Head coach Mark Dantonio and the No. 15 MSU football team had an emotional October schedule.
The Spartans traveled to the Horseshoe to take on Ohio State in front of a wild crowd, defeated Michigan for the fourth consecutive year and took down co-defending Big Ten champion Wisconsin in a last-minute Hail Mary — all before crashing down on the road against Nebraska.
MSU’s emotions were running high in the month’s first three games, but at his weekly press conference Tuesday, Dantonio said emotion appeared to be a missing ingredient Saturday
“It’ll be very emotional coming into any game, but you’ve got to be able to keep that emotion throughout,” he said. “So when a big play is made like a kickoff return or an interception … we’ve got to be able to sustain those and build on those and allow those things to sort of ignite us.”
The Spartans had key plays which could have created momentum for them — such as redshirt freshman running back Nick Hill’s 62-yard kick return and junior cornerback Johnny Adams’ interception late in the second quarter — but they never capitalized.
Both drives resulted in field goal attempts. Junior kicker Dan Conroy missed the first while the second was MSU’s only score.
Dantonio said if he had to pinpoint one driving cause behind the loss, it would be the lack of emotion and explosive plays.
“We never could just sort of get over the hump and get that momentum that would allow us to play into that football game,” Dantonio said. “It was close — relatively close at halftime — I felt. We needed to come out the second half and sort of catch fire … (but) we did not play well enough.”
No-loss November
During Dantonio’s tenure at MSU, the Spartans have compiled a 9-3 record in November, including a 3-0 finish last season.
Dantonio said he wants to continue the November trend with all of MSU’s goals remaining in front of it. The Spartans will host Minnesota this weekend, travel to Iowa the next, return to East Lansing for Indiana and finish at Northwestern.
“We’ve always talked about (how) November is for contenders,” he said. “We’ve played a tough stretch these last four games, (and) it’s going to be a tough stretch for these next four. … That’s our lookout; that’s our mindset.”
After the weekend’s loss, MSU is in a three-way divisional tie with U-M and Nebraska. For the Spartans to go to the conference championship game on Dec. 3, they would have to win out, and Nebraska would have to lose another game, leaving MSU and U-M tied for conference records. MSU then would win the tiebreaker against the Wolverines.
“We’re tied for the lead in the Legends Division, and if we win out, good things can happen,” Dantonio said.
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