Everywhere he goes, senior safety Danny Fortener has been hearing that the MSU football team’s defense has no shot of stopping Texas Tech’s potent passing offense.
“Right before I got here, I saw on ESPN that they were saying that Texas Tech has the easiest game to play,” Fortener said Friday at the team’s Valero Alamo Bowl Media Day at Spartan Stadium. “That puts a chip on our shoulder. We hear it every day and we’re just out to prove people wrong.”
From the moment the bowl matchup was announced, the talk surrounding the Alamo Bowl was that the Red Raiders would run the Spartans out of the Alamodome on Jan. 2. The players know what the experts are saying and are enjoying the underdog role.
“I know we’re going to play with emotion when we go down there because, from the looks of it, not a lot of people are giving us a chance and that’s always big motivation,” senior cornerback Ross Weaver said. “You play with a huge chip on your shoulder when you hear things like that.”
The fact that the Spartans’ 103rd ranked pass defense is going up against the nation’s No. 2 pass offense in Texas Tech has led numerous national media experts to peg the Spartans as underdogs by more than a touchdown.
The MSU secondary also will be without junior cornerback Chris L. Rucker, whom the coaches deem as the team’s top cornerback. Weaver said Rucker’s absence hasn’t affected the mindset of the defensive backfield.
“Regardless of who’s here and who’s not here, we’re coming together and getting ready to go down there and win, just like it’s any game,” Weaver said. “We’re not just going down to play. When you go to a bowl, you want to win.”
Despite the Spartans’ poor pass defense this season, defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said Texas Tech’s pass-heavy offense is easier to prepare for.
“You’d much rather have a team that’s going to throw it all the time than be 50-50,” he said. “They’ve made themselves one-dimensional to start off with.”
Texas Tech’s offensive scheme spreads the offensive linemen out to keep defensive ends away from the quarterback – something Narduzzi thinks won’t present much of a problem.
“They widen it out to get your best rushers away from the passer,” he said. “But the great thing about our defense is that our best rusher (redshirt freshman defensive tackle Jerel Worthy) is right in the middle, so that will be effective.”
The Spartans have been beaten numerous times this season against spread teams, such as Central Michigan and Notre Dame. But despite all the numbers being in favor of the Red Raiders, junior linebacker and co-captain Greg Jones said the Spartans are fine with their underdog role.
“We came off a really hard loss, and then we haven’t been really successful in bowl games, so I think we have a big chip on our shoulder,” Jones said. “The focus is not just to make it to the bowl game, but to actually win. … We want to win the game and that’s the bottom line.”
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