in their cupcake games, and were beating Nebraska 27-3 but the Cornhuskers came back and almost had a shot near the end. At 7-1 it was assumed they'd beat Ohio State and win the Big Ten, but the Buckeyes had other ideas. The Spartans' last three wins were very good games, beating Maryland, Rutgers, and Penn State by 22, 42, and 24. In the Cotton Bowl they fell behind Baylor 41-21 but rallied for a 42-41 win.
Last year's prediction: We had the Spartans a relatively low #15 last year, and they outperformed that as well as our 9-3 projection. But in our game-by-game picks we had the Spartans losing just twice, to Oregon...and Indiana(!)
2015 Outlook
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Michigan State 2015 schedule & forecast |
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| 9/4 | Fri | @ | Western Michigan | 77% | W | |||
| 9/12 | Sat | vs. | Oregon | 39% | L | |||
| 9/19 | Sat | vs. | Air Force | 97% | W | |||
| 9/26 | Sat | vs. | Central Michigan | 98% | W | |||
| 10/3 | Sat | vs. | *Purdue | 92% | W | |||
| 10/10 | Sat | @ | *Rutgers | 81% | W | |||
| 10/17 | Sat | @ | *Michigan | 58% | W | |||
| 10/24 | Sat | vs. | *Indiana | 94% | W | |||
| 11/7 | Sat | @ | *Nebraska | 60% | W | |||
| 11/14 | Sat | vs. | *Maryland | 90% | W | |||
| 11/21 | Sat | @ | *Ohio State | 7% | L | |||
| 11/28 | Sat | vs. | *Penn State | 71% | W | |||
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Straight up: 10-2 Cume: 9-3 Bowl eligible: 99.2%
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Michigan State has the same problem this year as they did last year: they play two of the best teams in the country amidst the rest of their reasonable schedule.
After playing Western Michigan on the road (which is good, so that they don't look past the Broncos), they get Oregon at home this year and they will be pumped to get revenge. We still favor the Ducks but there's no reason why the Spartans can't win it this year in East Lansing.
Whatever the outcome, they have a trio of very easy home games following: Air Force, Central Michigan, even Purdue counts. Rutgers on the road is a bit tougher but should put them 5-1 if not 6-0.
Michigan is a wild card this year, and with the game at Ann Arbor it might be tough. Same thing with the game at Nebraska. The Spartans are the better team but either game could be an upset loss. We definitely take MSU over Indiana this year, though.
After Maryland the Spartans travel to Ohio State to take on the Buckeyes, an almost impossible task according to our rating. So even if they manage to beat the Ducks, this one will bite them—or so our numbers say right now. By late November things might look very different.
Given the several tough games on the slate the cumulative projection calls for a 9-3 season, with 10-2 looking pretty good if you take it game-by-game, and 11-1 not out of the question. Likewise, upset losses could pull them down to 8-4 which almost looks like a worst-case assuming nothing goes terribly wrong with injuries, etc. The Spartans have opportunity to be a Playoff contender, for sure: even if they lose to Oregon early they can get back in the race later by beating the Buckeyes.
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