Draftageddon 2014: Someone's Got Terp Fever

The goal of Draftageddon is to draft a team of Big Ten players that seems generally more impressive than that of your competitors. Along the way, we'll learn a lot of alarming things, like maybe Maryland is good? Full details are in the first post.

PREVIOUSLY ON DRAFTAGEDDON

1. Everyone not grabbing dual-threat senior QBs grabs defensive linemen
2. Seth takes Venric Mark in front of just about everyone
3. Nothing terribly remarkable happens
4. BISB takes all the guys I want
5. A ridiculous amount of time is spent discussing the merits of one particular interior lineman from Rutgers
6. WILDCARD TIME as Brian takes a quarterback despite already having a quarterback.
7. Peppers drafted in WILDCARD TIME II.
8. Someone drafts an Illinois defender! I know!

CURRENT SITUATION

ROUND 17 - PICK 2: Adolphus Washington, DT, Ohio State

O: QB Connor Cook (MSU), RB Ameer Abdullah (NE), WR Devin Funchess (U-M), SLOT Dontre Wilson (OSU), TE Maxx Williams (MN), LT Brandon Scherff (IA), LG Kaleb Johnson (RU), RT Tyler Marz (WI)

D: WDE Shilique Calhoun (MSU), SDE Andre Monroe (MD), NT Darius Kilgo (MD), DT Adolphus Washington (OSU), OLB Chi Chi Ariguzo (NW), OLB Matt Robinson (MD), CB Desmond King (IA), S John Lowdermilk (IA), HSP Earnest Thomas III (IL)

ST: KR/PR Ameer Adbullah (NE)

ACE: I was really hoping Trinca-Passat would fall just a little further, but I'll happily settle for the fourth member of Ohio State's fearsome defensive line. Adolphus Washington came to Ohio State as a five-star defensive end in the class of 2012; as a freshman he backed up Big Ten DPOY John Simon at DE, recording three sacks in ten games, including a sack/fumble against Taylor Lewan when he beat him clean around the edge. In 2013 he was a valuable backup all along the defensive line, lining up both inside and outside en route to picking up two more sacks among his four TFLs in 12 games despite playing at less than 100%.

Washington was initially a starter at SDE last season, but a groin injury in game two against San Diego State cost him the next two games, and when he returned he'd been Wally Pipped by Joey Bosa—no shame there. With Bosa's emergence, Washington finally has a place to call his own on the defensive line, as the OSU coaches made him a permanent defensive tackle in the spring; in fact, his ascension to the starting lineup was so inevitable that senior Joel Hale, who started 11 games at DT last season, volunteered to move to offensive guard after turning down the same move a year prior.

No longer concerned with maintaining edge-rushing speed, Washington is a solid 288 pounds, and he should be even bigger by the fall. He won't have to worry about too many double-teams with Kilgo commanding two blockers and the Calhoun/Monroe duo coming off the edge. (He won't in real life, either, though neither he nor Michael Bennett is a true two-gap nose.) He can be disruptive as a penetrating three-tech who's retained enough quickness to be very dangerous on stunts. As he settles into his new position, he should only get better, too.

I know it's been two years since I made the very same selection, so perhaps it will work out better this time, but best of luck with the whole Campbell thing, Brian. From the FFFF you linked:

Strong safety Ibraheim Campbell also acquitted himself well in this regard, flowing downhill aggressively and making a couple nice tackles pretty close to the LOS; he was also prone to taking poor angles, however, and had a couple whiffs in there too.

Run defense is his strength. I considered drafting him instead of Thomas, but I like Thomas's controlled aggression—and thumping hits—against screens and run plays more, especially in confined spaces, and I'll wait to grab another safety more suitable for coverage purposes in a later round.

INTERLUDE

ACE: Oh, and I'm pretty sure I've already won this whole thing anyway.

Brandon Scherff is 11 foot 5, 890 pounds?!

BISB: Eh, his pad level is probably terrible. Plus he's in legal trouble for crushing Oberyn Martell's skull in a fight.

ACE: Oh man, I watched that episode on the DVR, and as soon as it ended I flipped to overtime of Game 7 between the Kings and Blackhawks.

The surgeon general's warning for this course of action is simply: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SETH: Thomas has made a host of highlight reels, namely thoseofevery team he's played against.

Okay I'll stop now, but only because watching Melvin Gordon rip off huge gains against Thomas is making me kick myself about the Mark pick.

