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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 29, 2013Max BulloughQ. It seems like with Denard he's a guy, you give him a crease, he could be gone. With Devin maybe a little more physical, breaks tackles, but a little bit more of a guy who looks downfield. Is that accurate, and what else would you say are the differences between those two? MAX BULLOUGH: Yeah, I think Denard got better as he got older, he was able to stay in the pocket a little bit longer. Obviously he liked to run the ball quite a bit, and Devin does the same. He's able to stay in the pocket and make some throws. Denard was more of a ‑‑ kind of like a Keyshawn Johnson, shake and move you about and do all that kind of stuff to try to make you miss, but Devin is more of a downhill, more of a Taylor Martinez type guy. He's not going to do a bunch of shake‑and‑bake at the line, but once he gets moving you know he's hard to catch. Q. Obviously you've been around this rivalry the better part of your life. What does it mean to you and do you have any‑‑ what's your best memory of this rivalry over the years? MAX BULLOUGH: My best memory is when TJ Duckett caught that pass here in overtime when I was a kid because I was right here, 5th or whatever row down on the 50‑yard line watching, and I was right here at the game, and that was one of the craziest things ever. I don't remember going to many games when I was that young, but I remember that one for sure. Q. Blake Treadwell was talking about the sick feeling he had coming out of the Big House last year after losing. I'm sure you felt the same way. What does that do to you as a senior now not to feel that way again in terms of your motivation for this game? MAX BULLOUGH: Yeah, you're always sick coming off a loss. We had a lot of those feelings last year. It's a special emphasis when it's Michigan obviously because of the importance we put into that game and the work we put into that game, how much we look forward to it. It's a motivating factor. It allows us to‑‑ we've felt both sides of it. We know how great it feels to win and how awful it feels to lose it. So I think that just gives us that much more motivation because we want to have that good feeling and we sure as heck don't want to have that bad feeling. I mean, it just doubles our motivation. Q. Can you talk about how Coach D has kind of stoked this rivalry with his comments five years ago about how long are we going to bow down to the University of Michigan and the winning four straight and the emphasis he's put on this rivalry and the effect that's had on you guys? MAX BULLOUGH: I think rightfully so, everything that he's‑‑ in terms of embracing the rivalry, I think if you come to a school like Michigan State and you don't admit that Michigan is our rivalry, if you don't emphasize it or you don't point to it and obviously say we want to win that game maybe a little bit more than all the others, then you're lying to yourself and you're lying to your team. I agree with everything Coach has said and done. It makes us excited because that's how we feel, and everyone knows that. Everyone knows that we're excited to play this game, and so are they. You know, it just kind of lets the public know kind of what we feel in the locker room, and Coach D is not afraid to say that. I think that's just part of Coach D's personality. Q. Even last year losing, it seemed like a physically equal game in the trenches and something that maybe wasn't there over time in previous decades. Do you sense that the Michigan players recognize that in terms of the gap, where the talent pool is or talent level between the two teams, that they recognize there's equality between the two programs and how difficult this match‑up is? MAX BULLOUGH: I think if you ask the Michigan players that have played us the last four, five, six years they wouldn't even know what gap you're talking about, and I quite frankly don't, either. We're Michigan State, we've got good football players here, we always have. We don't take a backseat to anybody, Michigan or anything. We can play with the best. We've always had as good a talent as you can have. Q. You talked a little bit about the TJ Duckett play. Do you remember how young you were when you first learned how big a rivalry game this was? What's your earliest real memory? MAX BULLOUGH: That's my earliest, going to that TJ Duckett thing, but I think I just kind of grew up as a kid‑‑ I know my dad liked Michigan State and I'd go to school and other kids liked Michigan, and we'd start talking back and forth even when we were little, so I think that's kind of where you learn it is when you're a kid in middle school, guys are rooting for each of their teams, and in elementary school, I think that's kind of where it starts to grow, at least it did for me. Having that‑‑ not barbaric, I don't want to say barbaric, but the conflict between the two even when you're young. Q. Your grandfather, what impact does he have on your feelings for this game? MAX BULLOUGH: When I was a kid I always used to try to get that kind of stuff out of my grandpa, like grandpa, what's the difference between playing Michigan and‑‑ he just‑‑ he's always been very‑‑ he's always said the same thing, and he's always been very calm about it, and they all mean one. This is another game. We've got to go play and we want to win it, and it means the same thing as every other game does. And I always expected a different answer. I never knew if he was‑‑ what he was going to say, but obviously he wants to win this game as much or more than any other game, but I've never seen him really going on some big monolog or say anything about specifically Michigan over some other team. Q. You talked about the importance of the rivalry. Has it entered into your mind just what it would be like not to win your senior year against Michigan, and do you look at this as a game that Michigan State should win? MAX BULLOUGH: This year or all the time? Q. This particular season with this defense. MAX BULLOUGH: Yeah, we should win it. We should win every game we play, especially, yeah, we should win this game. If we do what we've been doing this whole year, if we play the way we know we can play, then we should win the game. And think that I they're probably saying the same thing, and I think every team says that every week. That's not me saying anything that's locker board material or anything, but I think every team thinks they should win the game if they play the way they know they can play. I think we've set ourselves up and we're right where we want to be going into this game. We've set ourselves up in terms of our previous game to have this game mean something because it's the next game, it means something because it's the Michigan game, and it means something because it has a lot of impact on who will be playing in that championship game quite frankly. Q. Taylor Lewan said yesterday that he kept a photo of Will Gholston on his phone for a year as motivation. I was wondering what you make of that and if you've ever done anything like that or kept anything