Drum major Ian McNabb and the Spartan Marching Band greet Spartan Stadium before the game Saturday afternoon.
The wind and rain that engulfed Spartan Stadium on Saturday during MSU’s 17-0 win over Florida Atlantic had many people ringing out their shirts and cursing the weather.
Although that sentiment was shared by more than a few fans and players, MSU redshirt freshman guard Joel Foreman was more than happy with the weather conditions.
“I love it when it’s all wet and you have to play through adversity like that,” Foreman said.
“For me, when you have weather conditions like that, that’s what football’s supposed to be played in, you know? Tough stuff and keep on fighting.”
Foreman and the Spartans did keep on fighting — rallying behind senior running back Javon Ringer and his 282 yards and two touchdowns — to improve to 2-1 on the season.
They did so without any help from Mother Nature, which poured down more than four inches of rain Saturday with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees.
Before they awoke Saturday, the Spartans expected rain to be a factor in the game — footballs were dunked in buckets of water for each play in Thursday’s practice.
“It didn’t seem like it, but we did,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said of preparing for the weather. “We didn’t seem to have a problem (Thursday), but what ended up happening, I think, was our hands were dry (then) and now our hands were wet.”
Senior quarterback Brian Hoyer, who admittedly struggled to hold onto the ball, said he went through 20 towels during the game. Although he didn’t seem to think they helped, his quarterback counterpart thought Hoyer did a fine job.
“It was funny, (Florida Atlantic quarterback Rusty Smith) came up to me after the game and he was like, ‘Man, how’d you guys keep the balls dry?’” Hoyer said. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I fumbled, like, four snaps.’”
Standing by their team
Standing at the podium after the game, a soaked Dantonio opened his postgame press conference by thanking the fans who stuck with his team during the wind and rain.
“The first thing I want to do is thank our fans who hung in there,” Dantonio said.
“You had to have a little bit of perseverance out there to be in that environment and continue to stay there.”
The paid attendance for the game was 70,321, but the actual number of fans who braved the conditions inside Spartan Stadium throughout the game was significantly lower.
Zip, zero, zilch
Saturday’s game marked MSU’s first shutout since the Spartans blanked Northwestern 33-0 in 1999.
With help from the weather, MSU held Smith to 8-of-34 passing and the Owls to 225 total yards.
“I thought we played through adversity,” Dantonio said of the defense. “The ball was on the short side of the field I’m not sure how many times, and we played through that and we needed to.”
MSU’s three starting linebackers — sophomore Greg Jones, junior Adam Decker and sophomore Eric Gordon — led the team with six tackles each.
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The secondary also contributed, as senior strong safety Otis Wiley had five tackles and four pass break-ups — while junior cornerback Ross Weaver had four tackles, two pass break-ups and multiple special teams tackles.
“We wanted to win a lot, but when we got the shutout it was that much more important,” Weaver said. “We needed to win and I think that just says something about our defense.”
