College Football Notes & Quotes: Week 8

Spartan Nation talked to various Coaches around the Big Ten earlier this week. Here’s some of the buzz from around the league to get you ready for the

Spartan Nation talked to various Coaches around the Big Ten earlier this week. Here’s some of the buzz from around the league to get you ready for the Conference’s 4th weekend of play.

Mark Dantonio

On what the Spartans must do from here to play their best football at the end of the year:

“First of all, I think that what we have to do is continue to focus on one game at a time and not get ahead of ourselves. I think that will be very crucial…We can’t beat ourselves with penalties, we have to eliminate the penalties that I guess, are unforced…because it puts us behind the “8 Ball”…(Must play with) focus, maturity…and continue to play with effort.”

On when he began to feel the chemistry of the 2010 Spartans might lead to a special kind of season:

“I sort of felt like we would have something special as a football team, really going all the way back to February. It sort of increased during Spring Ball and in Summer Camp. I think when you go through difficult times, it’s a little bit of a rallying point for you as a person, as a group, or as a program…We’ve come back and learned from those experiences (of 2009) a little bit, especially on the field...

Football’s gotta be fun, it’s gotta be fun for our guys. They’ve gotta be excited, and we’ve got that feeling right now. We’ve got a bit of an edge to us. It doesn’t mean we’re going to win (each week), we have to do the right things, and execute, timing is so important. But it does mean that we carry a sense of confidence with us, and we are going to have fun with it.”

Joe Paterno

On the prevalence of “devastating hits” seen recently in the NFL and College Football, and whether there’s a concern that more of them could start happening at the College level:

“Well I’ve been saying for 15 years that we ought to get rid of the face mask. I think then you go back to shoulder blocking, shoulder tackling, and wouldn’t have all those “heroes” out there. You get that big face mask on…there are two things about the face mask.

Number one: it’s a weapon. Guys are fearless because they don’t have to worry about the old broken noses and knocked out teeth, and those kind of things, which obviously we’d like to prevent. But, you don’t get anything for nothing, and those helmets are so heavy.

Kids are in the weight room, and building up their necks, and everything else. So the game has changed because there used to be shoulders, and now there’s heads. A kid makes a tackle now, he doesn’t shoulder tackle, he sticks his head in there with his hands and drives through with the helmet, and that’s what he’s taught.

In the old days, very few people had face masks, and if you had a facemask it’s because you had some kind of a broken bone around the face, or your teeth, and it was a single bar, just one singlebar. Now we’ve got a weapon.”

Pat Fitzgerald

On the prevalence of “devastating hits” seen recently in the NFL and in College Football, and whether there’s a concern that more of them could start happening in College:

“The health, safety, and well being of our players, I think for every Coach, is our number one priority. There’s no question about that…I believe that if those hits occur, then we need to hold those young people accountable…I would agree with what Coach Paterno said, guys are using their head as a weapon, and unfortunately, that’s going to lead to injuries.”

On his impressions, as College Football Hall of Fame Linebacker, of Spartan Sr. All-American and Captain LB, Greg Jones:

“He’s been really consistent. You watch the way that he plays, he’s got great instincts. He can run sideline to sideline, and he’s got great ability to rush the passer…He’s a team Captain, so you know he’s got the leadership skills.

He gets talked about a lot, and he should because he’s a great player, but I enjoy watching Eric Gordon (Sr. LB) too. I think he’s one heck of a football player…”

On preparing Defensively for the balanced Spartan Offensive attack:

“Well I’m a Catholic guy, so the first thing you do is you pray…You’ve gotta do what you do. You’ve gotta go out and execute…One thing Coach Treadwell does a great job of is building compliments off their base run package, and then they’re also going to build complimentary plays off some of the their base plays as far as trick plays…They’ve got a bunch of weapons, all over the place.”

On some of his coaching influences outside of who he played for and already coached under:

“I think you constantly learn, I don’t think you ever stop growing and trying to improve yourself as a Coach or as a person. I think I’m influenced first and foremost by our players. I learn so much from them every day...There’s a lot of great Coaches out there, and in this league, you have to look no further than Coach Paterno…Just the dignity, the integrity, the way that he’s run his program…there’s nobody to look at better than him.”

