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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — If there’s one place where Michigan is certainly on high-alert for Michigan State this Saturday, it’s the Spartans’ penchant for trick plays on special teams.
The mishandling of a snap in 2015 not included, there are several key plays that MSU has had over the years on the third unit that have given the Spartans a lot of key success. So, naturally, for special teams coordinator Chris Partridge, the preparation for Saturday’s matchup requires a little bit of reverse engineering, taking a look at how and where MSU might attack the Wolverines in that light and knowing how to handle those situations should the Spartans attack in-kind.
“Really, it’s about, we have to look at what our weaknesses might be and how they might attack them,” Partridge said. “That’s the first and foremost. Then we have to look at what they do, trick play or not, we’ve gotta prepare for everything. But yeah, we just have to make sure our eyes are disciplined and we’re ready for anything they can throw at us and be ready to understand the situations they could throw at us and go from there. But it’s really looking at ourselves and how they can attack any of our weaknesses and then looking at what they’ve done and what their strengths are and how they can try to do something like that.”
Doing that is one thing, but knowing what might be coming is another.
Partridge & Co. are being quite fastidious when it comes to studying what MSU likes to do on that front, going all the way back to the beginning of the Mark Dantonio era to study the team’s tendencies when it comes to trickeration.
That doesn’t mean that every past situation is replicated in practice, but the team is well aware of what could be should MSU decide to trot out a surprise special teams play.
“Michigan – Michigan State – 12 years ago, they ran a fake punt or something – we’ve seen it all,” Partridge said. “We’ve seen every fake punt that they’ve run, probably, for 12 years. We’ve seen all their trickery on field goal. We watch it all. We’re not gonna practice it all, but we’re gonna make sure we’re aware of all of it.”
But not every play in that light is different. Some are wildly different, Partridge notes, pointing out that the field goal tricks all have different looks. But the fake punts are something that MSU tends to use out of the same formation and look.
In that light, Michigan has to be ready, because if MSU does pull out some kind of fake or trickery, it’s likely due to the level of success that the Spartans feel they could have against a particular look.
“The last three fake punts are exactly the same,” Partridge said. “They’re the exact same one. The field goal stuff has been quite different. But they’ve run some different fake punts as well, but the last three have been the same. Again, opportunities presented themselves. They’re not going out there – I don’t know if people are saying, ‘Hey, there’s a trick play,’ – they’re not going out there doing crazy stuff for no reason. When you watch their fakes, they’re executing them because the opportunity presented itself from what the the other team was doing. It’s smart coaching, it’s smart football on their part, I believe.”
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