The next installment of the 2012 Assume the Position series. So far we’ve done our visit with the Special Teams.

First, a limerick!

There once was a Captain named Kirk.
He made our rivals go berzerk.
He said with a grin
As he beat them again
”All the trophies are just a nice perk”.

So if you think the tenor of this preview is going to at least rely heavily on how much we’ll miss Kirk Cousins, you’re partially right.* Cousins threw last year for an astonishing 419 pass attempts and managed to have only six regular season interceptions. I bring these stats up because it’s difficult to impress how good Kirk Cousins was last year when he needed to be.

* Note: Even smart passes for 2 yards on 3rd and 6 will occasionally be missed. VERY OCCASIONALLY.

Andrew Maxwell

Every single preview regarding the MSU Quarterback position is going to focus on and try to predict whether Maxwell can fill Kirk Cousins shoes. In response, a numbered list.(It’s been a few months, I’m rusty at blogging.) 1.) The average pro-style starter in the Big Ten going back five years will throw down for 58.8 percent completion, 16 TDs and 8 picks.2.) It’s fair to have higher expectations of that from Maxwell, some of the data points in point number 1 included freshmen and Rick-Six Stanzi. Maxwell is a fourth year player beginning his Redshirt Junior year and has looked plenty competent in relief so far. 3.) Maxwell has yet to take a meaningful snap in a meaningful piece of a game and after missing the Spring game  he missed a lot of important reps with his young supporting cast.

Must love this story from the Free Press:

Maxwell's team was running an inbounds play. "We set the picks, whatever," he said. "I catch the ball at the free-throw line."

He did a drop step. Turned. And raced the other way. He was wide-open. We are talking, ridiculously open. "This is it," he thought. "I'm going to get my dunk, get my dunk."

Maxwell passed half-court and couldn't hear anything, and he dunked the ball with one hand, turned, and everybody was laughing.

"I looked at the ref, and I was like, 'Yeah, that was the wrong hoop, wasn't it?' "

"And he was like, 'Yeah.' "

As much as this is a story about Andrew Maxwell, it’s equally a story of his supporting cast. MSU loses their top three wide receivers, top two Tight Ends and one Edwin Baker.They are replaced by a bounty of talented but unproven underclassmen. Further hampering that chemistry was the loss of Andrew Maxwell in Spring Ball which robbed him of even more of those needed reps. Every rep in fall camp counts.

2011 Game Log

Everything looks excellent! Pay no attention to those Garbage Time Stats against Indiana! Seriously, don’t pay attention to any of that really, I just thought it was good quick reference. There’s nothing here to suggest Maxwell might struggle this year, unfortunately, there’s not a lot to refute it either. That’s all I have to say about that.

If it seems like I’m bearish on Maxwell, it’s more like there’s just nothing to point to other than a good anecdote about high school basketball and some noticeable improvement from 2010 to 2011 on the field in garbage time. There’s also a lot of missed reps from the Spring and an entirely new surrounding cast at the skill positions with the exception of Bell and Caper. As much as I’m looking forward to Boise State, opening with a tomato can would do MSU well in this situation.

Connor Cook

Battle tested. Warrior of the Spring. All-Time Quarterback.All of these things describe Connor Cook’s warrior-i-ness. He went 20 of 45 in the Spring Game for a touchdown. Handed the ball off to Sparty successfully. Check.

The likelihood of Cook seeing non-injury time this year are low. Cook played well enough in the Spring Game, but, Maxwell has three years in the system and knows that offense inside and out now. In the extremely unlikely event of a position battle Dantonio is not quick to make changes(Baker/Bell –2011), (Cousins/Nichol –2009) so let’s all agree there’s no chance of that happening plskthx.

