Junior running back Javon Ringer runs for a 9-yard gain after catching a pass from quarterback Brian Hoyer during the first quarter of Saturday’s game at Kinnick Stadium. Ringer led the Spartans in rushing with a total of 103 yards, and was second in receiving with a total of 42 yards.
Although the Spartans are 5-4 overall and sit near the bottom of the Big Ten standings with a 1-4 conference record, all that could be different with minor adjustments.
“The thing about our football team right now is that we’re so close to being a 7-2 football team, maybe an 8-1 football team,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said at his Monday press conference. “I’ll give you the Ohio State game, but other than that we’ve played with everybody.
“We’ve made mistakes, but we made mistakes in the Indiana game and the Notre Dame game, too.”
MSU has lost by an average of six points in its four losses, never losing by more than seven points. Two of those opponents — Wisconsin and Ohio State — were ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 poll. Wisconsin was No. 9 and Ohio State was No. 1 when the Spartans traveled to their home turfs.
“There is no team on this schedule that we can’t beat,” Dantonio said. “I think that at least, if nothing else, we’ve proven we can be in the game.”
Dantonio elaborated, though, that being in the game doesn’t mean a team can finish it. Such has been the case for this year’s Spartans, as they have been tied in the fourth quarter in three of their four losses.
While MSU prepares for late-game situations in practice, Dantonio stresses that teams have to “live and learn” when it comes to crunch time performance.
“It’s experience at doing it,” he said. “It’s having an opportunity to do it and be able to experience doing it. I’m not sure where our experience is at that factor.
“At the end of the game, one side or the other, we’re not putting complete games together.”
We were freshmen
When senior linebacker Kaleb Thornhill was asked about his first encounters as a freshman with friend and current roommate senior running back Jehuu Caulcrick, one word came to mind: “weird.”
The two met during freshman year training — but “met” is applied loosely in this situation.
Caulcrick was an out-of-state student who kept to himself, which made the other freshmen somewhat skeptical. One day, Caulcrick was walking toward Thornhill’s car looking for a ride — as Thornhill was the only freshman with a car on campus — but he didn’t get one.
“He was kind of not sure whether to ask or not, so I asked the other freshman, and I was like, ‘Hey, should I ask him if he needs a ride?’ They were like, ‘No, no, no. That kid is weird,’” Thornhill laughed. “So I got in the car and just left. I felt bad, though.”
Soon enough, though, the two would become best of friends — and they have been roommates ever since.
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