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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 25, 2018

Mark Dantonio

East Lansing, Michigan

HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Before I talk about CMU, I just want to mention that we lost another Spartan this week, Mike Labinjo passed earlier, over the weekend, and our thoughts and prayers go out to him.

You know, today is the two-year anniversary of Mylan Hicks passing, and I wanted to mention that, along with Mike Sadler. In 2016 we lost two of our players who played for us here within two months of each other, two or three months of each other. Our hearts still go out to their families at this point in time.

CMU. CMU this week comes in, it's always been a big game for us, rivalry-game type thing. Going all the way back, there's been some great games. Right now they are a 1-3 football team. I don't think that's indicative of who they are, good concepts. Coach Bonamego does a getting his guys ready to play. A lot of guys on their roster from the State of Michigan, much like ours, so you have an instant rivalry-type situation, in terms of guys have played against each other and that type of thing.

They have played Kentucky. Played Kentucky tough. I felt the game at half-time, they were right there. I think I believe ahead of them, played Northern Illinois tough, played Kansas and gave that game a little bit because of turnovers and defeated Maine this past weekend. I'm sure that they will be ready to play and we'll take some questions on that in a second.

Also honoring Jimmy Raye this weekend, being inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame, so we'll look forward to having him with us as our football team having an opportunity to get with him, as well.

I'll take some questions.

Q. Having had a chance to review the video from Indiana, and Brian Lewerke, just the checkdowns, the reads, the decision-making, the risk-taking. And then coordinating that with Coach Warner's play calling, there was one in particular stood out to me with Felton Davis split wide left. It was the jet sweep before the fake field goal, can you walk us through the genesis of that relationship between Brian and Dave and where it goes from here?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: That's a complicated question, I guess you'd say.

First of all, Brian is trying to create and make play, and sometimes when you do that, you're going to make some great plays and some other times you're going to get in bad situations. He's got to know when to check the ball down. He's got some guys coming on short crossers that he's got to hit that are open. He held the ball a little bit too long.

Another couple times, there are things that happened up front where they brought a blitzing backer or they missed a protection and that caused immediate pressure: One time from the back side should have been picked up and he got blind-sided and the ball came out.

He made a couple nice plays off some interceptions, and you know, you've got to play with those. But obviously you don't want to give the ball up in turnovers.

As far as the play before, the fake field goal, the race play into the boundary, you know, probably a bad call, but he's the first one to acknowledge that, Coach Warner. But you know, got a lot of bad calls out there, everybody. Look across at the nation. You've got a whole list of plays that you have to be able to call, a litany of plays, to make a decision, and basically in about 20 seconds or 15 seconds which play you want. They are not always going to work.

The biggest thing is can you come back and can you keep clear thought and can you keep direction and can you be concise; can you give players a plan to be able to put in place, and then we've got to execute the plan, regardless of what that plan is, regardless it's running the ball, throwing, defending, whatever it is. I don't know if I'm answering it, but I think the relationship's good.

Q. At Arizona State, they talked after the game about kind of feeling like they had an idea of what Michigan State was going to do in the red zone, a little predictability.
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Offensively or defensively?

Q. Offensively. That's what they were saying about when Michigan State had the ball in the red zone. Indiana talked a little bit about keying in on the run when Brian is under center. I know you come from the Tressel tree that believes in self-scouting. Do you look at a little bit predictability a little bit to see the way teams are shutting down running?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: We look at everything. Things that we do, things that they do, how it was approached, perimeter plays, run plays, inside run, three-step passing, third down, how we got the third-and-long, if we got the third-and-long what were our percentages on third-and-long, you name it, we're trying to look at it, understand their quarterback in the gun, backset strong, backset weak. So we are looking at every different aspect to try and stay and try to give us a variance of things.

But at the same time, you also ask yourself: What do we know and what do we do well. Sometimes that comes from practicing and you may not see it in a game. You may not see it effectively done in a game, but still, what do you do well; and what does your people understand, what habits do they have in terms of knowledge-based so they can execute based on repetition.