Tyler O’Connor

Not battle tested. True freshman. If he is seeing meaningful time in any meaningful game, something has gone very, very wrong. There’s an excellent chance that Maxwell got into a fistfight with Cook so powerful they ruptured a hole in space and time and will fight for all of eternity. Alternative! It’s the Rose Bowl and we’re up 100-3 on USC and Dantonio burns O’Connor’s redshirt so he can give Lane Kiffin the finger in the middle of the second quarter. Another Alternative! One time in NCAA 04 I recruited a two-star athlete who was a 97 Defensive End, but was easy to get because the game was broken, maybe in NCAA 12 O’Connor turns out to be a 97 much to the surprise and delight of Spartans everywhere.

Best Case Scenario: Maxwell’s chemistry with his receivers is immediate and they grasp the offense without issue. Maxwell comes in and shows himself a competent game manager and shows himself capable of winning a game with his arm early in the season.  Stays healthy the whole season, (I have tiny little voices in my head saying I shouldn’t be worried about this, and tiny ones saying I should.) He’s able to match Kirk Cousins production his first year as the QB.

Worst Case Scenario: Maxwell’s lack of experience shows itself in an ugly way. He gets down early against Boise State and struggles to get his confidence in time for ND where MSU loses another squeaker. Then the QB controversy begins.

Overall Assessment: Well, how do you feel about uncertainty? An opportunity for learning? A chance to grow out of your comfort zone? Horde canned food and gold coins for trading after the power goes out? However you feel about massive uncertainty scale your reaction to your love of MSU football and plan accordingly. Maxwell is walking into as friendly a Quarterback situation as they come and won’t be rushed to perform at a high-level immediately via QB competition. However, his competition will be stiff opening against number 8 Boise State on August 31st. So far any evidence for or against his immediate impact is inconclusive. Bet on Maxwell being perfectly capable to play adequately or even goodly-ish this year but that he'll need a year to get out of the shadow of Kirk Cousins.

Well, it’s been a nice summer away, but today is August 1st and football occurs this month. This means one thing to you dear reader; Shaw Lane Spartans is back open for business. The blog is going to run from August 1st – National Signing Day this year. It’s going to be a whole lot of unnecessary roughness and poor grammar on your eyeballs man. So settle in, have a beer and hopefully we can watch and enjoy some good football together.

In the off-season, we did our Special Teams preview. We also blogged about the Recruiting Cycles of Football to help us all remember that MSU focuses on winning instead of recruiting during the football season. The Mrs. hit John Deyo so hard at the Women’s Clinic that he transferred to WMU. Finally, but far from the least important thing: WE, THE MSU FANS, GOT JOHN L SMITH HIRED AS THE HEAD COACH AT ARKANSAS! This isn’t just a blogging accomplishment, this is a life accomplishment.

MSU recruiting off-season fanfare: Caleb Benenoch commits to MSU in March and decommits in June. MSU has more solid commitments over the summer from Dylan Chmura(TE from Wisconsin, son of Hall of Famer Mark Chmura!!!), Darian Hicks, Trey Kilgore and Jay Harris. A mildly more squishy commit from Devyn Salmon a week or so ago. We’re good once he’s visited EL in my mind. Here’s Your Shield to come on these guys before the season starts.

Scoreboards:

You might be wondering why I picked such a big picture that overshadows a good chunk of the rest of the post, because the scoreboards are big and I thought it would be, er, uh. You get it. These scoreboards are going to be huge. Dantonio emphasized they will be the “largest in the state.” See what he did there? Also: Texas Tech got 27 yards rushing. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

On Penn State:

I’ll keep it short, because I’m tired of it and so are you. Football punishment seemed appropriate and necessary. I did not enjoy watching PSU have it’s program zombified by the Sandusky accusations, trial and convicition. I did not enjoy watching PSU have it’s program eviscerated to satisfy the NCAA’s moral, juicy, hypocritical center. I feel sorry for the PSU community who was uninvolved in this but is having to pay the price. Except for the denialists, it’s important to stand up for what you believe in, but not at the expense of learning the truth. Hopefully the victims can find their peace and the community can begin to move on.

