Preseason Michigan State Football Practice Report No. 3

 

Preseason Football Practice Report No. 3

MSU held its first preseason workout in shells on Tuesday.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Under partly cloudy skies and temperatures near 80, fifth-year Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio sent his team through a 2 1/2-hour workout in helmets, shoulder pads, jerseys and shorts on the grass fields behind the Duffy Daugherty Football Building on Tuesday, Aug. 9, as the Spartans completed their third of 29 scheduled preseason practices.

“With three practices in the books, I’m not sure that we’re ever as far as we want to be, but we’ve covered a lot of ground in a short period of time,” Dantonio said. “It was our first day in shoulder pads, and I thought our guys really flew around the football.

“We’ve completed a lot of the installation process and the retention has been very good. It’s tough to evaluate practice until you review the film, but we strive for crisp execution in everything we do. The practices have been well organized and the tempo has been good as the players transition from drill to drill and period to period.”

Like the first two days in shorts, the freshmen took approximately one-third of the reps in Tuesday’s practice.

“We need to provide the freshmen with opportunities to grow and see where each one is at in terms of individual development,” Dantonio said. “The only way they can grow is by getting reps, and through these first five days of preseason practice, we really try to split the reps equally between the ones, twos and threes. In addition, we hope this approach limits the number of injuries suffered by our older guys, as they become reconditioned to playing the game of football following a three-month layoff.”

As the players added shoulder pads on Tuesday, it came as no coincidence that officials made their first appearance at preseason camp.

“We want our guys to play the game the right way and to develop good habits, so the officials have to be out here on a regular basis,” Dantonio said. “This is something that we’ve always done here, and we’ll continue to do so because we need to limit the number of unforced penalties: the false starts on offense and the offsides on defense. We must address these penalties during preseason practice, and there have to be consequences when those mistakes are made. Although we won 11 games last season, we were penalized far too many times for those types of errors. We have to critique what we’re doing and improve in these areas.”      

Michigan State will conduct its second practice in shells on Wednesday, Aug. 10 before donning full pads for the first time on Thursday.

The Spartans, ranked No. 17 in the Preseason USA TODAY Coaches’ Poll, open the 2011 season and home schedule against Youngstown State on Friday, Sept. 2, with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. on BTN.