The following is an excerpt of The Daily Iowan’s Pregame podcast
Ryan Rodriguez, football reporter: This matchup is interesting, because Michigan State is basically Iowa with a little bit better recruitment. That’s not to slight Iowa — they’ve done remarkable things with who they have and what they’ve turned them in to.
It’s going to be interesting to see two teams that play that really similar style of football, that pride themselves on the same things — who outcoaches who and how the game shakes out.
Charlie Green, football reporter: I’m really impressed with what Dantonio has done. Not just since he got the job in 2007, but since around 2010 when Michigan State really emerged as one of the top dogs in the conference. They play physical and lately they’ve had a lot of great athletes — even at skill positions — get in the NFL. We see guys like Le’Veon Bell and Trae Waynes.
Danny Payne, Pregame editor: Jeremy Langford.
Green: They’ve really got a lot of talent coming through there now and I think that’s a real testament to the job head coach Mark Dantonio has done. He did come in with that vision of a real physical, winning at the line of scrimmage and he mentioned two days ago in the teleconference that he kind of patterned things after the way Iowa did things.
I think Michigan State has a slight edge in talent, just in how they’ve been able to recruit, but again, it comes back to what you said earlier Danny — winning at the line of scrimmage, I think that’s going to be the difference in the game.
Payne: Winning at the line of scrimmage and something else Iowa’s done all year, which is to not make mistakes. Iowa can’t afford to make mistakes in general, because they don’t have that superstar you can rely on at the end of the game to make a play. You have to play team football and in order to do that you can’t make mistakes.
Neither team can make a mistake, Iowa especially. They are the underdog going into Indianapolis, despite having a better record, but mistake-free football is going to be one of the keys.
Rodriguez: Beathard basically said as much today, it’s impossible to play a perfect game, but what you can do is make less mistakes and just be better than the other team.
Jordan Hansen, football reporter: Speaking of Beathard, I think he needs to be more productive than he’s been the last few games — rushing yards, passing yards.
Rodriguez: They’re going to have to throw the ball more.
Hansen: Oh for sure.
Rodriguez: Michigan State’s rushing defense is really, really good and their secondary is not bad, but it’s no where near as dominate as their run defense is and Beathard can be extremely accurate if they cut him loose.
Some of the receivers are going to have to get some separation too, which has been an issue at times too.
Hansen: I also think if you’re Iowa, you don’t want to go down to this team early. You definitely don’t want to be down by double-digits. You don’t want to have to go away from your run game…
Rodriguez: At least be keeping your play calling close to 50-50
Hansen: Right.
Green: I think that’s maybe one of the main differences between these two teams, Michigan State can pass the football, they can play from behind and rely on the pass game a lot more than Iowa has shown an ability to do.
We haven’t seen the Hawks get down much this season and rely on Beathard to take them back and if it happens in this game, it will be interesting to see how Iowa responds.