Learn You Some Football

If you’ve not read any of Heck’s “Better Know A”… series this offseason, you should. He wrote pieces on Three Verticals, the Crack Toss, the Outside Zone, and Stunting. All of these links will make you better at watching football which in turn makes you a better person.

Anyway, more content later today. We’ll preview the Quarterback position which will probably turn out to be about 31 percent accurate. In the meantime, here’s a little something to get you pumped for 2012 courtesy of @Pietrang5.

The fourth of July has come and gone, which means it’s officially fair game to begin too early 2012 season prognostications. It’s a bit like starting your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Actually, you might do that, I find shopping an hour before close on Christmas Eve usually results in a VERY empty Goodwill store.

Assume the Position starts every year with Special Teams. The time of life where I was at my most passionate and verbose as a fan was none other than the John Goss era. He was a good guy, recruited as a punter and asked to be a kicker, then thrown under the bus by John L Smith* for not being good at the position he wasn’t recruited to play. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the third phase of the game as a result.

*- The L in John L Smith stands for baLLin’ ass real estate investor.

Placekicker

Dan Conroy returns to MSU for his junior year. After going making 93 percent of his field goals his freshman year, he slipped to a more human 74 percent in 2011. After working out his preseason jitters(and something tells me some snap/hold issues) against FAU and Youngstown State last season, he missed one field goal inside of 50 yards in the last 11 games of the season.

Projection for 2012

MSU will have another new long snapper with the departure of Matt Giampapa and the arrival of Taybor Pepper. Add to that a new holder with the departure of Brad Sonntag and it seems safe to assume that there could be some early season jitters just like in 2011.  Luckily we’re opening against… oh, Boise State? Hope that’s not an issue.

Notice how the projection of Conroy didn’t include much about Conroy? He’s solid, expect him to do a bit better than he did in 2011 and not quite as well as in 2010. Walk-on Evan Fischer figures to stand in as a replacement should Conroy go down with injury. Kevin Muma will continue handling kickoff duties in 2012. Conroy whiffed a couple field goals in good weather at the Spring game, which would be a big deal if it weren’t the Spring game.

Punting

In 2011, Mike Sadler replaced the irreplaceable Aaron Bates. I remember in last year’s Assume the Position one of the first things I talked about is how Sadler would struggle to match Bates’ 45.0 yard average. And Sadler did, averaging only 41.1. What I did not know though is that Sadler is an end over end punter, as opposed to Bates who was a spiral punter. The other thing I did not know is that Sadler would drop punts inside the 20 the way Braylon Edwards drops footballs.

Projection for 2012

Look for Sadler to continue improve his yardage in 2012. In every other phase of the punting game it’s hard to imagine Sadler playing any better. If memory serves he did not have a single punt blocked in 2011, he had a number of punts inside the 20. He played great football.

Kick/Punt Return

Do you miss Keshawn Martin yet? If not, you will. Martin’s stat of scoring a touchdown five different ways is as cliché as Trannon the basketball player these days. But seriously though, did you know Matt Trannon also played basketball? In the running to replace Martin are a number of guys(Andre Sims, MacGarrett Kings, Nick Hill). In the Spring, Jeremy Langford and Nick Hill handled Kick Return duties. In 2011, Hill was the #2 Kick Returner and would seem to have the inside track on the job.

There’s no reason to think that the kick and punt return game will be addled beyond repair with the loss of Martin, but, I don’t think it will any longer be a position of STERLING EXCELLENCE. Further, with the new kickoff rules limiting the impact of the kick return anyway, the effect will mitigate kick returns across the board regardless.

A few weeks ago, MSU received commitments from four players in the last week of June. This is pretty typical of Dantonio recruiting to have a slew of commits right after summer camps. With some luck, we can pass the time of watching the grass grow slowly in the heat and maybe even learn a few things about how recruiting happens at MSU. I dove into Excel headlong with some commitment dates from 2010-2013 and set to work with the charts.

1.)  When does MSU land it’s prospects for the year?

