Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

Thanksgiving weekend this year was an interesting mixed bag for Michigan State fans. The weekend started with a major thud, as the Spartans failed to score and were eventually blown away by Penn State, 42-0 to close out the 2023 regular season. But the next day Michigan State created a sonic boom of excitement by announcing the hiring of Jonathan C. Smith, previously of Oregon State, as the next head football coach for the Spartans. Alan Haller knew who he wanted to take home to East Lansing, and he closed the deal with one of, if not the top candidate on the board.  Between the football outcome and the coaching hire, I would call it a "semisonic" type of weekend. Despite the disappointing results on the field this year, the coaching hire has Spartans fans feeling strangely fine. Some fans may not be completely pleased with the hire, while others are using their secret smile. Next year will be a new beginning for Michigan State football. College football is cyclical. Every ne...

This week I received one of those weekly e-mails from my child's school. Inside, the principle explained that the students were learning about the concept of Gratitude as a module in their ongoing Positivity Project. (As the self-appointed Chief Optimism Officer of this website, I strongly approve of this project.) "Gratitude is the quality of feeling and expressing thankfulness and appreciation," the newsletter explained. "It is about being aware of the consideration, kindness, and generosity of others. Gratitude is not about ignoring the negative aspects of life; it’s simply being aware of and thankful for what is good." The newsletter also stated that " The character strength of gratitude has also been found to be the single best predictor of individual well being." Considering the season of Thanksgiving and the fact that Michigan State football this season could be considered a " negative aspects of life," I thought that this was a messag...

This past Saturday the Michigan State Spartans got to experience one of the great joys in college athletics. The Spartans beat the Indiana Hoosiers. At face value, it was just one sub-.500 Big Ten school beating another sub-.500 Big Ten school but was more to the story. It's cool to win. It is certainly better than losing. But Saturday's win brought with it more than just the thrill of victory. It came with a pot made of a metal alloy that you are allowed and even encouraged to expectorate into. A bunch of college kids got to parade it around the visiting stadium like it was the freaking Stanley Cup. That, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another reason college athletics is unrivaled.  College teams have the privilege of playing their rivals for ridiculous relics of decades past. Those teams will proudly display those relics in a trophy case in their stadiums or football buildings and they will mourn them when they are absent. Big Ten football fans care about axes, wooden buckets, ...

On November 11, Michigan State was soundly defeated in Columbus by the Ohio State Buckeyes for the seventh loss of the season. With only 12 total games in the regular season, the best-case scenario was that Spartans could win out to finish at 5-7. As a rule, a team needs to have at least a .500 record to qualify for a bowl game. However, if not enough FBS-level teams finish with at least six wins to fill the 82 bowl spots, there is a process to select teams with a 5-7 record to fill those spots. With a current record of 4-7, the Michigan State Spartans are still mathematically alive to qualify for a bowl game. Today, we will examine what needs to happen for the Spartans to reach the postseason and how likely it is to come to pass. Step 1: Beat Penn State The first and most important step in this process is that the Spartans need to win a fifth game of the season. For this to happen, the Spartans need to defeat the No. 12 Penn State Nittany Lions on Friday night at Ford Field in Detroit...

Well, you can tell by the way I use this space that I'm a college football fan and it's time to talk.  As for the Michigan State Spartans, the season is starting to feel like the staff is moving the sweeping the flooring, cleaning up the merchandise, turning off the music, and turning off the lights. There are still two games remaining at Indiana this weekend and versus Penn State at Ford Field in Detroit in two weeks. While it seems as though this season has gone nowhere, the Spartans are still alive in the race for the postseason (assuming the athletic department would accept a bowl bid with a 5-7 record... which I am not 100% sure that they would given the current uncertainty in the coaching situation).  Yes, the Spartans have been kicked around since this season was born. Now, it's alright and it's okay if Spartans fans prefer to look the other way for the last two weeks of the season. As for me, I plan to keep following the Spartans to the bitter end and to continu...

So far, college football fans have enjoyed 11 full weeks of college football. It has been a season of ups and downs and twists and turns. Some teams have exceeded expectations and some teams have underachieved. Unfortunately for Michigan State fans, the Spartans fall squarely into the second category. The Spartans entered this weekend's game against Ohio State as more than a 30-point underdog. The results on the field came as no real surprise. While there were a few bright spots in the run game and on defense, neither unit was able to string together enough good plays in a row to seriously threaten the Buckeyes. The final score of 38-3 was predictable and expected, and the truth is that the game was inevitably inconsequential. The Spartans fell to 3-7, but the season is not yet over. As we will see later, there is a reasonable chance that the Spartans can still find their way to a bowl game IF they can win out. After what Spartan fans have endured so far this year, the idea of winn...