ACE: Seth, your ability to link highlights that have zero context due to pore-o-vision—and, in the case of the second one, showing Thomas execute his assignment while an entirely different defender is late to get to the fullback—is unparalleled.

BRYAN: You just have to look at the tape REALLY closely.

SETH: Didn't really affect the play but he sat there and ate tight end. I can keep pulling these out but I really don't think anybody should be watching this much Illini secondary play without, like, protective gear or heavy drugs.

BRYAN: You're talking to the guy who did the App State, Miami (NTM) and Rutgers HTTV previews. Ace has seen things even the Illini couldn't dream of seeing.

ACE: I CAME IN LIKE A WREEEEEEEECKING BAAAAAALLLLLLLLL

Please send help.

ROUND 17 - PICK 3: Deon Long, WR, Maryland

DRAFT ALL THE MARYLANDS

O: QB Devin Gardner (UM), RB Jeremy Langford (MSU), RB Tevin Coleman (IU),  WR Kenny Bell (Neb), WR Shane Wynn (IU), WR Deon Long (MD), OT Donovan Smith (PSU), OT Jack Conklin (MSU), C Austin Blythe (Iowa)

D: DT Louis Trinca-Pasat (Iowa), DE Joey Bosa (OSU), DE Noah Spence (OSU), LB Jake Ryan (UM), LB Mike Hull (PSU), CB Sojourn Shelton (Wisky), CB Jabrill Peppers (UM), S Kurtis Drummond (MSU)

ST: Bell (KR), Peppers (PR)

BISB: It's hard for me to explain Long's continued presence on the board, other than to think that people didn't see enough separation between Long and teammate Levern Jacobs to warrant grabbing one until the other was gone. But I'm amazed he's still here in Round 17, and I gladly yoink him at this point.

Long caught 32 passes for 489 yards despite (a) only playing six and a half games, and (b) sharing targets with Stefon Diggs. Extrapolate that out over Maryland's 13 game season (i.e. multiply by 2) and he was on pace for a 64 catch, 978 yard season. His 15.3 YPC and 8.9 yards per target would have been among the best in the Big Ten last year if Maryland had been in the Big Ten last year. A really good all-around receiver, especially on slants and fades/outs. He finds separation to the outside, and he has great body control and sideline awareness. He can also high-point the ball well for a moderately-sized receiver. He was also a 5-star coming out of high school, which, while it means nothing, means something. Jacobs is solid, but Long is a little bigger, a little faster, and was the starter over Jacobs when everyone was healthy.

Between Kenny Bell, Shane Wynn, and Deon Long, I feel like I should be okay in the ball-catchy department.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Marcus Rush, more like Marcus Stationary Bike Amirite; BISB doubles down on Maryland; a long discussion about the philosophy of safeties; BISB reminds us all that Kurtis Drummond exists about 600 times.]

ROUND 17 - PICK 4: Marcus Rush, DE, Michigan State

ROUND 18 - PICK 1: Eric Murray, CB, Minnesota

O: QBs Nate Sudfeld and Tre Roberson (IN), RB Venric Mark (NW), WR Devin Smith (OSU), WR Christian Jones (NW), T Jason Spriggs (IN), T Taylor Decker (OSU), C Brandon Vitable (NW), G Jack Allen (MSU).

D: DT Michael Bennett (OSU), DE Marcus Rush (MSU), DE Randy Gregory (NE), MLB Taiwan Jones (MSU), WLB Steve Longa (RU), SS Corey Cooper (NE), FS Adrian Amos (PSU), CB Blake Countess (M), CB Eric Murray (MN)
ST: Mark

SETH: I did fine with sophomore KILLSACKQUARTERBACK, and I'll do fine again with the senior edition; I don't hear Michigan State complaining that they missed out on Thieren Cochran or Frank Clark.

How is it possible I got a guy in the 17th round I drafted two years ago in the 7th? Well OSU wasn't growing NFL defensive linemen in vats, for one. Two, it seems like he's plateaued. Last year was Rush's third as honorable mention all-B1G, and at 6'2/260 it's not like he's going to shoot up draft boards suddenly. Maybe 5 sacks and 7.5 TFL and not screwing up in a great defense is what he is. Or, maybe he's just added subtle things to his game that coaches see and drive-by pundits don't. Let's ask an anonymous coach from last December to settle this:

If you were calling plays on Saturday, who would get your attention first on that defense?

