MSU head football coach Mark Dantonio highlighted his team’s win over Furman University last Friday at his weekly press conference Tuesday, and fielded questions about how he plans to prepare the team during its unusually early bye week.
“A lot of things happening in the first game that you’re trying to control,” Dantonio said. “I thought our football team came out and played hard, that’s number one.”
The 28-13 victory over the Paladins was a closer than expected contest for the Spartans, marred with 10 penalties for 120 yards. Of those incurred penalties, many were out of character, including an unsportsmanlike conduct flag thrown against fifth-year senior tight end Josiah Price.
Dantonio didn’t shy away from addressing the penalties, mentioning them 12 times during the conference.
“Things that I’m relatively displeased with were the penalties, shocked on the penalties, but, again, some of them are unforced,” Dantonio said. “I mean really none of them are unforced because we didn’t have offsides, we didn’t have procedural penalties, they’re down the field penalties that we’re playing football and they get called.”
He later credited the penalties for the tight contest, adding they were able to keep Furman’s drives alive and lessen the amount of time MSU had possession — particularly during the third quarter.
Though MSU racked up the yards on the flags, Dantonio acknowledged Furman’s game plan for taking advantage of the free yards.
“Give Furman credit, I thought they played very well, had a good plan going into the football game,” Dantonio said.
Despite the penalties, MSU’s offense gained 361 total yards behind the legs of sophomore running back LJ Scott and the arm of fifth-year senior quarterback Tyler O’Connor. O’Connor was 13-of-18 for 190 yards and three passing touchdowns while Scott ran for 105 yards and one touchdown on 20 carries.
After commenting that he thought O’Connor was nervous at the outset of the game, Dantonio felt his quarterback settled in, was aggressive and “threw the ball effectively” and with “velocity.”
Scott received the bulk of the carries during Friday’s contest, out-pacing the next running back, Madre London by 15 carries. Dantonio said in the press conference leading up to Furman that he planned on using all three running backs but stressed the game plan would be to play the hot hand.
Only Scott and London played in the contest, while Gerald Holmes didn’t see any action despite being the team’s leading rusher during Big Ten play last season.
“I’m never going to say we’re not going to use three,” Dantonio said after being asked why Holmes didn’t crack the rotation against Furman. “If we can get people in rhythm, I think that’s good. Guys come out — we didn’t want to have three guys come out with eight carries a piece, or even nine a piece. We wanted to make sure that we somewhat had the majority.”
The defensive line struggled against Furman when it came to runs up the middle, though the team overall held Furman to just 87 yards rushing — a young line with many back ups being redshirt-freshmen and sophomores. Dantonio, however, praised junior Malik McDowell’s and graduate transfer Kevin Williams’ play.
“I thought Kevin Williams did a nice job, obviously Malik McDowell played extraordinarily well, great effort,” Dantonio said. “Big guy, rushing passer, doing all the things that you wanted him to do.”
Dantonio later added he felt McDowell was the team’s “defensive MVP.”
In recent years, games against week one opponents have been used to rotate freshmen players to get a sense at their development. Underdeveloped freshmen or freshmen the coaching staff doesn’t believe will play very much throughout the year will be redshirted following week one.
With the tighter than expected contest, MSU didn’t have the opportunity to play freshmen, which left questions about how Dantonio plans to use them moving forward.
“I want to legitimate guys if we do redshirt, I don’t want to say he got hurt and he didn’t really get hurt,” Dantonio said. “Their time is coming. This will be a big week for them. We’ll have an opportunity to look at them more fully.”
Dantonio also shared during the press conference defensive line coach Ron Burton had emergency surgery prior to the Furman game and said Burton is “doing well and he’s back with us and everything.” Linebacker/special teams coach Mark Snyder took over defensive line coach roles for the game against Furman.
Ed Davis is still practicing with the team and going to school, Dantonio said. No new update has been given, but Dantonio said he expects to hear a “positive outcome” on the sixth-year senior sometime this week.
