Mark Dantonio Weekly Press Conference Coverage

Photo by: Matthew Mitchell Photography

10/30/2018 2:05:00 PM | Football

Spartans head to Maryland to tangle with Terrapins Saturday.

MSU Game Notes vs. Maryland | MSU Depth Chart vs. Maryland

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio held his weekly press conference Tuesday inside the Izzo Family Media Center at the Spartan Stadium North End Zone Complex to review the Spartans' 23-13 win over Purdue and preview this Saturday's game as Michigan State will travel to Maryland to tangle with the Terrapins on Saturday, Nov. 3.

Kickoff from College Park is slated for noon and the game will be televised on ESPN2, with Anish Shroff, Ahmad Brooks and Roddy Jones on the call. The Spartans snapped the Boilermakers' four-game winning streak to improve to 5-3 (3-2 Big Ten) on the season, while the Terrapins (5-3, 3-2 Big Ten) are coming off a 63-33 win over Illinois.

Saturday's game marks the 10th meeting between Michigan State and Maryland. The Spartans lead the overall series, 7-2, including a 2-1 record in College Park. The Spartans are 3-1 against the Terrapins since Maryland joined the Big Ten in 2014. After winning the first two Big Ten games against Maryland in 2014 (37-15) and 2015 (24-7), the Spartans fell to the Terrapins in College Park in 2016, 28-17. MSU topped Maryland last season in Spartan Stadium, 17-7. In the first-ever matchup between the two schools, Michigan State shut out Maryland in College Park, 8-0, on Oct. 20, 1944.

Michigan State will look to win its 700th game in school history on Saturday. The Spartans own an all-time record of 699-456-44 (.601) and will also be playing in the 1,200th game in school history. MSU is looking to become the 27th school in the FBS to win 700 games.

Michigan State ranks first in the FBS in rushing defense, allowing just 77.4 yards per game. The Spartans limited Purdue to a season-low 62 yards on the ground, marking the sixth time this season MSU has held its opponent under 100 yards rushing. MSU also has only given up 17 rushes of 10-plus yards, which is second fewest in the FBS (San Diego State, 12).

After holding Purdue to a season-low 13 points – the Boilermakers entered the game averaging 35.7 points per game – MSU now ranks among the national leaders in scoring defense at No. 27 (21.0 ppg), which also ranks third best in the Big Ten. The Spartans have limited their opponents to 20 or fewer points four times this season.

Quarterback Rocky Lombardi was named the Big Ten Co-Freshman of the Week after leading the Spartans to a 23-13 victory over Purdue in his first career start last Saturday in Spartan Stadium. Lombardi threw for 318 yards against the Boilermakers and completed 26-of-46 passes, including two touchdowns (11 yards to Darrell Stewart in second quarter; 48 yards to Jalen Nailor in fourth quarter). The 318 yards were the second most by a Spartan QB making his first career start (Ed Smith threw for 324 yards in his first career start at North Carolina State in 1976).

Michigan State has suffered a rash of injuries in the first eight games of the season to key personnel. The Spartans tied for the most returning starters in the FBS with 22, but 10 of those returning starters have missed time this season due to injury, including eight on offense, one on defense and one on special teams. Senior wide receiver Felton Davis III will miss the rest of the season after injuring his Achilles tendon in the first half of the Michigan game on Oct. 20, while fifth-year senior punter Jake Hartbarger had already been lost for the season in Week 2 at Arizona State. In addition, redshirt freshman punter Tyler Hunt, who started five games in place of Hartbarger, was also lost for the season after suffering a non-contact knee injury (torn ACL) in practice before the Purdue game. Junior quarterback Brian Lewerke had his streak of 20 consecutive starts snapped as he was regulated to just holding duties against Purdue due to an injury. Sophomore cornerback Josiah Scott, a 2017 Freshman All-American, has yet to play this season after injuring his knee in preseason camp but could see his first action at Maryland. Sophomore wide receiver Cody White has missed the last four games with a hand injury but could also return against Maryland. Fifth-year senior guard David Beedle has missed the last three games after suffering an injury vs. Northwestern on Oct. 6, and sophomore right guard Kevin Jarvis has only played once in the last five games. Senior running back LJ Scott saw his first action in four games against Michigan on Oct. 20 after leaving the ASU game on Sept. 8 with an injured ankle. From the preseason depth chart, 12 of MSU's 24 starters (including specialists) have missed time due to injury.

