Since there's no Michigan State blog at SBN and I like to keep things in the family, I asked our resident Golden Bear experts - who played the Spartans in a primetime season opener - what they could tell us.

First of all, I'll point out a couple of things we wrote before the season.  The first one is a general preview, done in a roundtable style.  It's perhaps more amusing than informative, but I think it is worth checking out.  Secondly, our own HydroTech broke down Michigan State's offense, including formations with pretty pictures and such.  Definitely worth a look.  He looked at their game vs. Penn State last year, however; this was his reaction after our game this year:

"So MSU's offense was pretty different than from what I scouted in their game against Penn State last year.  They didn't use the Maryland-I formation, they used different blocking schemes up front to counter our 3-4 defense.  Nevertheless, I think we saw the fairly typical MSU style offense: run a lot then playaction."

So what else did we glean from watching Sparty actually play?

First of all, Javon Ringer, their stud RB, is for real.  Cal managed to very effectively stymie him, playing hard against the run.  When Ringer manages to get out in space, though, he'll burn you.  Witness the big numbers he's put up in Michigan State's subsequent games.

Cal's game plan was basically to shut down the running game and make MSU QB Brian Hoyer beat us through the air.  He did manage to rack up a large number of passing yards, but his completion percentage was below 50%, killing a lot of drives with incompletions.  Without a couple of costly turnovers (a pick-6 and a punt that never got off), this game would not have been close.  Hoyer's a decent 5th-year senior, and he won't lose too many games for Sparty, but I don't think he's got the skills to win too many for them, either.

Mark Dell is definitely the Spartan receiver worth watching.  Most of their big plays, including long third down conversions, were passes to Dell, who had a big game.  I expect he'll burn you a couple times.

MSU's defense was acceptable, but as a unit they don't seem to be anything special.  Otis Wiley had 2 picks, one returned for a touchdown.  After the second, we switched quarterbacks and passed a little more conservatively, and had no more of that.

I've really only seen Michigan State the one time, so I can't really offer much more than this.  They seem well-coached if a little short on talent; not a top-25 team, but almost certainly a top-50 team.  I think they can beat Notre Dame, so you guys should watch out.