Because without question, football is a game of repetition. So yeah, when somebody says, hey, we're going to look at your red zone for a full year, two years, they are going to have a general idea of what you're going to do. But there needs somebody variance in that, and you need to be able to split things they do and you're watching what they do.

From an offensive perspective, you go in and look at a particular formation and say, how did they play this formation in 12 games worth of studying? And then you come up with a plan and sometimes the plan works and sometimes it doesn't. Usually it's execution or somebody makes a great play, one side or the other, but that's football.

Q. Obviously the tight end issue has been around, but obviously last week, they get their first catch, a few targets, a touchdown. How much of a focus has that been recently to get the tight ends more involved, or is it kind of the way the game --
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: The tight ends are involved in the pass game. The quarterback has to make a decision to go to it when he's the primary guy or secondary guy or third guy, and there's different reads you go through to take things away. Sometimes he's in protection.

The chip backers; if we're getting a lot of different things, we'll chip on the way out or sometimes he's all the way into the protection. Again, it depends on the play calls sometimes, and the scheme, I guess you would say; the philosophy in that particular scheme of protections.

Yeah, we want to get the ball to all of our guys. I would like for everybody to get catches and touchdowns. You know, that's fun. Don't have as many tough questions in press conferences.

Q. I wanted to touch base with you on Mike Labinjo, you were here when he was being recruited. Were you his primary recruiter?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: No. He was, I believe, from Toronto. So I can't remember who recruited up -- it might have been Jeff Stoutland recruiting up in Toronto maybe at that time, but I can't really remember, or Pat Ruhl when he was here maybe. But I did know Mike. Mike was an outstanding player here. Good guy and was very well liked.

Q. That's something that this program, with Sadler and with Mylan; I guess it's been a tough couple years for some of the family. How do you, I guess, keep the families and keep everybody else's minds at ease with it?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Well, you know, Karen Stadler obviously is very involved with Mike's legacy and has done a lot, so we see her quite often. We're involved in some of the different things there. I've talked to Mylan's mother, Renee, on occasion, as well, and I've seen her. Still very difficult for both, both their families.

It's something that we all live with and I'm sure they live with more pain than certainly I do, but it's something we all live with because those two guys were really integral parts of our program since we've been here. Mike was here for five years and Mylan was here for five years.

So they affected a lot of people and were very positive individuals. They were two very good players. They had a lot of success here on the field and then off the field, they were I think genuinely loved by our teammates. So it's difficult.

I think Mike Labinjo, going back at that time and place, was equally the same. Very well liked, he was a very good player and had a lot of success here.

Q. It's now a quarter of the way through the season, shockingly. What are you most impressed with in the first month, and what areas do you think you still need to develop moving forward?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: There are things, when you look at our football team, I'm impressed with our focus and energy and how we come to play because we come ready to play. I think we're No. 1 in the nation and No. 1 in the conference, certainly, against the run, so we've stopped the run effectively. We've tackled well. We're starting to pressure the quarterback more effectively.

I think we played three very good quarterbacks that can throw the ball. So our numbers there might not indicate success, but we've not had a lot of big plays against us. Got to cut down on penalties.

Offensively got to run the ball inside more effectively with our tailback situation. We're playing different guys at tailback because of the injury a little bit this past game, past game and a half, but got to run the ball more inside.

Quarterback is playing pretty well. But with that said, I think that there's obviously when you're a quarterback, sometimes you're getting pressed into different situations. So you're going to make some mistakes at times.

Turnover situation is we turned the ball over four times on Saturday. One of them was very late. Should not have been pitched. Bad decision.

And a couple other ones were, you know, they made a good play or whatever the case. But we're about even in turnovers, minus two, and we've had some fourth down stops on defense, as well, and been playing pretty well on the defensive side of the ball for the most part.

Special teams, been pretty good. Got to get our punter situation squared away. I think both those guys have the ability, but they have got to do it on game day. But go times and everything of that nature are good. The kickoff scenarios, made a couple plays on kickoff return.

