Spartans get back to work on practice field

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MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio held a “brief” practice for his team Sunday night, something he said he rarely has done in his three years in East Lansing.

“With the Michigan game coming up, this week’s a big game,” he said Sunday. “It was important to get past this (Wisconsin) game and get it out of here. We’re on the field (and) we need to just basically put our helmets on, our cleats on, move around a little bit.”

Dantonio said the team held meetings Saturday night and practiced Sunday to move forward as fast as possible.

“I think my favorite phrase must be, ‘We’ll move the process forward,’” Dantonio said. “But I believe that.”

During the team’s three-game losing streak, the defense has allowed big plays to snowball into inconsistent play.

“We need to focus on one play at a time and not the play that just happened. We have to focus on the play at hand and then the next play,” he said. “I think that sometimes, when things start to go wrong for us, we tend to dwell on those things.”

Winston sticks out

Sophomore running back Glenn Winston was the most consistent MSU runner Saturday, rushing for 52 yards on nine carries, although he had one costly fumble.

Each week, a different back has played well, so Dantonio said the coaches will give the most carries to whoever has the hot hand.

“(Against Notre Dame), I thought Larry Caper ran the ball very effectively; this week it looked like Glenn did pretty well in the third quarter so we’re going to feed the guy that’s hot,” Dantonio said. “If you’re running with power, breaking tackles, good things are going to happen.”

Freshmen Caulton Ray and Caper were both listed as No. 1 on the depth chart for Saturday but only had 23 combined yards.

Winston showed his ability to be the team’s power runner as he ran over some Badger
defenders Saturday.

“I thought he ran the ball downhill well,” Dantonio said. “He was very close to breaking some big ones.”

Team meeting absences

Neither junior wide receiver Mark Dell nor sophomore B.J. Cunningham started Saturday because they missed a team meeting, Dantonio said.

“Everybody’s going to make a little bit of a mistake. It was an early morning meeting and they slept and missed it,” Dantonio said. “You have to discipline the players that are starting, too. We had a couple other guys miss too.”

Dell and Cunningham are roommates.

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