Junior defensive end Kenny Willekes, who entered the program as a walk-on linebacker for the 2015 season, has emerged as one of the top pass rushers in the Big Ten. Named to the All-Big Ten midseason team by Pro Football Focus, Willekes leads the Spartans in tackles for loss (11) and sacks (5.5) through the first eight games of the season. He ranks tied for fifth in the Big Ten in tackles for loss (1.38 pg) and tied for sixth in sacks (0.69 pg). The native of Rockford, Michigan, is MSU's active leader in sacks (12.5) and tackles for loss (25.5). He ranks fifth in the FBS among active career leaders with 1.21 tackles for loss per game (Ed Oliver of Houston leads active players with 1.64 TFL/game).

Three Spartans were named to the Pro Football Focus All-Big Ten midseason team: senior linebacker Andrew Dowell, junior defensive end Kenny Willekes and senior safety Khari Willis. Dowell ranks second on the team with 55 tackles and three sacks, and is third in tackles for loss with six. Willekes ranks tied for fifth in the Big Ten in tackles for loss (11) and tied for fifth in sacks (5.5), while Willis ranks tied for fifth in the conference with nine passes defended (seven pass break-ups and two interceptions).

Michigan State junior cornerback Justin Layne played both offense and defense in the win over Purdue. Layne tallied a career-high four pass break-ups and registered seven tackles in playing 64 defensive snaps against the Boilermakers, and caught one pass for 11 yards and was targeted four times in 16 offensive snaps. Layne began his career as a wide receiver in 2016 before transitioning to cornerback midway through the season.

The following is a complete transcript from Tuesday's press conference:

HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Opportunity to go to Maryland this weekend, an away game. Opportunity to go 63 playing against a football team that's 5-3, as well, and be a good challenge for us as we go away.

You look at Maryland right now, you look at their offensive personnel, they have a very explosive football team right now. A lot of big-play guys, 700-plus yards this past week and really, you look at their roster, you see a lot of guys making a lot of plays. It will be a great challenge for us. Explosive, explosive football team.

Matt Canada does a great job offensively, he's done a nice job as (interim) head football coach as well right now. When you look at their defense, I think they play extremely hard. I've been very impressed with their secondary, using a lot of different people to get pressure up front and solid and play aggressively. I think the best way to do this, I'll just take some questions and go from there.

Q. What you did you witness first hand with Lombardi on film, your takeaways from that?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: First of all, he played very well. We just run our system. So he's been here for, you know, I guess redshirt freshman, a year and a half, so he runs our system. So we don't really curtail. We favor things, maybe one quarterback to another but we're going to run our system.

Q. What did you see after watching the video?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I was impressed. As I said yesterday to our football team, I thought he played with authority. Threw the ball with authority. Played with authority. Led with authority. He did a great job. We always talk about he was the one that brought us back, so we give a team award called "The One," and he won that award within our team this past week and did a great job.

Q. When you study Matt Canada, obviously there isn't much film from him as a head coach, but do you talk to (former MSU assistant coach, current Pittsburgh head coach) Pat (Narduzzi), because he worked for Pat, and just try to get into Canada's head a little bit and how he thinks?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, I think we talk a little bit but not too much. He's got a big game this Friday. You know, he worked for him, too. I don't want to put anybody in a situation.

Q. Going back to the quarterbacks a little bit, with the way that Rocky played, does that give you more leeway with Brian to say, okay, we need to make sure you are 100 percent before you go back in. Does it give you that cushion where you don't feel like you have to rush him back?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think it's a good problem, let's just put it that way. You've got a guy that played well, and we'll make decisions based on health and other things as we go forward.

Q. Matt Allen is not on the depth chart. Is there an update to his situation?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I didn't put him on the depth chart because I knew he wouldn't travel this week. He's out for right now.

Q. You completed five passes to the tight end on Saturday and you've only completed six through the prior games this season. Is that deliberate or is that --
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: It's about time (smiling), yeah, quarterback makes decisions, he goes through his progressions just like anybody. They are out there, they have got to get open and certain things are designed to go to them but other times you've got to find them. So I thought that Rocky did a nice job finding those guys this past week and continuing to use our tight ends. They are good pass catchers.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Raequan Williams and the consistency this season. If you watch him time and time after on film, can you put into words what you are seeing week-in, week-out?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think Raequan came here as a guy with a lot of athletic ability and short on football experience, really, from high school, and he has just continued to get better and better each year. He's becoming a dominating football player as you move forward. He has raw skills. He's a hard worker and he's a very good leader.

