The day following his team’s 62-13 win over South Dakota, Mark Helfrich addressed the media leading up to the marquee matchup between Oregon and Michigan State. Helfrich announced that the team’s players of the game were Erick Dargan (defense), Marcus Mariota (offense) and Charles Nelson (special teams).

The second-year head coach spoke about true freshman Aidan Schneider’s start at kicker Saturday, the development of his young players, and the similarities schematically that South Dakota had compared to Michigan State. Helfrich would go on to call Spartans quarterback Connor Cook “a man” and it was evident from his comments that Oregon, from its coaching staff to its players, will have a fire to  its preparation this week.

“Anytime you play a game like this if there’s not a little edge to your preparation we have a problem and our guys already are of the right frame of mind immediately after the final zeroes went last night,” Helfrich said. 

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