around, maybe a negative story or anything like that. MAX BULLOUGH: No, I can motivate myself. I don't need to use pictures or anything like that. I motivate myself and I get ready for the next week after the game. I know once you lose a game or once you win a game, you're on to the next week and you've got to win that game. So whatever they want to do or he wants to do is‑‑ I'm sure it worked for him and it made him play well. He's a great football player. I think everybody knows that. But no, I've never done anything like that. It's just kind of not how my mind works. I just do my thing. Q. I know you guys do a lot of film study on your own during every week, but this week do guys get more into that? Do you find a little extra time? Do you find extra time to look at things? MAX BULLOUGH: Yeah, I think when you go into a game like this, you just want to do those things. You're kind of‑‑ you're inclined to do a certain amount, but you want to do those things. You're sitting around, well, instead of watching TV I'll watch a little film because of how important it is. I don't think it's a huge deal or anything or something that everyone really talks about. I guess the coaches do say do a little more or whatever, but they say that for the championship game or something like that, too. But yeah, I definitely do it. I think other guys do, too. Q. How much more? How many hours? MAX BULLOUGH: I don't know. I don't know how many more hours. I watch it in spurts, 20 minutes, a half hour, hour at a time. I couldn't give you an exact number. Q. Could you put into perspective what the Notre Dame loss did for this team, if anything? You mentioned the team being where it needs to be and positioned to win the Big 10, knowing how well you can play. That Notre Dame loss, do you think that that could end up being a positive in any way as far as serving as a wake‑up call for some of the younger guys or helping Michigan State correct some of the things that maybe have helped you guys get more dialed in the last few games? MAX BULLOUGH: You know, I think that's happened a few times. I don't really look at that game as being too positive for waking anybody up because we thought we should have won that game. It's not like we went into that game and came out and said, man, we got out‑physicaled, we got out‑toughed. We felt we should have won the game, and things just didn't go our way and we didn't make a play when we needed to. We'd like to be sitting here 8‑0; we're 7‑1, undefeated in the Big 10. I think the whole first part of the season was a wake‑up call for the team, not specifically the Notre Dame game but the whole first part of the season was a little bit rocky, a little bit stormy to begin with. That kind of let everyone know that it's not easy. Q. A lot of former players that have spoken to various media outlets have talked about how this has to be the season for Michigan State to go to the Rose Bowl with this particular defense. Does that type of pressure, is that a good pressure? Is it motivating for you to hear the former players talk like that, or can you see any negative in that? Are you glad to hear them saying this has to be the season with this specific defense that you anchor? MAX BULLOUGH: Oh, I'm pumped to hear them say that. I feel the same way. I mean, next year when I'm gone I'm going to be saying the same thing and the year after that and the year after that and the year after that because I want to do it every year. Bring the pressure on. I love the pressure. I think this team plays well under pressure. I think this defense specifically has always responded well under pressure. We talk about pressure being a good thing, stress being a bad thing. And that's just, add one more thing on there, I think. Pressure puts a little bit of a chip on a team's shoulders, and I think that's how we play the best. Q. I'm curious if Traverse City was a Michigan State town or a Michigan town or divided down the middle like most? MAX BULLOUGH: Divided down the middle, yeah. Q. I doubt you need much more motivation or anything this week, but when there's people around the country that say the defense, you guys put up great numbers but you haven't played a great offense, does that give you any extra fire going into this, considering Michigan is perceived to be the strongest offense that you guy have played? Do you worry about that, or do you really want to prove people wrong? MAX BULLOUGH: Well, let's really look at what you're asking here. We played Brian Kelly at Notre Dame, who's one of the best offensive line coaches in college football, did pretty well; Iowa, coming off two, three weeks of 300, 400 yards of rushing in each of those games, did pretty well; played Illinois last week, who's had 400 yards of offense every week with Scheelhaase and Coach Cubit and that new offense who played a top‑10 defense in Wisconsin; Cincinnati, put up 30, 40 points in those games. I think we've proven ourselves no matter what anybody says in terms of who we've played, and we can only control play who we've played and done what we've done, and we're proud of what we've done. So I don't think we have anything to prove to anybody else except ourselves, and we've been tested. We've seen good offenses. Whether they have the best record or not, we've seen and played and dominated quite frankly good offenses this year. Q. Brady Hoke said yesterday he thought Michigan State might have six pros on this defense. How does that happen if the opponent has higher ranked recruiting classes every year and supposedly better talent? What happens here to turn you guys‑‑ not you but a lot of the guys in as two and three stars into all‑America candidates or pro players? MAX BULLOUGH: Well, I think it's tough. The whole high school recruiting process to me is getting‑‑ not ridiculous, but getting crazy. They're recruiting kids younger and younger, and the rankings, the four‑star, five‑star, and top‑10 linebackers, top‑10 quarterbacks, all that stuff is so subjective to me, first of all, and a lot of it is determinant upon which schools they visit and who offers first and all that. When you're talking to me about those things, I don't think the rankings and all that stuff necessarily mean a whole bunch just because it's a subjective thing from so many different outlets, and a lot of it is people that aren't even coaches or play college football. You talk about that, but in terms of guys coming here, we don't have any players really, maybe a couple coming in, but once you're here for a year or so, you don't really have that four‑star, five‑star recruit mindset. You're part of a team, and you can't have that mindset because we go through so much together, you get broken down. You don't want to be on your own. I think guys just come here, work hard, and are team oriented, like they are at other schools, not saying they're not. Those guys have great players. But I think guys just come here, and with the coaches and Coach Manny involved in that, they're able to create great players. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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