Time for my (slightly biased) predictions of how my Spartans season will end out.
Sep. 4 vs. Western Michigan WIN
Sep. 11 vs. Florida Atlantic WIN
Sep. 18 vs. Notre Dame WIN
Sep. 25 vs. Northern Colorado WIN
Not a difficult OOC schedule, at all. Only ND poses a threat of defeat, obviously. However, since 97 we've pretty much owned the Irish, even if 3 of their 4 wins were at Spartan Stadium. We stopped that streak two years ago, and the one thing that ND fans either like to forget or just don't talk about with Brian Kelly is that his teams are really, really poor defensively. He's pretty much an improved version of Charlie Weis. The offense will score, but it'll be tough for them to stop a lot of guys, especially since this is Kelly's first year at ND. The passing game of Cousins to Dell, Cunningham, Nichol, Martin, and Gantt should be enough to propell them to a fast start, which hindered them last year.
Oct. 2 vs. Wisconsin LOSS
Tough start to the Big 10 opener, facing one of the favorites in Wisconsin. It'll be a shootout like it was last year, with our passing game holding our own against John Clay and Co. I really could see this going either way, considering that us and Wisconsin have had a lot of close and back and forth games b/w each other recently. However, for the sake of not looking super biased, I'll take the Badgers.
Oct. 9 at Michigan WIN
Oct. 16 vs. Illinois WIN
Our schedule makers have made this very favorable for the Spartans, not giving us a game out of state until late October. Michigan, while I think will be better then what they've been, still is questionable at the QB situation. I know we'll be halfway into the season by then, but State finally will be the favorites and we'll see how they react to being the 'Big Dog'. Hopefully this doesn't start the time when MSU begins their tradition of fading late. They haven't done it badly with Dantonio, but winning in October and November is important if this team wants to step into the top echelon of the Big 10.
Oct. 23 at Northwestern WIN
Oct. 30 at Iowa LOSS
Our first true road test versus NW should be a challenging one, but we've always seemed to get the better of them each and every year, no matter how badly we're doing. I just don't know if they'll be able to stop our sexy looking passing game. As for Iowa, this is another game that, like when we play Wisconsin, could really bounce either way. They do have Wisconsin the week before at home, and this could be a little bit of a hangover game for them. Do I think it will? No. But MSU went to Kinnick two years ago and came back to beat the Hawkeyes, so they've shown they can win there. Sure, the team wasn't as good as they should be this year, but it's still a big road win. I expect this game to be scored somewhere b/w the mid teens low 20's at best.
Nov. 6 vs. Minnesota WIN
Nov. 13 vs. Purdue WIN
Nov. 20 at Penn State LOSS
November looks quite nice for us, two of the 3 games, yet again, at home. Minnesota looks like they're gonna have a down year, and we have to make up for that disappointing loss against them last year. Purdue I think could be a surprise team and the two had an exciting shootout last year, and this team slightly worries me with Marve under the center. One of the few home games I'm slightly not 100% sure on, along with ND. Penn State has had us the past two years, and although they *shouldn't* run all over us this year, they've just had our number.
Overall: 9-3 (5-3 in Big 10)
That looks like an honest prediction, tbh. Sure, there's a few toss-up games that I sided with Sparty, (ND, NW, Purdue) but Dantonio did lead these guys to 9 wins last year and, if they would've had the ball bounce a few ways their side last year, would've probably had back to back 9 win campaigns. Winning the games they should is important. They need to start a tradition of winning games late and not losing as many by single digits and at the last minute. Again, they've gotten better of not falling flat once it turns to October since Dantonio was hired and I think they'll bounce back to 08 form, but until they can pull out wins on the games that they are the underdogs (Iowa, Wisconsin, Penn State) they'll probably be no better then 5th or 6th in the conference, especially since Nebraska is coming into the conference next year.
I really like Dantonio as a coach. I mean, really. I think he's underappreciated for what he's done in changing the culture at State. But if they wanna become a Big 10 power like I'd love for them to see, they HAVE HAVE HAVE to close out games. Last year they lost 5 games that they had leads in the 4th. That completely changes the outlook of a season. I expect them to turnaround from last year and learn from their early season mistakes and make it another memorable season for Sparty, ending in our first bowl win since like 2000.