For as boring as summer is in terms of football, it’s crazy busy for recruiting. If you follow MSU recruiting at all, you probably know this already. What surprised me most though is that in June, July and August MSU receives over 50 percent of it’s commits for the year. (50.8 percent to be precise).

2.) Does MSU recruit during the football season?

No, they win football games. (Season is defined as Sept – Dec.)

3.) So what’s the plan then?

Well, it might make more sense like this. The peace sign looking object above points to the following. Roughly 1/3rd of all of MSU’s commits come in the January/February push(Signing Day Push), another 1/3rd come in the June/July (Camp Season), the final third come in the other 8 months of the year. While that might make recruiting tremendously boring mid-season, typically this is offset by the winning of football games.

Anyway, not a huge post, but I wanted to highlight how important camp season is to the recruiting cycle at Michigan State and how completely pedestrian in-season recruiting seems to be. Obviously, in-person evaluation in a camp setting is hugely important to Dantonio and staff.

Keshawn Martin inked a four year deal with the Houston Texans for 2.512 Million Dollars earlier this week, this completes the Horatio Alger-esque journey of Martin from John Glenn High School to NFL Wide Receiver. For those of you who don’t remember high school english, (if you’re an avid reader of SLS it’s apparent I don’t remember anything about English), Alger made famous the “rags-to-riches” story back in the late 1800s. I suppose a more modern version of the tale would be that stupid Adam Sandler movie where he becomes a billionaire and at the end of the movie he’s still Adam Sandler. This used to be a compliment until the Waterboy or so, but then, man, being Adam Sandler just got old.

After the 2007 season Martin’s Athletic Director created a game tape of Martin’s highlights and started sending it to various schools. Typically, kids with Martin’s talents have a dozen offers by this point in their recruitment. Kids of Martin’s talent have the money to attend high school football camps where they can be scouted by college coaches. This was not the case for Martin:

His unlikely journey begins in Inkster, MI, the second of two sons of very proud parents Charles and Tracy. During his formative years, Tracy suffered from chronic illness, Charles worked as a baggage handler and times were tough. As Swinehart says: “His parents have done a phenomenal job of raising him, he’s never been in any kind of trouble. He comes from a great family with not a lot of money but a lot of character.”  Finding the glamour of the recruitment process astonishing, Martin commented he felt weird at being treated like a celebrity.

Martin came to Michigan State and spent his first two years just learning to play WR(he was a quarterback in high school). He became one of just a handful of kids to score a touchdown five different ways and became a steady, reliable and stunningly quick receiver by his senior year. In Houston, he should immediately compete for Punt Return and Kick Return duties. Martin should also compete for the third wide receiver position along with DeVier Posey and Lester Jean. Do those names sound familiar? They should. DeVier Posey missed most of his senior year due to suspension from accepting inappropriate gifts and Lester Jean was the entire FAU offense in 2010.

Martin offers a change of pace to those two coming in at 5’11’ and 189 compared to 6’2” and 210-ish for the other guys. I like Martin’s odds of being to slip in as the Texans go-to slot receiver in Houston.

Fan Reaction

“His speed and attitude, founded on his instinctive ability to drive downfield, is what makes Martin such an exciting prospect as a playmaker for the Texans.” says the Texans Bleacher Report. “Keshawn Martin, taken in the fourth round, might be the better option, another Big Ten prospect, this one from Michigan State. Martin is shorter than Posey but is really fast and might work well as a slot receiver for Houston. He is probably someone that will earn his job on special teams but has the skills to help Houston where they need it the most. “ writes Yahoo. “Texans make two more good picks with Martin, Crick in fourth round.” writes the Houston Chronicle.

NFL Future

Martin will more than likely open the 2012 season as the Texans starting kick and punt returner. He could see spot time in 3 WR sets with a combination of some good luck and a bit of continued DeVier Posey fail. As far as a long term future goes, if he excels at Punt Returner and Kick Returner he won’t likely be seeing a lot of playing time. Typically, the number of kick returners who play significant offensive snaps are pretty small.

Of course what about Martin’s journey has been typical so far?