He's a great guy to be around, so he's always coming in with a positive attitude in practice, and the guy is a big athlete. You know, about 315 or whatever he is right now, 310. You get over 300, who cares (smiling). But you know, he's athletic and he's playing at a very high level.

Q. I'd like to ask you about Rocky's pre-snap reads, obviously he does very well in his first start. Is that something that surprised you or something that you had seen prior to the first start?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think it's something that Coach Salem does a great job with teaching progression. I think as the game progressed, Rocky got more and more confident and I think playing football at this level, you've got to be a confident player. The more you do something, the more you see things, and the more you see things and understand what the philosophy of whatever that is, the better you're going to play and I think he grasped that as the game progressed and did an outstanding job.

Q. Their (Maryland's) rushing attack has been the highlight of their offense so far. For your defense, is that something that gets them up even more every week as far as a challenge when they see a Top 15 rushing attack? Do they get even more ramped up for that?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: The bottom line with that to win the football game, you have to do X, whatever X is, and certainly against Maryland, if you can control their run game, you take a big part of their offense away.

We'll focus on what we have to do to win a football game, much like we did last week. I don't think there's any question that the jet sweep series and inside zone, and the things they do off that, the play-action and things of that nature are all very well designed and have been very effective.

Q. You could potentially get Josiah Scott back this week, what is it like, having a freshman All-American and you get him back at this point in the season, what kind of spark and energy can that bring to a team? It's not just any guy...
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think we've had a lot of injuries this season. And they haven't necessarily been season-ending injuries, a couple, like Felton (Davis), but what ends up happening, and I've said this before, is that when you've got a guy out for our, five, six, or seven weeks, he's missed all of summer camp and he's missed all of the games and the practices up till that. You know, they have got to get themselves in shape, so he started practicing last week. Could have played this past weekend, but we sat him. And then he'll start playing some, but he's got to play himself back into it. He's getting a lot of reps right now. He did last week, a lot of reps.

But to play corner in this defense, you've got to go, and so you've got to have great conditioning level, so you've got to be able to work your way back into that. I think you see that with other players who have been out for a while. Just because they are back, doesn't mean they are back fully in condition, especially at certain positions. We'll work our way back into that and we'll be able to do that but I think it will take a week or so.

But he's got one week under his belt, so we'll see how he performs this week.

Q. I know that the situation back in 2013 was a little bit different with Andrew Maxwell and Connor Cook, but when you look back at actually starting Cook over Maxwell then and maybe thinking about who the quarterback might be this week, how much do you reflect on those times and look at the success that it brought your program?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Not at all. I don't think there's any comparison. I think that Brian Lewerke has established himself with a great foundation. He won 10 games last year and a couple games where he threw for over 400 yards. The guy had what, over 500 yards rushing and (2,800) yards passing, so he has established himself and as a huge foundation in which to build on and stand on and he's been he selected by captain by his teammates.

There's a lot of substance that he brought, that at the time in 2013 that we didn't have. Rocky did an outstanding job and put himself in a situation where he can be a starter or inserted into the game or whatever it is, but from where I sit, it's a good problem. I thought he did a very good job in the game and asserted himself and gives us another leader on this football team and every football team needs great leaders, especially at that position.

Q. Rocky hit like seven different targets in the first half, did a good job spreading it around. Cody White has been running routes and practicing physically but waiting on the hand. Is he available for Saturday?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: He'll travel with the team and we'll see what his availability is like. Probably depends on his week in practice.

Everybody good?

Q. Going back to the offensive line, you've had some shuffling and injuries, obviously, without Matt (Allen) there. How has that been in terms of trying to blend some new guys in versus moving the guys around right now?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: It's been a challenge I think, but as I said last week, you know, would he have got guys with experience up there that have played other positions before. You know, they are used to doing that. I think as much as anything, it's the game day adjustments that might have to happen if someone were to go down.

We'll get those guys back and when they get back, we'll be a more versatile team than we were before, I just keep looking at it, you know, sometimes what breaks you down a little bit makes you stronger. So inevitably, they have got to do the job and we'll keep pushing.

Q. I want to say this is the first week that Tyriq (Thompson) has been at least on our depth chart the clear No. 1 starter at that linebacker spot. What went into that decision?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Every week we start him, so just put him out there as a starter (laughing). Really I just did that this morning. I said, you know what, play around with it. I think Brandon (Bouyer)-Randle does a lot of good things for us but Tyriq has been the starter. So let's not sugarcoat it.

