By Andrew Mouranie
A visit to California during Labor Day weekend sounds like a prime location for a little rest and relaxation.
The MSU football team, however, is going strictly for business purposes. "It's a business trip. It's a business trip," MSU coach Mark Dantonio said Tuesday. "We'll pack a toothbrush and a comb and that's about it." The Spartans will travel to central California on Friday morning to prepare to take on the Golden Bears at 8 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Dantonio said the decision to not leave until Friday was based on keeping his team in that eastern time zone mentality. The plan is to prepare as if the kickoff was at 8 p.m. in the eastern time zone, not 5 p.m. on the West Coast.
"I don't see a problem with it," senior quarterback Brian Hoyer said about leaving on Friday. "All we have to do is stay on eastern time and it will be like playing an 8:00 game for us." This will be the Spartans' first trip to the west coast since the 2001 Silicon Valley Football Classic, meaning no player on the current roster has made that long plane ride and had to deal with playing three hours behind. Yet, running back Javon Ringer does not believe either will affect the way his team plays Saturday. "Hopefully it won't have too much of an affect. I really doubt it. Once game time comes, we are all focused in on the game, not necessarily the time." Ringer emphatically recognized the importance of the Cal game as well. He knows, being a senior, that this is his last opportunity to achieve the goals he set for himself and the rest of his teammates when he arrived on campus in 2005.
"If we want to be successful this year, we have to beat Cal. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, we need to beat Cal. We need to beat Cal" So if you lose to Cal and then run the table, its not a successful season?
"If that happened, that would be something," Ringer said with a smile. " But that is something we will deal with later, but our focus is beating Cal. Right now, we have business to take care of with Cal."
OPPOSING VIEW: Throughout the preseason, both Hoyer and Ringer have received plenty of national praise.
On Tuesday, Cal coach Jeff Tedford joined the crowd. "Hoyer is solid. He is a quarterback that looks like he continues to get better and better," Tedford said Tuesday during a conference call. "Ringer has great balance. He's elusive and runs behind a great offensive line. I'm sure those two guys provide a lot of leadership and anytime you have senior leadership in those two positions, it's a plus."
NICHOL AS RILEY: In Tuesday's practice, quarterback Keith Nichol played the part of Cal starting quarterback Kevin Riley on the MSU scout team. Nichol, who must sit out this year after transferring from Oklahoma, wore a white No. 13 jersey and portrayed the talented Bears' sophomore. Riley wears No. 13 for the Bears while Nichol normally wears No. 9.
SPARTANS IN CALI: Associate AD John Lewandowski said on Tuesday that the majority of the allotted 5,000 tickets MSU was given for Saturday's game at Cal have been sold. In total, he expects at least 10,000 Spartan fans to be in attendance at Memorial Stadium.
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