Albom: It’s a Wonderful Life for Stanton, UM site has MSU offense all figured out
I know it’s shocking Mr. Albom. A great football player choosing to play at Michigan State. Just shocking. Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press tries to figure out how Drew Stanton could have possibly ended up at MSU instead of UM.
What IS this? A stud quarterback, big, strong, good-looking kid, with smarts, with an infectious laugh, with the ability to whip the ball or tuck it and run, and he’s undefeated and unflappable and has a quarterback rating like a Google stock fund, and people know his face and ask for his autograph and experts are calling him Heisman material and he goes to — where? — not Michigan, but Michigan State?
What IS this?
Meanwhile the folks over at Go Blue Wolverine Magazine think they’ve figured out Dave Baldwin and John L. Smith’s potent Spartan offense.
Josh Turel covers everything from the formations MSU uses (and how often), to offensive leaders, to the Spartan depth chart, to a position by position breakdown of the Michigan State offense.
Another guy trying to figure out MSU’s spread offense this week is former MSU defensive line coach Steve Stripling who left to take the same position at UM during the offseason. The Lansing State Journal visits with his two sons who have traded in their Spartan gear for Wolverine gear but are still playing football locally at Haslett High School.
First, Indiana. Then Minnesota. Then Louisville. And in 2003 to Michigan State, when Steve Stripling came to MSU as part of John L. Smith’s staff.
So for two years, Cody and Chad were Spartans.
But that changed in a dramatic way last February. That’s when their dad changed jobs again - but this time he left a school for its most bitter rival, accepting an offer to be the defensive line coach at Michigan.