Coach:I've got a ton of respect for Max Bullough. I think he's a great player. But the best player on the front seven isn't him or Shilique Calhoun. It's the other defensive end, Marcus Rush. Calhoun reminded us of the kid they had last year, William Gholston. He wants to rush the passer. That's his M.O., so we wanted to run at him, because we felt he wouldn't hold up as well. But part of the reason we ran at Calhoun was because we wanted to stay away from Rush. He can just give you fits.

/re-reads all the crap I've gotten from Ace since Round 2.
/grins.

While Ace is trying to decide whether he can convert Calhoun to box safety too, and I'm taking some anonymous coach out to lunch, everybody else pick one receiver on your team so Mr. Murray can eat his.

How did we miss a guy whose coaches wouldn't trade him for any corner still in the conference? Well, Minnesota's defense is mostly man-to-man, and Murray's job is to press and wipe out his opponents' best receivers, so his successes are less "broke really fast on that" and more "I wonder why Gardner wasn't throwing to Jeremy Gallon today?" Rather than compare PBUs and INTs with zone dudes (and grade schoolers) let's just see how Murray's charges fared:

That's from the same Rittenberg article I linked above, and Adam I could just post that whole thing and you can come to lunch too. But one source isn't enough so I'll turn to MGoBlog's Ace who found an appreciation for Murray in his film column that Brian hates the name of:

As for the defensive backs, they had an up-and-down performance, one not helped by the lack of pressure on the quarterback. Left in man coverage, they did an admirable job against Iowa's receivers—especially cornerback Eric Murray, who got one borderline PI call and otherwise acquitted himself well. Playing so much man coverage leaves a team susceptible to big plays, however...

Such is a day in the life of a presser. Minnesota's pass defense, which was marginally behind Michigan's last year, lived by wiping out one receiver with Murray, and died whenever a safety got beat (or their DC got RPS'ed by Greg Davis). And it wound up pretty good despite less than ideal circumstances in front of them. Ace again:

The problem for Minnesota is their small, undisciplined defensive ends. Starters Michael Amaefula and Theiran Cockran weigh in at 244 and 238 pounds, respectively, and attempt to make up for this by firing upfield on most snaps.

As recent victims of MSU and the Seattle Seahawks are fond of reminding everybody, it's a press man's world out there at cornerback these days, and I've just found myself a nice, 6'0/200 boundary man to complement the best cover cornerback after Trae Waynes and the best two safeties after Kurtis Drummond.
In round 18!

INTERLUDE

BISB: I was banging the "Marcus Rush is better than Will Gholston" drum as loud as anyone in '12. But the reason you got Marcus Rush in the 7th round two years ago is because he was coming off a freshman campaign where he made 58 tackles with 12 TFLs. The reason he was still on the board in the 17th round this time around is because he is coming off a junior year with only 30 tackles and 7.5 TFLs. And the reason you TOOK him in the 17th round this time around is... well, that's a damn fine question.

He never really got better, and he certainly didn't get any bigger. He remains a reliable, moderately productive, undersized defensive end. But he had more solo tackles as a freshman than he had total tackles as a junior. This does not scream 'breakout senior year.' At some point he's Just A Guy.

SETH:  Or teams stopped going his way? Also: life with Jerel Worthy vs less remarkable linemates. Everybody's backfield numbers dropped in 2012. But that coach quote wasn't from 2012!

This isn't a stats competition: we are making teams, and there's strong non-statistical evidence that suggests Rush makes his a lot better.

BISB: Even the anonymous coach quote (which, we're using those as reliable things now?) explained that much of the reason they ran away from him was because they were running TOWARD Ace's overrated DE because said overrated DE can run himself out of plays. And while tackles themselves aren't the be-all and end-all, they provide statistical evidence of what I see on tape. He was such a hot commodity two years ago because we assumed growth. It never really happened.

