Just looking back at their schedule, they had several unimpressive "lucky" wins...

Purdue and Rutgers had close scores with them

Michigan should have beat them

Nebraska DID beat them

Iowa outplayed them

The anemic Spartan offense showed itself with the higher level of competition. I think Clemson and Oklahoma would have beat them too

(I'm in no way saying they didn't belong. They absolutely played their way into the playoff)

When you lose the battle in the trenches everything else looks bad.

Michigan State's defense kept them in it. They played as well as could be hoped for. Our offense also didn't even try to really challenge them head on. But, as a game wears on and your offense cant get you off the field things open up. That's exactly what happened.

It was a great game to watch for any football minded fan.

Between Iowa and MSU, I think that MSU was the far more capable opponent.

(01-01-2016 02:14 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  Just looking back at their schedule, they had several unimpressive "lucky" wins...

Purdue and Rutgers had close scores with them

Michigan should have beat them

Nebraska DID beat them

Iowa outplayed them

The anemic Spartan offense showed itself with the higher level of competition. I think Clemson and Oklahoma would have beat them too

(I'm in no way saying they didn't belong. They absolutely played their way into the playoff)

The refs gave Nebraska the win. It was a bad call by the refs that gave Michigan State the black eye.

As it is, Stanford is blowing Iowa out as well.

The only 1 lost Big 10 team that won was Ohio State.

Ohio State didn't take care of business against MSU. Struggled to even get first downs in their game this season. MI returns about 16 starters so they will be even better next year.

I think the Big10 cross-division schedule in 2015 will go down as one of the worst ever. None of the good teams played each other except for Mich-NW and Neb-MSU. Therefore the best teams did not rise to the top as they should have.

Next year that will get fixed when the Big10 goes to 9 conference games and "parity" scheduling guaruntees the good programs will play at least 1 good team from the other division.

Next year Mich plays both Wisc and Iowa. Neb plays OSU.
Iowa plays PSU too.
MSU plays NW.

Next year the teams record will be a better reflection of how good the teams really are. Iowa will probably go back to 8-4 or 9-3 at best.

Some of us did and werent shocked

Michigan State could have easily lost 3 games this regular season. They were not a team that was dominating teams on their way to a playoff game. Alabama was.

Alabama could have lost a couple of more games themselves including to a junk Arkansas team.

Complained about offense and injuries all season, picked them to lose every big game, I ******* saw it coming. How did no one else? But thanks for the only classy OP on this board apparently.