by EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State was unable to pull off a loss against No. 3 Ohio State at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, eventually falling to the Buckeyes, 38-7.
The defense largely held its ground in the first half, but things got out of hand in the second half. The unit was ready to play, but it just wasn’t enough to contain one of the best offenses in the country.
One of the unit’s veteran leaders, Michigan State linebacker Cal Haladay, addressed the media after the loss.
Below you can watch his entire press conference from last week:
Below is a partial transcript of Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith’s postgame presser:
Opening statement: “Thanks to Ohio State, that’s a good football team. I thought they played hard. Very talented as we expected. I don’t think we helped ourselves in the first half with some of the things we did to ourselves , such as turning the ball over a ball.” We turned it over twice in our red zone going back in, which was painful. We had a chance to make a stop in the red zone on defense, we dropped an interception, even they scored late to make it 24 on 7. in the half with a kick that we had to be better at. They went down and separated the missed chances in the first half and after that we didn’t get anything done. I feel like there were some comments that we were just overwhelmed. I tried to encourage our guys that we can go toe to toe if we can finish some things and get back to some details on ball security and getting off. field in third place. I appreciate the audience and wanted to say it again because I realized that Mark Dantonio was special. What a class act he is, meeting him before he walks here, what a great person and coach. It was great to recognize him this weekend.”
Q: What was the halftime message after missed opportunities?
Smith: “We didn’t think about that. We talked about tightening up our ball security. We talked about winning the third quarter. If we could win the third quarter by a total points difference, it would be within reach for the fourth quarter, but we didn’t get that done.”
Q: What was behind the decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 on the first possession?
Smith: “Going into the game, I felt like field goals against this team wouldn’t give us the best chance to win. Honestly, on fourth and 1, I’m going to be overly aggressive. These guys know we’re going to get that done.”
Question: What is the reason that scoring in the second half of recent games has been limited?
Smith: “We have to look at that. Whether it’s trends or adjustments we’re making, both point totals are not where we want to be. We have a short week here and we’ll watch this film and see where we can improve. We should score more than that.”
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