Iowa poses different offensive threat than previous opponents

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Senior defensive end Trevor Anderson is excited to get back to playing normal football.

After three straight weeks of playing teams that ran a spread offense, the MSU defense has the chance to prove its mettle against a team that runs a power offense in Iowa in the biggest game of the season for both teams.

“We’re back to playing normal football,” Anderson exclaimed.

“I’m very happy about that. It’s back to, ‘I know what you’re going to do, you know what I’m going to do, let’s see who’s going to stop it.’ They’re breaking the huddle and saying, ‘Come get some.’ Back to normal football. Not to say we can’t play against spread teams, but as a defensive lineman, quick passes get kind of irritating.”

But after playing against three straight spread teams, including Northwestern — which ran the ball only eight times with its running backs and chose to hit short, quick passes in the open field for much of the game instead — adjusting to physical nature that Iowa brings could be a challenge.

“Now, you’re working different things,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said. “You have to re-adapt again. It’s especially difficult for younger players to all of a sudden go from playing no-huddle offenses, that type of thing, to (what Iowa does). That’s why we have practices all week and that’s something you deal with with younger players at times and our older players are able to adapt a little bit easier.”

In MSU’s last game against a more traditional offensive scheme, Wisconsin shredded the Spartans to the tune of 436 yards of total offense in a 38-30 loss that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.

But regardless of the type of offense being played, MSU must be on top of its game to come out with a win.

“They don’t make a lot of mistakes,” senior safety Danny Fortener said. “That really keeps all the teams honest and it goes to show what kind of coaching staff they have and the kind of players. They just make a lot of big plays and capitalize on other people’s mistakes.”

Decker’s day

In last season’s 16-13 win over Iowa, senior linebacker Adam Decker made the biggest tackle of his career, stopping Iowa running back Shonn Greene on fourth-and-1 at the MSU 21-yard line with just more than two minutes left in the game to seal MSU’s victory.

Despite it possibly being MSU’s biggest play of 2008, Decker, a senior, said he tries to avoid seeing it, although it was prominently featured in an MSU season ticket commercial.

“I try not to watch it because it’s all in the past,” Decker said.

“Once the season got going, it’s a lot easier to bury that stuff because each week we have a new game to focus on. You don’t want to be putting in all the work in the offseason and come out and still be remembered for something last year.”

Junior linebacker Greg Jones said it was one of the greatest plays he’s been a part of.

“I was not even close to it, but it was the greatest play,” Jones said.

“It saved the day and I’m still happy for him.”

Decker has eight tackles and one fumble recovery this season.

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