Capital One Bowl Update No. 6
12/31/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 31, 2008
Kickoff Luncheon Coverage:
Audio | Photo Gallery
ORLANDO, Fla. - The Michigan State football team went through its final preparations for the 2009 Capital One Bowl Wednesday afternoon with a walk-thru on the practice fields outside of Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium.
Earlier in the day, head coach Mark Dantonio met with reporters at the Capital One Bowl Kickoff Luncheon press conference. In addition to talking about the team's preparation for the Georgia Bulldogs, Dantonio thanked all of the Spartan fans for making the trip to Florida.
"I just want to thank the administration for the faith they have in this program," Dantonio said to close out his portion of the press conference. "I also want to thank our fans for making the commitment of coming down here and having faith in Michigan State University and this football program. There are a lot of people that have traveled south. With that being said, Happy New Year to everybody, and we'll get it started tomorrow."
Following the press conference, the entire team and coaching staff attended the Capital One Bowl Kickoff Luncheon. The team then headed to Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium for a team picture before finishing the afternoon with the walk-thru.
The 2009 Capital One Bowl between No. 19/18 Michigan State and No. 16/17 Georgia begins at 1 p.m. Jan. 1 on ABC.
Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio - Capital One Bowl Kickoff Luncheon Press Conference Quotes
Michigan State Head Coach Mark Dantonio
Opening statement...
First of all, I just want to thank our players and our seniors in particular for their outstanding leadership this year taking us to a 9-3 record. We are growing our program right now. We continue to be a work in progress. At the end of last year's season, our goal was to get to a New Year's Day bowl game. With a short list of seniors - 16 - to be able to accomplish that is a feat in itself. So that's the first thing for us. I think we've raised the bar for our football team. That's something that our seniors have done. January 12, those juniors will be sitting in the first row of our team meeting, and they'll be seniors. They've got expectations now that have to be met. It's exciting for our program.
I want to thank the Capital One Bowl for what they've done for us this week. It's been an outstanding experience for us and our players have had a great time. The people have been so hospitable here, and we've got work done.
On center Joel Nitchman
Nitchman has been a mainstay for us the entire season. He's a guy that makes a lot of calls. He played outstanding last year. Now he's in his junior year and continues to be a leader. I think the strength of Georgia's defensive line is the tackle box. To be able to run the football, you have to be able to control the center box, the area over the nose, and we need to be able to do that. Between [left guard] Joel Foreman, Joel Nitchman and [right guard] Roland Martin, those matchups are going to be crucial.
On the possibility of a flu bug going around as mentioned by some MSU players...
Our health is very good. There is no bug going around. It's a 24-hour thing. It's touched a couple of guys earlier in the week, but right now we're pretty much free of that.
On responding to their season-ending loss at Penn State
We're going to find out tomorrow how we respond. It's been 44 days since we endured that Penn State game. What we have to do is we have to be able to play up. When you play a great football team in a high media exposure-type game such as this against an outstanding Georgia team, you have to be able to play up. I've always thought that throughout the entire season, as the games got closer, we played very well. We found a way to win that football game. Some of that is experience being in those type of football games - playing against Ohio State in sort of a national game, playing for the Big Ten co-championship against Penn State, playing here on New Year's Day - some of that is experience. I hope that when you gain experience in that area, it'll show on January 1.
On outstanding seniors in the graduating class...
You could almost look at every one of them. Javon Ringer, it goes without saying that he's an outstanding role model for our football team, not just in terms of the ability, but the work ethic ... Brian Hoyer's having an outstanding year in that capacity as well. Otis Wiley, Justin Kershaw - those are our four captains. But when you look beyond that, I think [defensive end] Brandon Long has had his best season thus far. I think [defensive end] Dwayne Holmes has had his best season thus far. You look at [safety] Mike Bell, who's a guy that no one really talks about. He's a guy that graduated in December [2007] and I took off scholarship, and he came back and we rewarded him with a scholarship midway through. It's just acts like that (which) speak volumes about our seniors. Offensively, [wide receiver] Deon Curry has battled some injuries, but he's back now ... All of our seniors have done great things for this football team. They've all had a role. When you have people having a role like that, I think it strengthens your team from a leadership standpoint.
