MSU head coach Mark Dantonio has made it known one of the keys this season for his football team is to win the fans back. After the team’s 3-0 start, the Spartans are closer to achieving that goal, and the unified, white-clad student section has loudly voiced its support at Spartan Stadium.
Senior defensive end Jonal Saint-Dic may have earned his nickname “Sackmaster” as a joke early in his MSU football career, but his play this season has been nothing to laugh at. The Big Ten Conference noticed this week when they named Saint-Dic co-defensive player of the week.
The Spartans know that if they’re going to gamble, they’d better at least try to cover their losses. MSU did exactly that Saturday in its 17-13 victory over Pittsburgh at Spartan Stadium.
MSU head coach Mark Dantonio has yet to hold a press conference without using a favorite quote from former MSU head coach George Perles: “They all count one.” Well, Saturday’s 17-13 victory over Pittsburgh should at least count one-and-a-half.
Prior to Saturday’s game, MSU was the least penalized team in the Big Ten, but its 125 penalty yards against Pittsburgh accomplished a feat the Spartans had not reached in three seasons.
Football leagues such as the XFL, NFL Europe and the United States Football League, or USFL, have tried, and ultimately failed to challenge the NFL for football supremacy over the years, but now another league is trying to break onto the football scene with a different objective.
During his childhood, Don Coleman learned to respect everyone that he came in contact with, but that respect wasn’t always returned by his opponents.
The Spartans have said their schedule only gets tougher as the year goes on – Saturday’s 17-13 victory over Pittsburgh was a testament to that statement.
Senior linebacker Sir Darean Adams started 23 consecutive games for the Spartans, but that streak came to a halt when he took a back seat to redshirt freshman Jon Misch for MSU’s season opener two weeks ago against UAB.
While junior wide receiver Devin Thomas was busy fielding questions from the media about his four catch, 156-yard performance that included a touchdown last Saturday against Bowling Green, senior defensive end Ervin Baldwin made the receiver who was almost impossible to stop do just that.As Baldwin was exiting the press trailer, he exclaimed “showtime,” referring to Thomas’ nickname. The interjection prompted several questions aimed at the Spartans’ new big play threat.
The dead bolt has been cut from the cage, and the dogs of the MSU defense are out hounding opposing quarterbacks this season. Bowling Green quarterback Tyler Sheehan felt the bite last Saturday, getting sacked seven times – giving MSU 12 total sacks in two games. Last season, the Spartans ended with only 16.
When it comes to seating in sections 14 and 15 in the south end zone, it’s a no-holds-barred scamper to find a slab of aluminum to stand on if one of the 13,600 students with tickets decides to arrive too close to game time, or leaves his or her seat during the first half.
While Pittsburgh will come to Spartan Stadium looking to avenge last year’s loss to MSU, the Spartans are looking to get a little retribution of their own for head coach Mark Dantonio. In Dantonio’s three years as Cincinnati’s head coach, he never beat its Big East opponent Pittsburgh — losing 33-15 in 2006 and 38-20 the year before.
It may not have been as statistically sexy as the blowout win last week, but MSU took a crash course in adversity on their way to defeating Bowling Green, 28-17, on Saturday. “The thing that impressed me about our football team is that we did handle adversity,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “We didn’t just go in there and all of a sudden quit playing and hang our heads. We kept coming back and someone kept making a play.”
With an 0-2 start, no bowl wins since the 2002 Outback Bowl and a never-ending underground movement for his removal, Michigan football head coach Lloyd Carr is likely done after this season as King of the Rodents.
If the MSU pass rush needed a slogan, it might be, “What a difference a year makes.” The Spartans recorded 16 sacks in 2006 – just two more than last-place Indiana in the Big Ten. On Saturday, though, MSU collected seven sacks to bring its season total to 12 in two games.
Spartan football tasted adversity for the first time this season, but they just chewed it up and spit it right back out, defeating Bowling Green 28-17 on Saturday. “The thing that impressed me about our football team is that we did handle adversity,” head coach Mark Dantonio said. “We didn’t just go in there and all of a sudden quit playing and hang our heads. We kept coming back and someone kept making a play.”
Head coach Mark Dantonio has been saying all along that football is a game of inches, and after several upsets last Saturday, his claim was validated.