There are no easy answers for MSU’s defense — no simple tweaks, no unburdensome adjustments. If it’s technique, it’s fixed by experience. If it’s personnel, they never come to fruition. For MSU football, the loss is all-encompassing.
The tackling, the coverage, the leverage, the reads, the pressure and for the fourth-straight game, it was a story of missed third down opportunities that plagued the defense.
“We had young guys out there, I could have played better on the last touchdown,” fifth-year senior safety Demetrious Cox said. “It’s just really technique things that we have to be better at. We knew what was coming, and we just didn’t capitalize on it.”
MSU relinquished 10-of-19 third down conversions, allowing Northwestern to be a perfect 6-for-6 on third and short opportunities. Northwestern moved nearly at will through whichever medium it selected, be it ground or air.
On the ground, MSU gave speedy Northwestern running back Justin Jackson plenty of room to make cuts and jukes and yards after contact. He made swift sweeps finding open field and kept tacklers from gaining the correct angles.
As dangerous as Jackson was, however, it was Northwestern quarterback Clayton Thorson’s ability to find receivers on out-routes for considerable gains that ultimately proved to beat MSU’s defense.
Cox pointed to the last touchdown, a 29-yard completion on a fourth down and six, as a play that required betterment, but those plays were there throughout the game. Those were plays in which MSU lost leverage, allowing guys to slip into space and leaving easy windows for Thorson to exploit.
“(Northwestern) could go to the corner route where the inside receiver breaks through the sideline and just throw that up and complete it pretty much when they wanted to,” co-defensive coordinator Mike Tressel said. “So we’re going to have to figure out some answers to that.”
Thorson completed the game with 27-of-35 pass completions for 281 yards and gained three touchdowns, but was sacked once. He was hurried another time but those became minor glimpses of hope for MSU in a game that was decidedly bad defensively.
The technique of the defense lacked any sort of swarming ability, giving little back up to players attempting to make solo tackles. Other tackles were simply missed.
“We tackle all the time (at practice),” Dantonio said. “I’m not going to sit up here and point fingers at particular people. They’re good players.”
While Dantonio placed no blame on players personally, he did point the finger at himself and his coaching staff and said, “At the end of the day, it’s a team sport and that involves coaches as well.”
Tressel gave his answers with a little fire, showing a level frustration that is rarely given off by the MSU coaching staff. He lamented the lack of gang tackling visibly and was audibly annoyed by the absence of multiple tacklers on the ball carrier.
“I’m used to seeing in the previous nine years that you mentioned, when the first person gets there, even if he’s just hanging on, the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth guys that are there just like bam bam bam bam, and I’m not seeing that right now,” Tressel said.
Some have lambasted MSU’s personnel for going after players in the secondary for their inability to stop the coverage. But Tressel stayed away from giving any names, instead reaffirming the faith he had in his guys.
“So, we love our personnel, there’s no doubt about it,” Tressel said. “Those are guys we brought in and they are working hard, but our attention to detail and technique both need to improve.”
Tressel offered cures for their ailments including leadership and confidence but stuck to technique improvements.
“We need to obviously get better technique-wise and we need to have better attention to detail, that’s probably one of the biggest things that we need,” Tressel said. “Ten of 11 guys being perfect on a play doesn’t get it done.”