On canceling Monday's practice to prevent player fatigue...
When we first came down, we had a very hot day. We had them run a conditioning test at the end of practice to see where we were at. We looked leg-weary. I think playing outside for the first time has a lot to do with that after we'd been inside the indoor facility even though we had it 75 degrees or so. The second day we were better. The third day we were very, very good. So the fourth day came and I felt like we really need our legs to be able to play against Georgia, a team with outstanding speed. We've got some fast guys as well, but we need to have our legs. We don't want to go into the game leg-weary. Yesterday was our 13th practice against Georgia. It's almost like you get to the point of diminishing returns in terms of `let's run this play one more time, let's run that play one more time.' So we know what we're doing, we now have to make sure we bring a certain explosiveness to the game. I think to do that you have to have fresh legs. We didn't take the day off. We had walk-thrus, we had two hours worth of meetings. All in all, we had about three hours of work put in, but we kept them off the field. They responded yesterday. I think we had bounce. We had fresh legs.
On the offensive game plan...
The main thing we always want to do as a football team is be balanced. Last year we had a 1,200-yard receiver in Devin Thomas. This year we've sort of done it by committee at wide receiver. This is the first time this year that all of our wide receivers have been healthy. Periodically throughout the year, it's always been one or two guys hurt. We can go five, six, seven receivers deep and have plenty of experience. We can go three tight ends deep. All of our fullbacks are ready. So this is the first time that we've really had everybody healthy this season, so we expect to be balanced like always ... We have to provide that room for Ringer, just like they do for [running back Knowshon] Moreno. We have to get him out in space. We have to provide him opportunities for explosive plays. If we do that, we have a great chance to win the football game.
On how Michigan State's defense matches up against Georgia's offense...
They have outstanding receivers ... I think the teams mirror each other in some ways, because Georgia has had many injuries, but our injuries haven't really been season-ending. So because of that, we've gone and played eight defensive backs. I think in one game, we didn't have three starters and played very well. So we've gained experience there. Those wide receivers are very good, so we're going to have to be able to play on them, to play the ball on the deep part of the field. I think that's one of the things that will be a key to the game, the ability to play the ball on the deep part of the field. You can't go one way or the other because of Moreno. I think Stafford does a great job in terms of locating the correct person and looking you off. He has a great deep ball throw. He's got an extremely strong arm. Offensive line-wise, they're young. They're good players, but they're young.
It's going to be a great football game. How we're going to match up, we'll find out tomorrow. There's been a lot of talk back and forth ... When you haven't played for 44 days, or in the case of Georgia I guess it would be 37, it's a little bit of an unknown. We've gone live, we've gone against each other to try and provide that game-type experience, but it's a little bit of an unknown how you're going to respond on game day.
On the difference between last year's Orlando experience (in the Champs Sports Bowl) and this year
Last year's experience was an outstanding experience as well. I think the people at [Florida] Citrus Sports do an outstanding job getting both the Champs Sports Bowl and the Capital One Bowl a lot of media exposure, great hotels to stay in, opportunities for our players to do different things out in the community, all those things ... You see the [Orlando Citrus] Parade and you see a lot of things on TV that they're really talking about the game ... People think of New Year's Day as a day of football, and we're one of four games on nationally. I think that's great exposure for our players and great opportunity for Michigan State and the entire university.
On players favoring their bodies during practice and if fatigue from a run-heavy game plan is a concern...
I think that's just the way it is. You look at us last year and take [former running back] Jehuu Caulcrick's carries and Javon's carries, they add up to, I think 420. That's just a part of it, I think - players who are trying to get to the game healthy. We have hit our players. We have tried to make things game live. We've been in pads for three days while we were down here. We were in pads the whole time while we were home.
