Notre Dame (1-1) at Michigan State (2-0)

Last Year / Last Week

Notre Dame beat Michigan State 33-30 last year in South Bend, behind Jimmy Clausen’s 300 yard passing day and game-winning TD strike to Golden Tate with 5:13 left. Kyle McCarthy’s INT at the 4-yard line with 0:57 left iced the Spartans, after a white-knuckler that featured 5 lead changes. It was, unbelievably, the first Notre Dame win over Michigan State in Notre Dame Stadium since 1993. Michael Floyd was lost for most of the season to a broken collar bone in last year’s MSU game.

Michigan State beat Florida Atlantic 30-17 in a “road game” in Detroit last weekend behind Edwin Baker’s 183 yards rushing on 15 carries. The win wasn’t nearly as convincing as the final score suggests, however. State did out rush the Owls 245-55, but they were sloppy and let the FAU Sun Belters hang around a lot longer than they should have. MSU QB Kirk Cousins completed only 9 of 17 passes (53%) for 142 yards, one TD, and one INT and the Michigan State secondary, which was a Spartan Achilles Heal a year ago, was once again exposed. FAU QB Jeff Van Camp completed 23 of 35 for 215 yards and a score.


Notre Dame Offense vs. Michigan State Defense

Despite preseason claims to the contrary in print, online, and from the MSU faithful, the Spartan secondary is not passing IFP’s eye test. It doesn’t look like Spartacus has shored up their pass defense woes from a year ago and we think this could be a season-long plague to what might otherwise be Head Coach Mark Dantonio’s best Michigan State team to date. MSU’s first two opponents (Western Michigan and Florida Atlantic, solid programs but hardly FBS juggernauts) combined to complete 60% of their passes for just under 500 yards and 3 TDs vs. only one INT against MSU, a fact that obviously will not be overlooked by Brian Kelly and the Irish offensive staff. Various reports agree that Irish QB Dayne Crist is fine & will be 100% for this one.

State does have, in IFP’s estimation, the best pair of linebackers in the Big Ten and maybe one of the better LB tandems in the country in senior Greg Jones (6-1, 240 from Cincinnati Moeller) and senior Eric Gordon (6-0, 235 from Traverse City, MI) . Jones, in particular, is a sideline-to-sideline wrecking ball who could garner All American attention this season. True freshman OLB William Gholston, a 6-7, 250 lb athletic freak from Detroit, bears watching.

State has been decent against the run in their two tune-ups.


Michigan State Offense vs. Notre Dame Defense

MSU QB Kirk Cousins was more than solid against the Irish a year ago, but he’s has not been on his game in two 2010 starts. So conventional wisdom suggests Dantonio will opt to feed the Irish major helpings of the Spartan running game, particularly sophomore Edwin Baker (5-9, 210). Despite Cousin's early struggles, we look for a 50/50 run/pass split from MSU and we think State will take more than a handful of deep shots on the Irish secondary who, similarly, showed little in the way of foot speed to a national audience vs. Denard Robinson and UM. IFP readers, keep on eye on senior MSU WR Mark Dell (6-2, 200) throughout this one. We suggest the Irish safeties do likewise.


Vegas

Michigan State (-3.5) as of Thursday.

The home team has won the last two ND-MSU games, but the visitor has won 7 of the last 9 and is 7-1-1 against the spread. Notre Dame has been out-gained by Michigan State by an average of 70 yards in the last four matchups and Notre Dame has only won 3 of its last 13 road openers.

MSU is 4-0-1 against the spread in the last 5 games vs. Notre Dame and the total has gone OVER in 5 of the last 6 Irish-Spartan matchups.


Summary / Pick

It looks like a conventional opposing QB this week, as opposed to a wildly athletic hybrid who doesn’t tie his shoes, and a typically close Irish-Spartan battle to us. While there is seemingly no statistical basis for it, there does seem to be something about road teams in this series. Perhaps more to the point, we can’t see how MSU, who struggled to stop the Florida Atlantic passing game, will slow the Irish spread on Saturday night. State will score. So will the Irish.

Notre Dame 27 Michigan State 23


Survey Question (…to see who’s reading!!!)

Should Jerome Bettis be a first ballot NFL Hall of Famer? Send your responses to dezelan@aol.com or post them on Facebook.