Sophomore quarterback Connor Cook hands off the ball to junior running back Jeremy Langford during their game against Western Michigan on Aug. 30, 2013, at Spartan Stadium. The Spartans defeated the Broncos, 26-13. Danyelle Morrow/The State News
Max Bullough made a well-publicized speech to his team before hitting the field to play Minnesota last year, in which he challenged MSU’s offense.
It was the season finale and the Spartans needed to beat the Golden Gophers on the road to make their sixth consecutive bowl game. In the locker room, the senior linebacker and second-year captain implored his peers on the other side of the ball to step up their production in a year filled with dismal performances.
After an opening win against Western Michigan last Friday that brought back some unpleasant memories of 2012, it’s too early for any fire-and-brimstone messages from Bullough, he said.
“The biggest improvement I always think goes from week one to week two in football,” Bullough said. “So I’m just going to worry about how I played on Friday and how the defense is going to play this Saturday. For now, we’re going to let everyone deal with what they’re dealing with on their own.”
Many players, such as Bullough, have not hit the panic button just yet and instead chalked up the offensive woes to typical first game nerves and used phrases such as “easily correctable” mistakes after practice Tuesday.
Sophomore defensive end Shilique Calhoun confirmed head coach Mark Dantonio’s statement that the offense hasn’t performed as bad in practices as it did in the first game.
“It was our first game, everyone had their jitters that game, and I feel like they were kind of shaky and on the edge,” Calhoun said. “But (there’s) not errors like what happened in the game, it hasn’t been like that on the (practice) field, and if it was, it was early in camp.”
Dantonio opted not to wait and see if Saturday’s matchup with South Florida would be a repeat of week one by bumping senior wide receiver Bennie Fowler from the starting lineup in favor of sophomore Macgarrett Kings Jr.
Fowler caught three passes for a team-high 34 yards, but also led MSU in dropped passes with three against Western Michigan.
“You didn’t see that during camp,” wide receivers coach Terrence Samuel said. “Like I said, some (catches) are going to be hard to make and I can live with you making a great effort and you make a drop, but the unforced drop … that’s hard to take.”
The fifth-year senior’s struggles made way for the dynamic Kings to show what he can do in the starting trio alongside junior Keith Mumphery and sophomore Aaron Burbridge. Throughout fall camp, coaches and players raved about Kings, a 5-foot-10, 186-pounder from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and his ability to simply make plays — even if it’s not always the correct play from a scheme standpoint.
“We need to be more multi dimensional,” Dantonio said. “Some of that is structure, some of that is execution. But we can play better … We’ve played better in the past and we look forward to our next opportunities.”
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