Jim Tressel

On his reaction to the recent Sports Illustrated story which detailed a past Agent who claimed to have paid various College Football players while they were student-athletes in the 80s and 90s:

“I think we’ve made a little bit of progress (on a solution)…but it is a problem. It’s very difficult to legislate morality, but we’ve got to do our best to educate kids and educate agents, and all the rest.

My personal opinion is that there can’t be a solution until there are some reverberations at the next level for the young people that get involved (with agents)…There really isn’t a bridge from the College level to the NFL, where if you struggle in College to follow the rules, you’re going to lose some privileges in the NFL. I think until we can do that…I think we’re going to have a hard time keeping a lid on it.”

Kirk Ferentz

On the weekly challenges of playing in the Big Ten, and predicting what will happen from week to week around the country:

“I think we’ve seen the last two weeks (with the #1 ranked team losing each week), it’s a long year and there’s a lot of good teams in the country…I think the Big Ten is a lot like the NFL, every week, there’s absolutely no way to predict who’s going to do what…

…I’ve always felt that a football game is a little bit goofy anyway, but if you bet on NFL games, you’re totally out of your mind…that’s just how football is. Everybody thinks they always know what’s going on, but it doesn’t always quite work out the way people would predict.”

Rich Rodriguez

On the perception that “Spread” teams don’t do as well on Defense because they have to recruit more Offense players to support the extensive needs of the “Spread.”:

“I don’t see the validation in that. I think everybody has kind of a formula, you have 85 scholarships, and how you break them down. It’s usually split pretty evenly, 40 (Offense) and 40 (Defense), 5 for specialists…I think that’s (the perception of why Spread teams struggle on Defense) just usually the excuse…There’s all kinds of Spreads (run, pass, mix), so I don’t think the balance in scholarships is affected by your scheme Offensively, at all.”

On whether there’s been a fundamental cause of the Wolverine’s historic struggles in Big Ten play during his era, or whether it’s simply been a product of the transition to his systems:

“We haven’t been good enough to win the games. We haven’t deserved to win the games. We know what the issues are, but I know that the transition is always going to play a little bit of part in it. The experience of your players is always going to play a little part in it. It’s a process that we’re going through. It’s not been certainly fun to go through that, but I think what’s important is that we know we’re on the right track and we know that we’re going to be there eventually.”

Bill Lynch

On the perception that “Spread” teams don’t do as well on Defense because they have to recruit more Offense players to support the “Spread.”:

“We’ve run the Spread Offense here and it hasn’t affected the number of scholarship guys we’ve recruited on Defense…The area you don’t recruit as much is Tight Ends and Fullbacks.”

On the “devastating hits” seen recently on Sundays in the NFL, and Saturdays in College Football, and whether there’s a concern that more of them could start happening in College:

“I think the NCAA has been very proactive, and I think Bill Corollo and his staff have made it very clear to us that…“judgment calls” are always going to go on the side of player safety…I applaud the NCAA and the rules committee, and certainly the Big Ten for being proactive in their approach.”

P.A.T. (Perhaps Another Thought…)

1. The Big Ten Network’s “Icons” series is a great idea, but airing the shows during Football season is a pretty bad one.  Who has time to watch those shows duringthe fall and winter sports season?  If you’re like me, you’ve got more things to do and more things you’d like to watch than time to enjoy them.  I sure hope the BTN re-airs the “Icons” shows in something like June when more Big Ten fans will have the time to give the series its due, and should be looking for something solid to watch.  And oh yea, who put Jack Nicklaus 18th?  Whoops!
2. MSU needs to improve its bye week scheduling moving forward. I realize that seasons’ schedules are made years in advance, and that there have been some difficulties adapting to the now 12 game regular season schedule. But the Spartans must assure their bye week falls somewhere sensible, like maybe between weeks 5 and 7, to gain the best competitive advantage. I realize that in 2008, the Spartans had their bye week right before playing Penn St. for a Big Ten Championship, but that was clearly an aberration. We’ll see how the Spartans hold up here in weeks 8 and 9, before the bye finally arrives.  If they begin to look a bit tired and worn, it wouldn’t be a total surprise at this point. Factor in camp, and the team has now been going at it hard for more than ten weeks straight.

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