'Confident' Offense Setting New Standard of Excellence
11/26/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist | @GrinzOnGreen
EAST LANSING, Mich. - During the previous three seasons, Michigan State's identity was tied to a back-breaking defense that was consistently rated among the best in the nation.
This year, the Spartans have developed an alter ego that's pushing the envelope on the ground and through the air.
With Saturday's regular-season finale at Penn State and a bowl game to play, 9-2 Michigan State has scored 483 points to smash the school record of 434 accumulated in 2011 over the course of 14 games. The Spartans have also established new program marks with 5,660 total yards and 61 offensive touchdowns, and their next rushing touchdown will break the standard of 38, which has stood for 65 seasons.
If senior tailback Jeremy Langford can record his ninth consecutive 100-yard rushing game against the Nittany Lions' Big Ten-leading run defense (81.7 yards allowed per game), he will break his own school record of eight in a row.
Michigan State is the only Big Ten team boasting a 1,000-yard rusher and receiver so far this season, and with a league-leading 1,071 yards, wideout Tony Lippett, who has 10 touchdowns, is poised to jump from seventh place on the Spartans' all-time list into Charles Rogers territory. Rogers won the Biletnikoff Award in 2002 with 1,351 yards and 13 TDs (second in both categories) but set school records with 1,470 yards and 14 scores a year earlier.
Meantime, junior quarterback Connor Cook's name appears on numerous career and season charts with a bullet and a season to go. He's averaging nearly two touchdown passes a game and is just five away from breaking Kirk Cousins' record of 25 set in '11.
With 245.5 rushing yards per game, MSU is on course to obliterate the goal of 200 set by the offensive line going into the season. The Spartans are also in position to snap a streak of eight sub-200-yard rushing seasons and could finish with their highest average since pounding out 265.1 per game in 1975.
And, the offense needs a total of 840 yards in the next two games to average 500 per game for the first time in school history.
Based on the way the 2013 Spartan offense came on during the course of season-ending 10-game win streak culminating with a Rose Bowl victory, Langford isn't surprised by the productivity which parallels his own rise from obscurity to prominence.
"I think it goes back to the adversity we went through last year," said Langford, who with 1,242 yards is within range of finishing among the top five in school history (Blake Ezor is fifth with 1,496 in '88). "We started out slow and the defense really carried us throughout the first half of that season.
"I think this year we came back knowing that we lost a couple players on defense and that we'd need a better team effort going into the season. We knew we had to play good and confident, and that's been the most important part for us - being confident."
Michigan State leads the Big Ten with 514.5 yard per game and is third with 6.7 yards per play, while allowing the second-fewest quarterback sacks with nine (Wisconsin has given up eight), for a very simple reason, according to Langford.
"The offensive line is the key part to our offense," he said. "It does a great job at run blocking and pass blocking and rotating different players in all the time. Without them, we'd be a lot different offense. Our versatility is our strength."
The turnaround in just two years, from when MSU was ninth in the Big Ten in total offense, eighth in rushing offense and a fourth in passing, has been dramatic to say the least.
 | "I think this year we came back knowing that we lost a couple players on defense and that we'd need a better team effort going into the season. We knew we had to play good and confident, and that's been the most important part for us - being confident." |
If ever a head coach could play the I-told-you-so card, it's Mark Dantonio, who all but predicted the current offensive surge by consistently, and publicly, reaffirming his faith in the receivers, in particular, because of what his eyes told him.
"When you watch them over and over at practice, summer camp, there was no lack of ability," Dantonio said. "When it came to the games there was inconsistency, and I think some guys get nervous out there. They're not used to that pressure the first time out, and you have to play through that a little bit. I think that that's what happened.
"We're strong again on defense, but offensively our line is intact. We've got good players up there. We found identities at tailback, tight end, wide receiver and quarterback in the last year, and that's paying dividends."
If the defense prides itself with being able to stop offenses with physical play, the offense has become the flip side. Lippett, who played cornerback last week against Rutgers, knows both sides and is slated to become MSU's first two-way starter since Allen Brenner lined up at safety and split end in 1968.
"We've got a lot of weapons we try to utilize and we put people in the right position to make plays," said Lippett. "Our offensive identity is we're a team that feels like we can score when we need to. We can go touchdown-for-touchdown with a lot of teams and we're more confident."
For the second year in a row, 22 different players - including offensive guard Connor Kruse and kicker Michael Geiger - have at least one carry or reception compared to 19 in '12.
"The offensive coaches do a lot of adapting to us and try to find different ways to get the playmakers the ball," Lippett said. "We've got a mentality that we're going to execute hard and score."
Co-offensive coordinator/running backs coach Dave Warner isn't surprised with how well the offense is moving the ball, though he may have underestimated its potential. "We're not overachieving, but we're going beyond even my expectations," said Warner, who is nominated for the Frank Broyles Award, given annually to the nation's top assistant coach. "Guys have stepped up and that's a credit to our players. Our coaches have done a great job, but our players have been making plays. That's what you need - you have to have guys who are gonna go above and beyond and make those plays to get to where you need to be.
"I never lost confidence and as a staff we felt we could get there. It took a little bit of a grind and little bit of hardship to get there, but we had confidence. I thought we'd be good, but I didn't think we'd be breaking records at this point." Warner places the linemen at the top of his list of playmakers on the team, though junior Jack Allen deferred that title to Langford, Lippett, Cook and the other skill players.
"In film (I can see it that way) but during the game I'd rather have those guys get all the recognition," Allen said. "What feels good is that we keep accomplishing our goals and this is going to boost us into next year because we'll expect so much more out of ourselves again.
"Each year the standard just keeps getting higher and higher with wins, how our offensive line's playing and running yards. We worked hard, we set (200 rushing yards per game) as our goal and it's nice to be close to reaching it, but we're just getting to the bottom of another mountain."