Round 18, Pick 2 - Sean Davis, S, Maryland

ALL THE MARYLANDS

O: QB Devin Gardner (UM), RB Jeremy Langford (MSU), RB Tevin Coleman (IU),  WR Kenny Bell (Neb), WR Shane Wynn (IU), WR Deon Long (MD), OT Donovan Smith (PSU), OT Jack Conklin (MSU), C Austin Blythe (Iowa)

D: DT Louis Trinca-Pasat (Iowa), DE Joey Bosa (OSU), DE Noah Spence (OSU), LB Jake Ryan (UM), LB Mike Hull (PSU), CB Sojourn Shelton (Wisky), CB Jabrill Peppers (UM), S Kurtis Drummond (MSU), S Sean Davis (MD)

ST: Bell (KR), Peppers (PR)

BISB: The one thing my secondary needed was a wrecking ball, and Sean Davis is a wrecking ball. Seth compared him earlier to Ernest Shazor, and while he's a little smaller, Davis's attacking style and general sense of reckless abandon remind one an awful lot of Shazor. He makes mistakes in the back end, but he reacts and executes on anything that develops in front of him. This trait didn't always work out well for him last year, but that was because Maryland's entire secondary was young and/or hurt. On my team, he's not going to have to direct traffic. Kurtis Drummond is going to do that.

Davis is very physical coming downhill (he's a heck of a special teams player), but also shows good ball skills when matched up one-on-one, even against taller receivers. Above all, he's a disruptive, aggressive player who you can line up anywhere on the field and he can get you something out of it. He fits the mold of the modern undifferentiated safety who can play man coverage on a wide-out or line up in the box. He can also play center field, though in my system he's probably never going to have to do that. There's a reason Seth felt the need to defend his selection of Corey Cooper over Davis, and that was seven rounds and five safeties ago.

INTERLUDE

BRIAN:"Reckless abandon" is not an asset. Ernest Shazor was a one man touchdown coupon dispenser. I'm just fine with Campbell if these are my alternati—

ROUND 18 - PICK 3: Jarrod Wilson, S, Michigan

dangit [Adam Glanzman]

O: QB Connor Cook (MSU), RB Ameer Abdullah (NE), WR Devin Funchess (U-M), SLOT Dontre Wilson (OSU), TE Maxx Williams (MN), LT Brandon Scherff (IA), LG Kaleb Johnson (RU), RT Tyler Marz (WI)

D: WDE Shilique Calhoun (MSU), SDE Andre Monroe (MD), NT Darius Kilgo (MD), DT Adolphus Washington (OSU), OLB Chi Chi Ariguzo (NW), OLB Matt Robinson (MD), CB Desmond King (IA), S John Lowdermilk (IA), S Jarrod Wilson (U-M), HSP Earnest Thomas III (IL)

ST: KR/PR Ameer Adbullah (NE)

ACE: It seemed like only just a few picks ago that BiSB was mocking me and Brian for taking "fireman" safeties who rack up lots of tackles but don't do a whole lot in the passing game. Oh, right, that's because it was just a few picks ago, and then BiSB drafted this guy:

Sean Davis, 2013 stats: 103 tackles, 1.5 TFLs, 3 PBUs, 2 INTs

On a defense that finished 84th in passing down S&P+, no less. I mean, BiSB's own writeup is as damning an indictment of his pick as any:

Seth compared him earlier to Ernest Shazor, and while he's a little smaller, Davis's attacking style and general sense of reckless abandon remind one an awful lot of Shazor. He makes mistakes in the back end, but he reacts and executes on anything that develops in front of him. This trait didn't always work out well for him last year, but that was because Maryland's entire secondary was young and/or hurt.

A smaller Shazor. This is not a compliment.

A couple people here seem to have forgotten this blog's favorite quality in a safety: being boring. Boring is good. Boring means nothing is going over your head, you're not taking terrible angles in run support, and you're not getting picked on when you line up in man coverage. But where can I find a boring safety?

​Right. In Ann Arbor. On the very team this blog covers extensively.

Wilson only finished in the negatives twice in games Brian charted. Against Minnesota, he got a -1s on a broken play and a five-yard run, then gave up a couple completions against Maxx Williams—who's on my team—after which he made immediate tackles against a guy we learned is not an easy cover. The final -0.5 came on what Brian called "a legal pick type thing" by the Gophers. His big minus against Indiana, meanwhile, came on a play that was probably doomed from the start:

PSU rolls away from pressure; Clark(+0.5) does cut off the outside and Bolden beats a block to hit Roberson just as he throws (pressure +1, organic). Despite that throw is right on the money to a 5'7” guy 30 yards downfield. Wilson(-2, cover -2) is in a center field zone but he's running to it on the snap and has a long way to go; still, he flattens out too much here and may have a play on the ball if heads for the five instead of the ten. Probably not though. Hard to tell about the coverage with the singularly useless BTN field-level replays. Wilson did line up on the opposite hash from a seam route at the numbers. RPS –2.

