Broncos and Spartans tangle Saturday

By Mike Feld
Western Herald

(Chyn Wey Lee/Western Herald) Sophomore running back Aaron Winchester runs the ball against the University at Buffalo on Oct. 24.

It’s a team that plays in a stadium more than twice the size of Waldo Stadium, in a Bowl Championship Series conference, with three national championships on its belt. To the untrained eye, it might seem like a complete opposite of Western Michigan University.

But like the message at the conclusion of a cheesy high school movie, the two opposites may not be that different from one another after all.

On Saturday, the Broncos will travel just over an hour to East Lansing to battle Michigan State University. Both the Broncos and Spartans enter with identical 4-5 overall records, with matching 3-3 conference records in the Mid-American Conference and Big Ten Conference, respectively. Both teams are at the end of the line in looking for the seventh victory necessary to promise a postseason bowl appearance.

“They’re fighting for a ton over there on the other side,” head coach Bill Cubit said.  “They have a lot to play for, and so do we.”

It’s not only the records that match, either. Both teams have won and lost games in similar fashions during the 2009 season.

In the second week of the season, Michigan State lost to MAC opponent Central Michigan University on a last-second field goal in a game that many will argue should have been a win for MSU.

Simultaneously, WMU was suffering the now-infamous goal line fumble, which resulted in a loss against Big Ten foe Indiana University.

In the first road conference game for the two programs, both were shoved around. Michigan State’s 38-30 loss to the University of Wisconsin was not nearly as close as the score indicates, and Western Michigan’s 38-3 loss at Northern Illinois University explains it all.

On the other end, both schools took care of Division I FCS opponents this season. MSU beat Montana State University, 44-3, on Sept. 5 while WMU defeated Hofstra University 24-10 on Sept. 26. Both teams won its respective homecoming contest, as MSU beat Northwestern University on Oct. 17 and WMU beat the University at Buffalo on Oct. 24.

But both the Brown and Gold and the Green and White have felt the impact of having home crowds stand there breathless after a huge home loss. For the Broncos, it was the fourth consecutive loss to the Chippewas on Oct. 17 that crushed the spirit of the fans. In East Lansing, the Spartans scored a touchdown with 1:27 left to go ahead on current No. 8 the University of Iowa, only to watch the Hawkeyes score the game-winning touchdown with only two seconds left.

And last weekend, big losses backed both schools into a corner. Now, both are playing for bowl lives.

“I think a lot of teams are in this position right now throughout the country,” Dantonio said. “A lot of teams are fighting adversity. The ones who are able to fight through it in November will come out of it and have good football seasons.”

For two players in particular, they might understand just how much in common both schools have.

Junior linebacker Greg Jones and freshman running back Larry Caper were both Bronco recruits before ending up with the Spartans. For Jones, he was a great talent that was a long shot to join the Broncos. Despite his decision, there are no hard feelings from Cubit.

“He’s the best linebacker in the league, according to all the experts,” Cubit said of Jones.

For Caper, there is a bit of different story.

The Battle Creek native and alum of Battle Creek Central High School highly considered WMU before settling on MSU. His father, Larry Sr., attended Western Michigan as well. But Cubit had nothing but good things to say about the former Bronco recruit.

“I hope Larry has a great, great career there, except for when he plays us,” Cubit said. “He’s a good kid and his dad is really a class guy.”

(Chyn Wey Lee/Western Herald) The Western Michigan University defense breakes the huddle to take the field against the University of Michigan on Sept. 5.

Make no mistake, however. These two will not be playing cutesy with the Broncos on Saturday. They are two highly effective football players that Western Michigan will have to be ready to face.
Jones leads the nation with 109 tackles, averaging 12.1 per game. He’s had double-digits in that category in seven of the nine games MSU has played in this season. He also has six sacks and a fumble recovery.

As for Caper, he leads the Spartans with 375 yards (41.7 per game) on the ground and also has crossed the goal line six times.

No matter what uniform those two were to ultimately put on in this contest, it could be assured that they would be feeling a little banged up. When playing football in November, it’s almost guaranteed.

For Western Michigan, Cubit expected to have senior linebacker Austin Pritchard—who was cleared to play last week against Kent State University but did not—back against MSU. Junior wide receiver Jordan White is back on the practice field, and Cubit was optimistic he’ll be on the field on Saturday. But fellow junior wide out Juan Nunez has still struggled to practice and likely will not play against the Spartans.

For Michigan State, Dantonio did not release a depth chart this week due to health uncertainties. He would not get into specifics about which players are hurt and what the problems might be, but did admit, as Cubit did, that there’s a large number of guys feeling sore at this time of the year.

“We’ve got some guys who are banged up [and] injured a little bit,” Dantonio said.

But no one is accepting excuses. These two teams both had high hopes entering the 2009, but, in similar fashion, both teams have had those goals changed.
“We’ve come up short; we’ve lost some respect,” Dantonio said. “It’s about rebuilding respect.”

For Michigan State, the team knows how close they have been to owning that respect the entire time.

“We really feel like we’re a handful of plays away from being 8-1, probably,” sophomore quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “The fact of the matter is we’re 4-5 and we’re not 8-1. So, something needs to be fixed.”

It’s a story that, just like MSU, the Broncos know all too well.

“If you lose one at the end, you always pinpoint one or two plays,” Cubit said. “Sometimes when you get blown out, it’s the whole thing. Is it the psyche? Are we that bad? Or, let’s fix everything and the kids have a renewed focus out there.”

Either way, there’s no overwhelming or underwhelming feeling for either of these two teams. Both need to come away with a victory, and both sides understand the importance of that.

No matter who the opponent, it promises to be a pivotal contest.

“Every game [and] every Saturday is a big game,” Cubit said. “Some people put more importance on others. It’s really the game at hand that’s the most important thing.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=11417

Posted by heraldstaff on Nov 5 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

http://HeraldStaff