* Hondo Carpenter, Covers the Las Vegas Raiders and Michigan State for Sports Illustrated

Episode Transcript

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Michael Patrick Shields is on theer.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Good morning world, Good morning Michigan.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
I'm Kyle Malin, editor of the Meurrs newsletter, filling in
for Michael Patrick. Today, October sixth, could be our last
day in the eighties for the year of twenty twenty five. Gosh,
it's been hot the last few days, twenty degrees above
the seasonal averages time of year. Things are going to
come back to normal. It looks like starting tomorrow, little

(01:02):
rain overnight.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
And we'll continue.

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It looks like throughout the day bring back some sixty degree.

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Type weather, the type of weather you expect.

Speaker 5 (01:12):
In October here in Michigan.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Well, we've also got a lot of football.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
And the guy who knows a lot about football, he
covers the Las Vegas Raiders for Sports Illustrated. Hondo Carpenter, big,
big Michigan State follower and chronicler of Michigan State sports Hondo,
it was hard to watch that Nebraska game. I don't
know how much of it you watched, but it was

(01:38):
tough to swallow.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, I watch every second because in my role now
as a senior NFL and college writer, I cover and
oversee our Michigan State and all that as well. And
I watched every second of it. And here's the disappointing part.
You know, Nebraska's two years ahead of Michigan State in
a rebuild, and I don't think any reasonable Michigan State

(02:02):
fan thought Michigan State was going to go in there
and wipe the floor of them. In fact, I think
if you asked most of them, they expected a loss.
I certainly did. But what you didn't expect was a
team coming out of a bye week to look lost.
There's a difference, and they came out and it was
the first time. And let me just say this, because

(02:23):
I don't run from anything that I say at I
AM and was an advocate for Jonathan Smith to get
the job. I think he's a tremendous quote coach with
a proven track record, But that was the first time
since he's been at Michigan State where you looked at
him and his staff and their performance and you were
disappointed in them. It doesn't mean that, you know, everybody

(02:46):
has bad days. It doesn't mean that they can't recover.
It doesn't mean I've turned on him, because I haven't,
but it was extremely disappointing, and then coming out of
a bye week made it even worse. When you expect
for there to be some things and some correction made.
So to me, now they come home and this is
a game that Michigan State should win. The place is

(03:09):
going to be packed for homecoming. It's going to be
a ton of recruits there. So this is going to
have a major impact, just not on this season, but
it's going to have a major impact on the future
and Jonathan Smith. When you are rebuilding a program and
you have a new boss that didn't hire you, and
again I'm not advocating for his termination, but you can't

(03:30):
afford to lay eggs and in situations where you shouldn't
you know, if they were playing Ohio State and got
the floor wiped with them, people would have accepted that
a little bit better. But Nebraska is a better football team.
But those mistakes that was on his staff. You know,
there were times when players would make mistakes and then
just stand there and watch the outcome. And I made

(03:54):
tom Izzo, God bless that man has set the standard
in the state of Michigan, no matter what school that
you root for, for coaches that demand excellence. And there
were plays where guys made mistakes and they weren't taken
off the field and they were just allowed to continue
to play, and some of them repeated mistakes. Well that

(04:15):
doesn't cut it here. This is a blue collar state.
And what you know, if you were a Spartan fan,
even if you hated Michigan, you respected the way Jimmy Harbaugh,
you know, treated his teams, the way that he led
his teams, the same way with a Nizzo. And again
it was the first time, so certainly in a year
and a half he's worth a mulligan. But Jonathan Smith

(04:36):
now has to come back in front of his fan
base and he has to show that the team responded
to him and his coach's leadership. And here's the other thing, Kyle,
that a lot of people don't talk about. But this
isn't the old days. These guys are paid now, and
some of them are paid massive amounts of money. So

(04:57):
all of a sudden, the well we got to let
guys develop. Yeah, we still do, but not when you're
replacing them every year with who you can go buy
to replace them. There there are expectations. I had one
of the top coaches in college football last week say
something to me that really blew my mind for an
article I'm writing. He said, I'm all for players getting paid.

(05:17):
I want them to get paid. I have no issues
with it. But with more money and with what's coming,
there's going to be more expectations. And he goes, and
when you treat them like paid players, he goes, how
many of them are going to revolt and say, well, no, no, no,
we don't want that. Well, yeah, you did because you
wanted to be paid. And there were guys out there

(05:38):
that were not playing like paid players. They were looking
like freshmen and young players that needed to be developed.
But that wasn't the case anymore. They're paid big money
out of the collective in the Nils and this is
going to be John Jonathan Smith's job because he's you know,
he is changing from an old school coach to this
new era and he's got to find his way too,

(05:59):
and you got to give him some grace there. But
it was very, very disappointing as a spartan.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Uh hondo.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Why did Aiden Hiles only complete nine passes for eighty
five yards? That's a state you just rarely see in
college sports.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Well, yeah, I agree, but you know, when your offensive
line can't block anyone, when you have offensive players who
are paid significant amounts of money, offensive lineman paid significant
amounts of money, who are sitting there like the Home
Alone movie with their hands on their cheeks because they
just let a guy run freely through to kill your
quarterback rather than chasing them. That's exactly what happens. It

(06:37):
was a terrible performance by an offensive line. Aiden. A
lot of people don't realize this. I mean, he's only
a year and a half into his career and so
he's still learning how to adjust. I talked with somebody
in the program yesterday who told me that, you know,
there was some issues with you know, changing some blocking assignments.
That's part of having young players. But remember they're young

(06:59):
player yers that are paid now, so the expect change,
expectations change, you know. We remember when there used to
be players and you'd say, well, you know, they're freshmen,
you just got to let it go, or they're sophomores,
and then you've expected more as juniors and then expected
peak performance as seniors. But now they're paid. Now they're
expecting and it's not reality, but it's just it's the

(07:22):
reality of the situation, but not accurate guys to commit
and play like they're being paid. And so the offensive
line was completely terrible. Aiden made some poor choices. I
would say, though eighty percent of it was on the
offensive line. There was a couple of misassignments by some
running backs, but that again coming out of a bye
week when you had an opportunity to correct things, to

(07:46):
change some things, and to get your guys healthy and
ready to look like that that all squarely sits on coaching.
Everything rises and falls on leadership. I'll tell you a
quick story, and I go back to him because he
is the gold standards. I remember Michigan State lost the
basketball game that they should not have lost, and I
was talking with Tom Isow in his office after the

(08:07):
game and about a player who had had a really
bad game. And he looked at me, and there's no
cameras around. This was two friends. This was an immediate
guy and to coach, and he said, everything rises and
falls on leadership. He goes, you have to blame me,
and I go, but they did this. He goes, You're
absolutely right they did. He goes, I'm not denying that
they didn't, and you should make that clear, but you

(08:27):
also should point out everything rises and falls on leadership,
and when he does it two games in a row,
it's on me. And I'm going to hold Jonathan Smith
to that Spartan standard, and that was You can certainly
point to an offensive line that looked terrible, but that's
a direct reflection of coaching coming out of a bye week.

Speaker 5 (08:45):
Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated, Thanks for breaking this down
for us.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
It's tough.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
Hopefully we can get a win against UCLA this weekend.
Appreciate the time. We'll talk to you later.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
You're listening to Michigan's Big Show starring Michael Patrick's.

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