Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast Reflects on FAU, Looks Ahead to Maryland
Michigan State football will be looking to correct its mistakes from what was a sub-par showing against Florida Atlantic when it heads to College Park to kick off Big Ten play against Maryland on Saturday.
The Spartans narrowly defeated the Owls 16-10 but had plenty of missed opportunities to widen their lead against the inferior visitors in what was Michigan State's first game of the Jonathan Smith era in East Lansing.
Those mistakes won't cut it against a Maryland team that just put up 50 points while holding UConn to just 7 points in their season opener at home last week. Michigan State will have to play a much cleaner game in order to come away victorious this weekend and return home 2-0.
On this latest episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, our Hondo S. Carpenter Sr. and Jon Schopp take one more look back at the Spartans' seasomn opener before diving into their matchup with Maryland.
You can watch it below:
Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith addressed the media on Monday, announcing injuries, reflecting on Week 1 and looking ahead to Week 2.
Below is part of his opening statement:
"Well, just like what we do after a game, we digest it and look at it from every angle. Couple of things stood out. Obviously, still pleased we found a way to win the game. That was competitive. Credit to Florida Atlantic, they pushed us in a lot of different ways -- schematically, physically. Had some good players contesting. Came down to the end and, like I said, we finished really, really well. I thought that crowd, again, was awesome. Impacted the thing. Really appreciate everyone's energy in coming out, especially that student section. On our end, definitely looking to clean some things up. Offensively, I'll start there. It's 11-man football, and we had too many times where whether [it was] just missed assignment, missed identification, and so, we're not ID-ing the front correctly and got too many freak hitters in the run game. Got to find ways to be more efficient there. In the pass game, so much is about detail. I did think the protection, for the most part, showed up pretty well. I thought we had time to make throws, the pocket was clean a lot of the time, not all, but a lot of it. So, I was pleased with that part And then, it comes down to taking care of the ball and red zone efficiency. We just -- wasn't where we need to be, and we got to take a step there. And excited about the opportunity to kind of dive in and improve. Defensively, a lot to like. We were on the same page, communication throughout the game was solid. Thought they played with great effort, running the ball, tackling, for a first game, lot of good tackling; not a bunch of missed tackles, guys were playing with leverage. It just comes down to we have to be able to finish plays. ..."
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