The -2 might have been a bit harsh.

Then we get to the positives. He displayed excellent athleticism and a nose for the football right off the bat. His fourth-quarter interception against Akron, when he refused to bite on a play fake and undercut a route in the end zone, probably saved U-M from a loss. Against Penn State, he made an impressive diving interception, juked the living daylights out of an OL to force a desperate throwaway on third and long, and generally played stellar coverage until he made a mental error likely stemming from fatigue in the fourth overtime, focusing too much on Allen Robinson (understandable) and having to commit pass interference as a result. That's a mental error that's unsurprising for a first-year starting safety, it came under the most trying of circumstances, and I'd expect that we'll see fewer of those types of plays as a second-year starter in his junior season.

The shuffling of the starting safeties in and out of the lineup in favor of Courtney Avery and Josh Furman made no sense at the time and still makes no sense, at least in the case of Wilson. (Thomas Gordon had some discipline issues; we heard no such thing about Wilson.) He's locked in as the starter at free safety. When Brian did his post-spring 27 Tickets for 2014, Wilson came in at #4; while some of that is due to the lack of other proven safeties, it's also because he had a heck of a sophomore season. Everybody else in the top group from that post went off the board at least three rounds ago. It's a down year in the conference for safeties.

Are we all trying to hide our homerism? If so, we may have gone overboard.

Also, as you survey the board in an effort to find a suitable hybrid space player—one you didn't already draft at an insanely early juncture as your boundary corner, BiSB—then look at the two very solid coverage safeties I've got on the back end of my defense, maybe you'll realize that the Thomas pick was absolutely the right move; unlike Brian and BiSB, I found a home for my run-stuffing, middling-coverage-ability safety somewhere not on the last line of my defense.

INTERLUDE

SETH: THAT was the right safety.

BRIAN: Well, shit, now I have to go look up Random Safeties Of The Big Ten. Thanks a lot, Ace.

ACE: tigerfistpump.gif

BISB: Worst Playboy pictorial ever.

SETH: Apparently you missed the 2012 edition, and that pullout section on Great Abs of Michigan.

BISB: Being boring is fine when you're trying to put together an actual football team. When you're not spending way too much of your life distilling 1500 players on 14 teams down to 104 players on 4 teams, often the best you can hope for is to find someone competent. And if you want to play a one-high or Cover 3, sure you need one guy who can be uber-responsible and just keep a lid on the defense.  But we're doing the time-wasting-distillation thingy, and I'm playing Cover 2 or quarters.

In the words of one Seth Fisher, "nothing pisses off a figment of a blogger's imagination like a safety who gives up a big play in coverage." Some of the best safeties in the game will occasionally give up a big play because in the long run they do more good for a team with the positives they create by gambling. Bob Sanders did it. Troy Polamalu still does. Brian touted Ibraheim Campbell's abilities by pointing out that Northwestern gave up a bunch of plays over 10 yards, but fewer over 20 yards. Who is coaching this team, King Pyrrhus?

BRIAN: All those ten yard plays were Chi Chi Ariguzo's fault. I checked.

ACE: Somebody's bitter.

BRIAN: Bitter? Hardly. But we Michigan fans know that just because the defense in front of you is a shambles doesn't mean you can't have the perfect safety behind them, cleaning up your frequent messes. The fact that we've drafted one member of the Northwestern front seven has a lot more to do with the ten yard plays than Campbell.

ACE: Brian, their DTs sucked last year. That was the biggest problem, and it really showed up on tape. Northwestern played a 4-3 over and their tackles couldn't keep their linebackers clean. There are your consistent 10-yard plays.

BISB: Indeed. But when you're guaranteed to have a solid front seven in front of you, the caretaker quality becomes somewhat less important.

ACE: BiSB, you can make that argument if you ignore all the film and scouting on these guys, which says that Wilson is reliable and consistent—and also a budding playmaker—and Lowdermilk is a solid deep safety who also makes plays against the run on a very good run defense, while Davis is, in your words, a smaller Shazor. I know which two of those three safeties I want.

The Thomas thing is irrelevant, as you don't seem to grasp the concept of a hybrid space player.

BRIAN: WE ARE ALL VERY IMPRESSED YOU HAVE KURTIS DRUMMOND, BISB. NOW LET US MOVE ON WITH OUR LIVES.