Q. Is it counterintuitive to step into conference play, get yourself revved up for that season, and then sort of step back out of it for a week?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, I think that that's not a perfect scenario to go into. I'd rather play our out-of-conference games and go into it. You know what you're going to play going into it; so you need to prepare yourself for that mentally and focus accordingly and that's what we'll do.

I think that the thing that exists is we're going to play a football team that's loaded with players from the State of Michigan. So I think there's an inherent competition between our players and their players, because we've got a lot of them, too, so that's a positive in that respect. We'll come ready to play. We haven't had that issue.

Now, do we play perfect? No. But few teams are, and you look across the country now, and there's a lot of people scratching their head on a lot of scores every single week. We need to stay ahead of the ledger. Right now we're 2-1, and let's just try to be 3-1 and whip out all that other stuff as it shakes out.

There will be indications as we move forward in our season why we win or why we lose, and there will be different things schematically and statistically that you can point out and say, they didn't do this or they didn't do this, but that's over the course of a season usually.

Q. Previous question, you mentioned the defensive numbers against passing being a little high, but the fact is you have shut teams completely down rushing. Making those teams one-dimensional, is it easier to stomach the passing numbers because they can't run on you?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think we could have won all three games. We won two of them.

So, you know, they are not getting a lot of big plays. That's a positive. But the RPO, they are thinking it and picking up four, five, whatever the case but we are attacking it effectively in yards.

And we measure everything, everything. Tell you that, hey, 13 percent of the time last week our head was involved in contact. 54 percent our shoulder was involved in contact on tackling. We measure every aspect of tackling that there is: Effective tackles, dominant tackles, etc., poor tackles, missed tackles. So we are looking at all those different things as we go through a week and prepare for the next opportunity.

So I do think we're playing pretty well on the perimeter. Haven't been a lot of bubbles going out and things of that nature. We're running the football. We've got pretty good leverage I think.

But you get into a two-minute situation, remember that we played, as I said, three pretty good quarterbacks. Utah State is putting up a lot of points.

The Arizona State quarterback is I think No. 2 or 3 in the history of Arizona football, Arizona State football in terms of his production; he's a 6,000-yard passer.

And last week, Peyton Ramsey connecting on 74 percent of his passes coming into our football game. I think it's noteworthy that he was pressured 30 times, rushed out of the pocket eight times, sacked six times and another, whatever that is, pressure; somebody in his face, somebody hitting him, or ball disruption of some sort.

Q. Probably short answers to two of your favorite questions: LJ Scott, is he day-to-day or do you expect him back this week?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Probably a little of both. It's a good answer.

Q. That sounds day-to-day to me.
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Pretty good. Well, a little of both. I expect him to play. Maybe day-to-day.

Q. Glad I asked.
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: He may be out there today or he may not be.

Q. Thank you.
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Probably the best answer I can give you.

Q. Is Josiah Scott's season at risk?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: No, I don't think his season is at risk, no. But he's not ready to play yet.

Q. You don't expect him back?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I don't expect him back.

Q. Brian Lewerke, does he tend to try to do a little too much when something isn't there? Is that something that he can still learn? You mentioned the pitch and a couple passes. It looked like he was throwing dangerously while he was falling down. Is that something that he could still learn?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: I think when you're in a position of leadership and quarterback certainly is, and you've got a good level of talent and you've had great success, or at least success and you've build a solid foundation, you try to take as much on to you as you can. You try and carry the load.

I think that's what he does. He tries to carry the load. I think he tries to make a play. Sometimes he needs to throw it away. Now I'm not happy if he throws it away either, to be perfectly honest. You're trying to make a play out there but sometimes you've got to do that. You know, he's gotten caught a couple times on sacks where he's tried to get out of it.

Now, on other occasions, he's gotten out of it and make big plays. So you've got to take the good with the bad I think in that case. But I still think he makes a lot of plays for us, a ton of plays for us, and he's delivering the ball I think to a very large extent on time and in the right place.

