Last month, Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio offered up some fresh bulletin board material when asked about going up against big-brother Michigan on the recruiting trail.
“We’re laying in the weeds,” Dantonio said at the time. “We’ve beat Michigan the last four years. So where’s the threat?”
Friday, Wolverines head coach Brady Hoke was asked about the shot across UM’s bow during a radio interview. Instead of huffing and puffing over the crack, Hoke refreshingly allowed that, yeah, his football team has some on-the-field work to do against the Spartans.
“They’ve beat Michigan the last four years, and we need to do something about it,” Hoke said by way of AnnArbor.com. “I mean, we have to do our job. We haven’t done our job.”
Only one of those four wins came at the expense of Hoke, of course, with the other three laying squarely at the feet of the deposed Rich Rodriguez. Hoke ended a seven-game non-winning streak against Ohio State in his first season in Ann Arbor last year, but couldn’t do the same with the MSU streak in East Lansing.
The Wolverines’ will get the Spartans at the Big House in late October this year, although Hoke’s program will have a couple of other hurdles to get past -- Alabama, Notre Dame in South Bend chief among them -- before even worrying about slaying his second significant losing streak at the school.
“To be honest with you, we try and take it one week at a time, one game at a time, and we’ve got better things to worry about here at Michigan, and to talk about, than what other people may think or say,” the coach said.