BISB: You may move on with your lives. On one half of the field. The other half is covered. By Kurtis Drummond.

Kurtis Drummond.

ROUND 18 - PICK 4: Josh Ferguson, RB/slot, Illinois

ROUND 19 - PICK 1: Tony Lippett, WR, MSU

ministry of silly runs position: check

O: QB Braxton Miller (OSU), QB Christian Hackenberg (PSU), RB Melvin Gordon (WI), RB/WR Josh Fergusion (UI), WR Stefon Diggs (MD), WR Tony Lippett (MSU) TE Jeff Heuerman (OSU), OT Rob Havenstein(WI), G Kyle Costigan(WI), G Dallas Lewallen(WI)

D: DE Frank Clark(M), DE Therien Cockran (MN), DT Darius Hamilton(RU), DT Carl Davis(IA), LB Desmond Morgan(M), LB James Ross(M), CB Trae Waynes (MSU), CB Jordan Lucas (PSU), S Ibraheim Campbell

BRIAN: FINE. FINE. You all know that I was waiting until like the last pick of the draft, carefully ignoring Dontre Wilson and Shane Wynn, so I could yank NORFLEET and go NORFLEET NORFLEET NORFLEET all the live long day. But you guys just refuse to take the most productive scatback/slot guy in the league off the board and now I have to. You bastards.

Q: what do you get when you take Shane Wynn and add three inches and eight hundred rushing yards? Josh Ferguson. The Illini's scatback du jour is a high quality player who brought in a staggering 83% of the throws he was targeted with, and these were not all screens. No sir, not at all. The Illini are perfectly content to line him up in the slot and let him go to town.

This is how a tailback catches 50 passes and cracks 10 yards per catch.

He does excel on screens, of course, which makes him a perfect complement to the catch-averse Gordon and provides a deadly pitch option on the various ridiculous triple options my head is wrapping around these personnel. Ferguson is a walking death machine to any who would dare field three linebackers against The Spreadconsin offense. Illinois OC and confirmed adult Bill Cubit:

"When teams want to play three over two or two wideouts, he's matched up on a linebacker. That causes a lot of problems because of how good of a route runner he is. We can move him around and get him on mismatches. ... His individual routes and route concepts are huge. We've made a big step there, but it's only because of how good he is".

His 5.5 YPC is fine indeed, especially in the context of the Illini offense where he's a full yard and a half better than the guy who gets carries when he's in the slot. And, like Wynn, he's going to find a ton of extra targets after virtually all of the Illinois receiving corps graduated.

Before we start snorting about Illinois being bad at football, their offense was actually fifth in the league last year. It was the Ace-coveted defense that covered Tim Beckmann in a thin film of sadness he can't understand because it's more complicated than a one-by-one Rubik's cube.

To finish my skill position players, I'm taking the intermediate guy to go with the deep (Stefon Diggs) and short (Ferguson) ones. I'm not going to pretend Tony Lippett isn't a little boring. He's a little boring. He's a reliable chain-mover. I know this is a weird thing to think MSU has, but it's true. Amongst returning Big Ten receivers with at least 50 targets, only Wynn (screens) and Northwestern teammates Christian and Tony Jones (also screens) have better catch rates. (FWIW, Nebraska's Jordan Westerkamp and Purdue's Cameron Posey missed this cut with 25 and 34 targets, respectively.) Lippett has a big YPC edge over the available Northwestern Jones and is nearly on par with Wynn and the unavailable Northwestern Jones.

That he did this without any truly long plays is impressive, and his season highlight reel shows a number of circus catches against tight coverage... and one screen. Lippett earned his catch rate.

He's not dynamic, he's not going to rip the top off a defense. He's a rangy (6'3") intermediate target who can outleap tight coverage and find himself open in zones.

Lippett also has the advantage of Andrew Maxwell. IE: Andrew Maxwell will not be throwing him passes this year. Lippett was a virtual nonentity through the offensive disaster that was MSU's nonconference slate; after Cook settled in he and Lippett had a consistent connection. Lippett finished the year with six consecutive games of sixty yards or more and nearly cracked 100 in... sigh... MSU's Rose Bowl victory over Stanford.

He should near 1,000 yards when MSU balances its offense as Cook matures.

CURRENTLY CURRENT SITUATION

[UPDATED: now with schools]