Former Michigan All-Big Ten offensive lineman Doug Skene former Michigan assistant coach Jerry Hanlon each spoke today about the upcoming rivalry game against Michigan State. Here’s the highlights:
Doug Skene
Trash Talk: “It’s a refreshing change that this rivalry week so far has been absent of some stupid social media comments and these players on both sides are not taking the bait from the media types trying to get them to say something stupid. Maybe we can get to the game on Saturday and just see a good football game.”
Difference Between MSU and Michigan: “Because you failed to mention the violence level. There’s one football program that’s found a way to reach an elevated level of violence, and urgency and attitude in this football game and the other program hasn’t matched it nearly enough. It’s hard to measure that.
“A higher level of hatred, which translates into a higher level of violence. There’s some of those years where Michigan State had a superior roster than we did and therefore they won those football games and they weren’t close, despite what anybody said or thought.”
How to defeat the Spartans: “It’s always protect the football. You know statistically if you turn the ball over once in a football game, your chances of winning go down to 50 percent. You turn the ball over twice, your chances of winning are 25 percent. You turn the ball over three times, statistically speaking, your chances of winning are 0.0.”
On Patterson: “Patterson has to do a better job at protecting the football when he turns on his feet to run the football. A couple of these throws a game.”
Prediction: “There are too many matchups in our favor for us to lose this football game. If we play a relatively clean game, we’re going to win, but it’s going to be a tight one and nervous one, right down to the last second.”
Jerry Hanlon
On the Wisconsin victory: “Let’s face it, it wasn’t an easy game. Until late in the game, you didn’t dare relax. While you were confident, it certainly wasn’t a sure thing. The start of the second quarter provided to be the defining moment as far as I was concerned about Michigan.”
Offensive line play: “They’re getting better up front. We still aren’t controlling the line of scrimmage as I like to see it, but I’m somebody who looks at everything and gets upset when we don’t do it perfectly. The fact is they’re beginning the run the ball and control it with the ground game. When you put together control of the football and a defense playing like they do, it is resulting in team effort.”
MSU: “You don’t want to lose to Michigan State in this state. You want to win your state because wherever I went, it was always brought up to me we might be a new team, but we aren’t good enough to beat our rivals up there and we heard that for a year.
“They are a good football team. Let’s face it, here are two football teams, Michigan and MSU coming off victories over very good opponents. Michigan against Wisconsin and Michigan State against Penn State. So they’re buoyed right now. They have confidence with these victories. Each of them feels ready to challenge and we can go after the other.”
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @BSB_Wolverine, @JB_ Wolverine, @AustinFox42, @Balas_Wolverine, @DrewCHallett and @Qb9Adam.
• Like us on Facebook
