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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 3, 2013Mike SadlerQ. Can you explain your pants? MIKE SADLER: When I was walking over I was just refreshing my Twitter feed and I saw Fou had his on, and every day I wear pajama pants under my sweats. I don't get too creative with it. Yeah, but playing with it a little bit, wearing pajama pants. They're not red, though. They're not red this week for me. Q. Coach Dantonio was talking about Ohio State's special teams, that they've blocked some kicks. How aggressive are they with their return game, block game? Any type of special challenge? MIKE SADLER: They've always been good. I think that's just a trait of Urban Meyer teams, a strong special teams, even going back to his days at Florida.  Last year they did block a punt on us, so that's something we have to focus on this week is having good blocking schemes. We have to do a good job of hitting the ball high and towards the sidelines so they're not going to get any return yards. In big games like this, special teams tend to make the difference, so we have to be sure that we're on our game. Q. We asked Fou about this. Coach was saying why not us if we finish 12‑1 certain scenarios fall out, certain teams lose, that Michigan State should be in the title talk. Is there a certain part of that you guys agree with in the sense that you had a close loss to Notre Dame and how far this team come? MIKE SADLER: We certainly have come a long way, but right now we're focusing on beating Ohio State and letting the cards fall. There's only so much we can control and we just want to beat Ohio State and let the rest take care of itself. Q. It's really hard to make an impact as a punter. I didn't even know what you looked like until you introduced yourself. But you've had an impactful year and career between all the fakes and the punts. How significant, how proud are you of the impact you've had on this program, being a punter? MIKE SADLER: Well, it's really cool to be able to have such a significant impact as a punter. I think that I have been very effective throughout my career so far. The stats might not always prove it. That's why don't really see me winning any of these awards. But when it comes down to being effective, I definitely think I'm one of the better punters in the country. Whether it's just downing punts inside the 20 or hitting them far when I need to, I just like to think that I can really help out the offense and the defense when I'm called on. Q. This is a little bit off the topic, but I'm guessing you probably saw the Auburn‑Alabama play by now. Just as a holder in that field goal scenario, is that a nightmare situation, and how do you guys, I guess, as a team prepare for the possibility of something like that? MIKE SADLER: Yeah, that's a tough position to be in. I like to think Geiger would just make the kick and not have to worry about it, but that is something that we've practiced. We do that maybe once a week, once every two weeks or something just to kind of get the feel for it, spread out the field, make sure everybody is in their lanes and just make sure that doesn't happen. Most teams won't practice that, but I think after Saturday a lot more teams are going to be practicing it. Q. Can you go back to a couple years ago, the aftermath of that game? What did you do? What do you remember about how you guys dealt with that in the next few hours? MIKE SADLER: I think that was one of the hardest games to swallow that I've ever been a part of. I think we were about a minute and a half away from having the roses clenched in our teeth and it just kind of all got ripped out from us on one play. Definitely a tough pill to swallow, but we're lucky that we get a second chance in it, and we're going to make sure it doesn't happen again. Q. What do you remember about that night? MIKE SADLER: Just a tough night. Just couldn't fall asleep, and you're just playing through all the different scenarios, the what‑ifs, what if we make that tackle, what if I hit a better punt, if we make a field goal, all that kind of stuff. This year we want to be sure to not have any what‑ifs after the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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