Q. You said you want to see your team improve in the run, what do you think they have to do to run the ball more efficiently between tackles and guards?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: They are putting a lot of people up there at times, but you have to be technique sound up there. You know, is it play selection; is it technique. We're all involved in it; is it tight end or offensive lineman. It's so important when you're running the football that everybody works in sync on that particular play. A couple times got the tailback out in the open one-on-one with a safety; he's got to make a play for a bigger gain.

So it's all-encompassing in terms of what you're dealing with. You look at all these things and say, why not. I still go back to what I always say when I come to these exciting meetings like this, I say: Hey, run that play again when that guy ran for 25 yards, run it again. But it's hard to reenact that.

So there's a lot that goes into this, and the opposing team is playing defenses to try to limit what you do, and they look at what you've done and try and set it accordingly. But I do think that we need to do a better job.

Q. How influential was Jimmy Raye, in terms of being the first African American quarterback from the south to win a national championship here?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, I think it was huge. I think it was a monumental step in college football, and relative to the segregation, I guess is what you'd say. I've read the book, Ray of Light, and I think it's a very interesting book. It talks about the things that people were up against at that time in history.

Also, I know we had the film Through the Banks of the Red Cedar, previewing this week and we've previewed that. I think it's an extraordinary film, and there's some unique things in there that just sort of set you back and makes you say, wow, things were like that.

But Michigan State was a pioneer I think for, I guess you'd say, integration in college football. So many of our great players from that time have had an opportunity to meet and they are tremendously successful people and very proud Spartans.

Q. You mentioned both of them, talking about the punting situation. Is Rocky out of the mix there? And secondly, how do you evaluate how the punting team performed against Indiana? What are you looking for as you go towards Central Michigan in practice this week?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: No, Rocky is not out of the equation. He'll still have an opportunity to compete for that.

I look for it in practice, try to put him in game-like conditions as best we can in practice, put pressure on him and everything. They have done a good job with pressure and go times are good, like I indicated. And then you've got to do it in the game.

I mean, it's different, when you go into the game, you've got to -- you could hit 50-yard pops in practice with four or five hang time, but in the game, you have got to be able to do it at that point in time, too.

It takes a little bit of time I think to let the dust settle a little bit and then say, okay, this is who we are going to go with, but we are giving people opportunities.

Q. Anybody from Saturday that was hurt, Jarvis or Stewart, or anybody that you expect to be out for the season with a long-term injury?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: No.

Q. Based on last year, you guys were really -- had good team health last year. A lot of injuries early in the season; where does this rank in what you've dealt with through this early in the year in your career and having to juggle lineups and having to move guys around?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, we've had to do it sometimes in the past. In 2015 we had a lot of injuries up front on the offensive line and maintained what we needed to do.

My sense of everything is always: The more you play, the more experience you get. I mean, if you've been playing at left guard all your life and now you've got to play right guard, that's an experience that you can draw on at another time during the season.

I look at it as an opportunity to get stronger, not an opportunity to get weaker. That's what we'll do. Blake Bueter played 26 plays on last Saturday. I thought he did a nice job. His first opportunity to really play a ton of plays. He's going to be a better player for it, and those type of situations continue to happen at different positions.

Q. I'm aware that you're involved with charity organizations around campus. How is the JDRF One Walk impacted you, as well as the MSU community?
HEAD COACH MARK DANTONIO: Yeah, you know, when I first came here, got involved in JDRF and I didn't know too much about children with diabetes at that point in time.

I've been educated. Brandon Denson came and played for us. I've seen young people that were nine years old when I first started going and now they are 22 years old and that type of thing, and I meet them as grownups now and they are doing very well. I've met a lot of people and been involved in that for 12 years.

It's tough out there for some people sometimes just to live an ordinary life, but I think things that are happening now in the name of science, I guess, is helping to make it better for people.

But every time he has an opportunity to do something nice, it can bring a little bit of light to people; it's been a humbling experience for me, is I guess what I'd say.

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