Spartans' Brantley After Loss to Oregon: 'I Believe in This Team'
The Michigan State Spartans (3-3) were outperformed on the road Friday night in a 31-10 loss to No. 6 Oregon Ducks. One of the Spartans that helped the cause was redshirt junior cornerback, Charles Brantley, who spoke directly after the ballgame.
“I believe in this team,” Brantley said. “I feel like we are going to continue to work, to improve every week, and keep getting better.”
Confident words from the Sarasota, Florida native who finished with nine tackles and a clutch interception in the endzone to stymie a second goal-line drive from the Ducks. Brantley now has two interceptions, the most he's had in a season through his four years in East Lansing.
The interception was one of two red zone picks that was thrown by Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel. Junior defensive back Malik Spencer aided the defense with an endzone pick of his own on the Ducks' second drive of the game. The offense simply struggled to take advantage of the turnovers.
“We get the momentum you know, we just gotta keep it going on the opposite side of the ball,” Brantley said. “Also, we get a turnover, we gotta go score — just team ball.”
The Ducks rushed for 213 yards with 166 of those coming from junior running back, Jordan James. The Spartans struggled heavily to stop the Ducks on the ground, allowing a seven-play, 55-yard touchdown drive that consisted of all run plays. James scored his lone touchdown on that drive.
In the passing game, the Spartans defense flourished in the first half but fell flat in the second. The Ducks posted 264 yards of passing offense and many of those plays were broken tackles that led to chunk plays into Spartan territory.
Brantley spoke on the defense as a whole and its attempt to stop a team averaging 458 total yards per game.
“They did good on getting more YAC [yards after catch] than anything,” Brantley said. “ I mean, missed tackles are going to hurt any defense, we just got to come together and make sure we wrap up and make tackles.”
The Spartans will rest this week as they enter a bye and will reorganize before battling another run-dominant opponent in Week 7 against the Iowa Hawkeyes. As Brantley said, this team is going to improve every week, and playing such elite talent will pay dividends down the stretch.
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