The Falcons football team will play in their season opener on the road against the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday afternoon, looking to build off the momentum of a three-game winning streak at the end of last season.
The team feels that sound fundamentals on defense are going to be the key to having a strong opening performance.
“(Michigan State’s) going to be sound. They’re not going to beat themselves,” Falcons head coach Mike Jinks said. “One of the things that we’ve got to do is we’ve got to tackle well. When we tackle well and don’t turn the ball over, we’ll have our chances.”
Last season, the team also had their season opener on the road against a Big Ten Conference opponent: the Ohio State Buckeyes. This resulted in a 77-10 loss. The team feels that they will be able to do much better this time around.
“Last year, there was a buzz,” Jinks said. “I think everybody was excited and anxious about going down and playing Ohio State. It’s been a little bit of a different feel this year; it’s about business. It’s a very prideful unit, and they realize that our job is not to just go down there and show up but to represent this university.”
Also, the team feels that being able to start the season with nearly all of their players available will be crucial to starting on the right foot.
“We stayed relatively injury free,” Jinks said. “We got after it relatively good last spring, and we brought that same mindset into fall camp for those first couple of weeks. We were able to stay healthy and evaluate a ton of young players and get a good idea of what we wanted to be as far as the two-deep players.”
Michigan State University (MSU) had a difficult season last year, going 1-8 against Big Ten opponents.
“A big part of Michigan State kind of struggling last year was that from their 2015 championship team, a lot of talent graduated,” Sports reporter for Michigan State’s student newspaper, The State News, Souichi Terada, said. “We’re kind of left with the players that are talented in their own right, but they just weren’t able to get the job done last year.”
“Those guys were thrown into the fire last year, before they were ready,” Jinks said. “There’s a different confidence now, not only for the players but the coaches as well.”
The University has organized a free spirit bus that will tranport students to and from East Lansing, Michigan on game day. Spots on the bus are limited. Students can buy tickets for the game for $25 online or by calling 877.BGSU.TICKETS. Read more about the spirit bus at bgfalconmedia.com.
