Saturday's football game between MSU and Notre Dame has huge implications for both teams. For the Spartans, a win on national television would mean a spot in the Top 25. For the Fighting Irish, a win would help counteract last week's blowout loss to Michigan and preserve its championship hopes.
But even with that in mind, the game's most talked about story lines might involve off-field activities.
After the Spartans' 44-41 win in South Bend, Ind., last year, MSU players planted a Spartan flag at midfield, an incident the Irish could use as motivation.
"You can look at it as motivation, but I don't think it's too hard to draw motivation for this game," senior quarterback Drew Stanton said. "If you need to look for things outside of the game itself this week, I think you might have problems."
Besides, MSU has motivation of its own. Last summer, Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis reportedly said the Irish would never again lose to MSU while he was the coach.
"We'll probably throw it up," MSU head coach John L. Smith said at his weekly press conference. "To be honest with you, it motivates us as coaches. But does it motivate our kids? Probably not."
Weis' quote did draw a response from Stanton.
"That's a pretty bold statement to make that you're never going to lose to a team that's beaten you seven of the last nine times," he said.
Another incident seemed to get at Stanton, as well. Each year, the winner of the MSU-Notre Dame game earns the "Megaphone" trophy. But last year, Notre Dame didn't bring the trophy to the game, so MSU was unable to celebrate with it.
"When they said they didn't have it because they weren't expecting us to beat them, we were kind of shocked," Stanton said.
Seeing red
MSU remained perfect in the red zone on the season after going 5-of-5 from inside the 20-yard line against Pittsburgh.
The team is 16-of-16 in the red zone thus far, including 13 touchdowns and three field goals. Smith points to the improved kicking game as one of the main reasons for the red zone success and uses the Pittsburgh game as an example.
Down 10-0 in the second quarter, junior wide receiver Terry Love dropped a pass in the end zone on third down. But freshman kicker Brett Swenson hit a 43-yard field goal to make the game 10-3.
"We've just overcome that negative drop with a positive — we got three points out of it," Smith said. "Last year, we get zero out of it, our kids come to the sidelines … and it's not really pretty."
On the season, Swenson has made 4-of-5 field goals, missing only a 51-yarder against Idaho, and is perfect in 15 extra-point attempts.
Peer pressure
U-M pressured Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn often in its 47-21 win against the Irish last weekend, forcing him to throw three interceptions and fumble once.
The Wolverines sacked Quinn three times, but Smith was more impressed by how U-M continually got to Quinn and hit him, even when he was able to get the throw off. He knows MSU needs to apply that type of pressure on Saturday.
"We're going to have to gamble and we're going to have to do some things," he said. "But don't give them a cheap one. Make sure we're where we're supposed to be."
Practice makes perfect
Last week, Smith held practices indoors with the heat on to prepare the team for Pittsburgh's humidity. The Spartans responded by wearing down the Panthers in the second and third quarters.
Smith said he plans on using a similar strategy this week.
With an 8 p.m. start time, Saturday's game will be played under the lights at Spartan Stadium. Once the lights arrive later this week, Smith will hold practices at night in the stadium.
"You want to run around and throw a few balls under the lights," Smith said.
