Mark Dantonio Briefs Spartan Nation On the Latest from MSU Football Starting Oregon Week!
Mark Dantonio Briefs Spartan Nation On the Latest from MSU Football Starting Oregon Week!
Q: After seeing the film can you elaborate on Vayante Copeland’s play?
MD: Really big plays in the football game, one tracking down the kickoff return for a touchdown saving tackle then also the interception at the end but he tackled very effectively. He played on balance pretty well throughout the game. He’s matched up against an older player, an experienced player, a good football player in Davis. I thought he did a nice job.
Q: Connor said after the game he described his play as barely average. I just wondered how you thought he played in the opener?
MD: I thought Connor played probably average for him. If you look around and watch other players quarterbacks playing it might be considered winning but I think it was average for him. I thought his passes were crisp but his passes were in small windows; there isn’t any question about that. A lot of early versus tight man coverage appeared to be in a tight window. He threw the deep ball pretty effectively. He missed on a couple but he’s pretty good. Zero interceptions, in that capacity. Probably in the way that he would evaluate himself probably average. Missed a couple of throws but made a lot of big time throws too. I think if you were at the football game and watched him, I think you came away saying man that guy’s got a great arm can put it in tight windows and nice job, took zero sacks, had the one situation that was overturned with the penalty but was protected pretty well, had time to throw.
Q: What is your evaluation of tackling overall was and you talked before about a little less time, different rules and things like that, do you think that was a factor in the season opener at all?
MD: I think you always practice tackling, you tend to work on it a lot in two a days, but as you go into game week and you come off of last week and we gave them a couple days off then you go into game week you’re not going to tackle live like that, you’re going to do some drills to try and simulate it but you don’t really put them on the ground as much. More than anything I think our leverage on tackling was not as good as it needs to be in some cases on a couple of third downs and I think it got a little leg tired, played more players maybe, it was the first game, and we’ve had a hot week of practice and we had not had that kind of heat prior to, so I think we were a little leg weary and a couple of players did a nice job on it too. From the tackling perspective we got to continue to get better as a football team, we’ve always been a good tackling team, we’ll have to re-emphasize.
Q: I want you to say what you saw watching two long kick returns on film and how you are going to address that going forward?
MD: What we saw was by not taking on these two man wedge with the proper leverage so we saw a kicker go underneath a block where he’s like a safety where if he just stays outside of it he’ll turn it back, it’ll be about a 30 or 40 yard gain, it happened two times. We had a fold player get knocked off not fold correctly, we had a couple of other guys get unblocked and didn’t make the play. So, it was good execution by Western and there were two kickoff returns they were different, one was different from the other. One went on a wedge, the other was a counter. They changed it up on us. We need to correct it, it will be corrected. We need to get younger players running down as well so we need to change up some things. We can’t have it, unacceptable.
Q: I’m curious how vanilla were you able to stay on Friday night?
MD: In terms of what we do, we got them in long yard situations, I think sometimes we were trying to protect guys out there for their first time and things like that. I just think we were trying to say ok, go easy on this guy or try to protect him with calls and coverages and things of that nature at times. You can’t do that. You got to just make callsplay the situations of the game. We had them in some long yards situations and let them out. When it’s 27 to 7 if we keep them down on the 4 yard line it’s 3rd and 21 we can feel pretty good about the end result. Again when it’s 34 to 7 if we stop them on that series we feel very good or 34 to 10 I think you are going to feel very good at the end result. Give credit to Western. They kept playing and they kept playing with energy and at the end of the game they were playing with more energy than we were on the offensive side of the ball versus our defense. That creates some downs sometimes. We need to maintain who we are and our leadership needs to come out.
Q: I want to ask you about your 3rd down package, you mentioned Western’s proficiency, how much of that has to do with the alignment, the 3 3 5, and is that something you look at as far as personnel or is that more of a scheme thing?
MD: First of all, I think there were players in position to make the play and they got to make a play. So in every case there’s always structural weaknesses in any coverage or any front, there could be potential player blows, m.a.’s, missed assignments and then there’s physical problems. We had leverage on, we got the ball thrown on the seam on us one time, the ball thrown over our head one time when a guy should have been playing off a little bit and knowing the situation. Another situation we had three guys left to right and we lost leverage. Another quarterback scramble we lost leverage. Those are player, we got to just play better. Again congratulate Western’s players for making some plays in those areas. In terms of schemes, you play schemes, you try and get off the field, you try to vary things. We’ve always used it. We didn’t unearth anything we’ve not done before, we’ve done everything there that we’ve done in the past. So, there’s carryover.
Q: Time of possession, was that as much on the offense as it was on the defense?
MD: I think the time of possession in the first half I’m sure went heavy our way and then the second half in the third quarter we scored and then they had a 16 play drive. That sort of skewed things a little bit but at the end of the game they had that long drive with six minutes left at the end. We had scoring drives two times (in secession) I think. Got a little bit skewed but you are correct, we have not lost possession time, play numbers were almost equally the same but we have not lost possession time too often.
Q: What is Drake Martinez’s status right now with the team?
MD: Right now, he’s, the guy didn’t play I don’t like to talk about them but there’s no discipline problem.
Q: Jon Reschke statistically had a better game than Chris and that is purely statistically, I’m curious after watching the film is there separation between the two? Did Jon secure that spot? Could you break that down for us please?
MD: Jon Reschke played pretty well. Chris Frey was not as productive as John was relative to opportunities probably things of that nature but I think they both are good football players. Jon Reschke is the starter right now. Chris Frey will play in other situations. So, both good players that could go back and forth a little bit, they’re both young players, but was not disappointed with either of their play, but I think Reschke played better at times.
Q: Did you see anything from your running backs that would change the depth chart in your opinion for the Oregon game?
MD: I think essentially those types of things will be squared away in practice this week, but they’re all good players, they all played well, they were all productive, we’ve got to just see how practice goes and who gets the nods in certain areas. I think they’re all very productive.
Q: What did you see from your receivers at Western and who really stood out?
MD: I thought Aaron Burbridge had a great game. Macgarrett Kings played very solid. I thought DeAnthony Arnett had a couple of very nice catches and his first touchdown so that was exciting to see because I know his confidence is going to take off. RJ Shelton had a couple of catches as well but those are the guys we’re sort of focused on. Tight windows out there, we made some 50 50 catches as I like to say with people hanging on us and had some very big plays.
Q: Follow up on Drake Martinez, is this a long term injury situation here?
MD: I don’t know that, won’t talk about injuries.
Q: Do you have any comments on the Mark Meyers situation?
MD: I suspended Mark Meyers for an incident last night and he is suspended indefinitely.
Q: Could you talk about Jake Hartbarger’s performance and coming out of spring how encouraged were you with what you saw Friday night?
MD: Very encouraged. I thought Jake did an outstanding job his first time playing. There was a low snap one time, also had some big hits on punts, dropped one inside the ten as well, so I thought he did an outstanding job for his first time out and it will be exciting to watch him grow.
Q: Can you talk about the offensive line rotation? I think Mark Staten played six or seven guys, how deep does that need to be?
MD: That’s a good question. I think we play our five guys predominately. We did play Miguel Michado a little bit and Bennie McGowan somewhat. We played seven guys. But you play guys as they become ready to play, as they become game ready. You talk about those things but you need to be in a situation where you can play those guys as well. So, we always play our best players for a situation, put ourselves in a situation to protect our quarterback to win and run the football.
Q: Any other freshmen that we can see play, I think there was two true freshmen that played, is that correct?
MD: That is correct. Andrew Dowell and LJ Scott played. Possibility of playing a couple more this week but we will know more about that later this week.
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