No moment was too big for him and that’s what I’ll remember about Mike. It wasn’t like I saw him every day.
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“Basically, taking our entire program and looking at it and taking a part of it and sitting with me for a half-hour or so every week and saying, ‘OK, how can we make it better?’ I think he’s going to have a great impact on us”. “His wit, character, passion and competitiveness will live on through the establishment of this legacy scholarship fund. Mike Sadler will forever be associated with the Spartan football program”.
“I don’t know”, he said, shaking his head. “I think we bring in a recruiting class that’s top 20, so that’s going to bear good fruit”. On behalf of the Big Ten, we greatly appreciate the enduring contributions made by these two young men, and our hearts go out to their families during this hard time.
“I just know that, where we are right now”, Dantonio said, “if you’re playing for Michigan State right now, with the success we’ve had, if you’re a starter for us, you’ve got a chance to go play at the next level”.
“Our players are off this week”, the coach said, “so obviously we’ll have some things in place for our players when they come back”. Dantonio says other players immediately step up. As designated heir apparent to Kirk Cousins, Andrew Maxwell struggled in ’12 with a young receiving corps that at times had trouble catching the ball and the pressure of expectations.
“I sleep well, I really do”, Dantonio said. Dantonio will let another quarterback competition play out with fifth-year senior Tyler O’Connor, fourth-year junior Damion Terry and redshirt freshman Brian Lewerke.
“I think when you have a new quarterback situation and you lose a guy like Connor Cook and some of our other players, people tend to: ‘Oh, how can they overcome the losses of two All-America linemen, etc.?’ ” Dantonio said.
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After redshirting in 2012, O’Connor backed up Connor Cook for the next three seasons. Going into our tenth year we’ve had five coaches leave over the period of that time. “It is tough to replace guys, but the thing with our coaches is they’re bringing in guys that can do that and we have all the confidence in world in our guys”. Ever since Coach D and his staff came in, they expect to win. Before then, when I was growing up watching Michigan State it was hope to win and being.500 was a decent season. Really, when we came together as a staff yesterday morning-I nearly cancelled it all, but I thought if we came together and were together, together we could move forward.