Q. The last time you started a freshman quarterback on the road was at Maryland in 2016 -- you complemented him on his ability to help Rocky along this past week. Is it a case where he's sharing the experience, road start, what to expect being different from this past week?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: They room together. I'm sure that's going into their conversations.

Q. In the game against Purdue, it seemed like there was just no residual effects from the loss to Michigan. This team came out with energy. What does it say about your football team the way they bounce back and how do you keep going the rest of the season?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Well, I commented on that to our football team. It's a game that I'll remember. With all the things that had gone on last week and the distractions and things of that nature and disappointing performance, really, in some ways, you know, you get an opportunity to get up off the mat, and I thought we did that and I thought we played with focus and with energy and when you do those type of things and you come out on top and you see fruition in those things, you know, it's a good feeling.

Now that feeling can disappear if you don't take that to your next performance, so it's important that we do that. But you know, it's November right now, so I think every performance that you have every single week right now, sort of makes the case for what you're going to do, whether it's in Bowls or not Bowls or whatever it is.

There's a huge ceiling there and there's a lot that we can accomplish. We need to concentrate on one game at a time and see what we can do versus Maryland this weekend and go to the next one.

Q. Want to ask you a little bit more about Raequan and the impact he has, and when you have a disruptive player like that on the middle of the line, on the rest of the defense, and comparisons to other guys like Jerel Worthy, somewhat similar to him, or the impact he has on a defense?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think any time you play well up front in the defensive tackle position, especially in the center box area, it makes it more difficult to run the football. Hopefully you'll see that happen more a little bit this week. I think all those guys up there -- Mike Panasiuk has been playing very, very well and Naquan Jones has been very, very good. (Gerald) Owens has been solid in there.

So all four of those guys have played good football for us. I think Raequan what he does, if you can be disruptive in that center box, in that zero area, it has a lot to do with you being successful as a run defense overall. Our linebackers can fit it up, our defense is playing solid and we're tackling pretty well.

So what you see is sort of building a wall there a little bit, as you would say, and very important that we be able to do that this week and there's a lot of different formations and motions and things like that, that we'll have to be able to adjust to and leverage, but that's part of this game.

You know, Coach Canada, as I said earlier, does an outstanding job with that, and as a play caller, it keeps you honest with all the shovel passes and play-action passes off of that. It's a whole philosophy.

Q. Nobody wants to see players acting like a jackass, but when you -- this is a violent, emotional game, and so when you see the penalties like Rocky slapping the fan or Tyriq or Raequan, is a pressure to legislate out of the game the emotion it takes to play at a high level?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I told our guys, I think the penalty on Rocky was because he came into contact with the fan and the way I understand the rule is you can't be embraced by Sparty, that's the way I understand the rule. I guess they called it the way they saw it. But it doesn't make it any easier when you kickoff from the 20, so I would just say, stay away from touching anybody's hand, just wave at them (smiling).

As far as the air guitar, I thought it was a nice dance and everything, but it again set us about a being and put us inside the ten. But you know, he had good rhythm (smiling).

Q. Is there a danger of legislating the emotion out of the game?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, I think there's a lot of emotion in the game that probably -- I think it probably goes both ways. Sometimes you're saying he should be penalized and sometimes you're saying he shouldn't be. I don't know. I try and let those guys do their job.

Q. We talked so much about the good sides from Rocky. What did you see from him that you would like to see him clean up maybe a little bit more this week if he plays or moving forward?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: He made quick decisions on Saturday. I think that was one of the biggest things that he needed to clean up, and I thought he did that on Saturday.

He called -- I guess he called 1 on 2 and came out but he played pretty effectively. If you're looking back on it, he had some drops, he had five drops. We had guys out there banging the ball around a little bit. Some of the things going on with their injuries.

So he had a couple drops there but I thought he played very well and he could have hit a couple deep ones. He had a couple deep ones that were a yard or two overthrown and he comes up with those, he's having a career day. I think he left some out on the field. I think he would agree with that but I thought he played very solid, and from a leadership standpoint, he did very, very well.

He's got a big arm. I think that's just, you know, I think he overthrew Justin (Layne) maybe twice. Justin and he probably had not worked that much together. Just the way the ball flew I think.

You guys good? Ok thank you.