Michigan State's Jordan Hall Talks Through Rivalry Week

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Michigan State captain and linebacker Jordan Hall is still trying to get the right to hoist the Paul Bunyan Trophy for the first time. MSU lost to Michigan 49-0 while he was a true freshman in 2023 and fell 24-17 last year.

This year is the first time that Hall has gotten a second year with the same head coach, though.

On Wednesday, Hall went over what the rivalry with the Wolverines means to him and some of the differences there are this week within the building compared to others. Clips of Mark Dantonio famously saying, "It's not over. It'll never be over here," is one of them.

A full video of Hall's press conference can be viewed below.

Watch Jordan Hall here:

Additionally, a partial transcript of Hall's presser, starting at the beginning, has been provided.

Transcript

Q: Jordan, is there any way to balance what's been happening in adversity with being able to lock in for the rivalry game? Because they're both two different unique things, so to speak, but how do you kind of balance that? Or is there any balance needed?

HALL: We're just kind of taking it week by week. It's been a kind of rough stretch these last three weeks, but we're just continuing to prepare through the event each and every week.

We know that this is an important game; one of the biggest games on our schedule. So we're going to treat it as such and continue to prepare throughout the week.

Q: Other things aside, what excites you about this rivalry? What are some things that are personal to you about it that you always kind of remember and kind of hold separate from anything else that's going on?

Michigan State players celebrate the 37-33 win over Michigan by raising the Paul Bunyan Trophy at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

HALL: I'm glad it's back here at home, being in front of our home crowd. The excitement surrounding this game is always something to look forward to. There's so much passion involved on both sides. So, I'm excited to get out there on Saturday.

Q: Discipline in this game, after what happened at the end of last year and everything, how important and critical is that, in terms of managing both the emotions and, I guess, maybe avoiding some of the triggers that might be trigger traps, I guess you could say?

HALL: Yeah, we're going to play with emotion, but we're not going to be emotional. And that involves just playing with, like I said, passion as hard as you can go every single play.

And that's our approach every game, is to not get too high or too low or kind of let your emotions get the best of you. Rivalry games like this can kind of bring some of those emotions out. But we've been harping on that all week about playing with emotion and not being emotional.

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