There’s something about Spartan Stadium under the lights.
At least that’s what players are saying. As No. 10 MSU (3-1 overall) prepares to face No. 19 Nebraska (5-0 overall) for an 8 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, players, coaches and fans are getting wrapped up in the excitement of opening Big Ten play with a top-20 matchup.
“One of the reasons you probably come to Michigan State is to play in a conference like this and have these type of games,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “We’ll have to be at our best, expect us to be at our best and we’ll focus on energy.”
Budding Rivalry
MSU and Nebraska haven’t played very many times, with Nebraska not joining the Big Ten until 2011. The teams have only competed eight times, with Nebraska winning the first seven.
The winless streak against Nebraska ended last season for MSU as they came into Lincoln, Neb. and beat the Cornhuskers 41-28.
“It was the last football team we had not beaten on the road,” Dantonio said. “That was one of the things I think we needed to do as a program.”
Nebraska is coming to East Lansing with their own road woes. They have not beaten a top-10 team on the road since 1997.
Despite the importance of this matchup, Dantonio didn’t put the game on a pedestal.
“I think we have a lot of rivals in this conference,” he said. “You can feel the emotion from both football teams when you go, you can feel the emotion, and that’s exciting.”
Ameer Abdullah
He’s a senior running back from Homewood, Ala. He is five-feet-nine inches of power. He is Ameer Adbullah, and ever since he arrived in Lincoln, he’s been a Spartan killer.
Even in last season’s loss to MSU, Abdullah was one of the only running backs to play the defense and actually go out with respectable numbers.
Abdullah went for 123 yards on 22 carries, which is not his usual production but still impressive against last season’s Spartan defense.
Combined in the 28-24 MSU loss in East Lansing, Nebraska put up 313 yards on the ground and in 2011 the team put up 190 yards in a 24-3 victory.
The bottom line is that, win or lose, Nebraska has seemed to have no problem running against MSU’s annual top-ranked rush defense.
“Yeah, (last year) they hit on a couple plays,” Dantonio said. “But the turnovers that we were able to acquire helped us win that game. It would have been a much closer game, it was still a close game, but it would have been a much closer game series in and series out.”
Abdullah is the running back on every Spartan’s mind this week.
“He’s really good at finding the hole,” senior defensive end Marcus Rush said. “He changes direction extremely well, he’s fast and he’s powerful. He’s a smaller guy with a lot of power to him.”
The players on both sides are starting to get familiar with each other. Abdullah and junior defensive end Shilique Calhoun have had to put a budding friendship on hold for this game.
Calhoun said the two speak on a semi-regular basis, but the good feelings will be put on hold until after Saturday night.
“Last season we weren’t gap-sound,” he said. “A lot of guys missed assignments or stepped in the wrong direction, not getting the call. There (are) a lot of things we did wrong.”
Calhoun said while Nebraska has a great scheme and offense, the problems that MSU had against Nebraska last season can be easily corrected.
“A lot of it was us,” he said. “It was little things that we could have corrected there on the sideline, we didn’t completely understand it because we didn’t have film to watch, but now we understand it.”
Saturday Night Lights
The first night game at Spartan Stadium didn’t happen until 1987, almost 64 years after the stadium opened. Since that Labor Day weekend win against USC, there have been many more night games, with a flurry happening the recent years.
“The most special thing is probably the “go green, go white” chant,” junior quarterback Connor Cook said. “When you’re playing in Spartan Stadium it’s louder at night in my opinion.”
Senior safety Kurtis Drummond said night games are exciting because anticipation builds for kickoff in a way that is absent from noon or 3:30 p.m. kickoffs.
“It’s great to be able to let it out after a day of waiting,” he said. “Those games feel a lot different than the noon games.”
Both Drummond and Calhoun said the late kickoff doesn’t bother them personally.
“It doesn’t challenge me personally, but I’m pretty laid back,” Drummond said. “I just try to relax, have fun and make sure guys are loose.”
Calhoun said he also tries to remain as relaxed as possible, but sometimes that isn’t easy.
“It’s havoc,” he said. “When you have to sit in the hotel all day, it’s pretty boring, by around 4 o’clock you’re thinking that you’re ready to go, you know what they’re going to do and you’re ready to make plays.”
B1G Implications
The Big Ten season is opening with a spark for the Spartans. Nebraska is undefeated and knocking on the doorstep of the national prominence they knew in the 1990s.
They have run the ball on MSU and scored plenty in the last three meetings. Nebraska knows that they’ve had success against MSU, and they aren’t afraid to tell people about it.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Calhoun said. “If they said, ‘They have such a great defense, I don’t know if we can run on them,’ I wouldn’t look forward to the game as much.”
For Nebraska, a light schedule following MSU puts them in a situation where they could be 9-0 going into another big game against Wisconsin on Nov. 15. Nebraska has not started 6-0 since the last time they went to the national championship in 2001–2002 season.
For MSU, a trip to the College Football Playoff hinges on MSU at least winning the conference. Another loss and they are likely done.
The stage has been set, the lines have been drawn. Now all they have to do is play the game.
