At the annual Big Ten football kick-off luncheon, Michigan State QB Kirk Cousins gave a speech that elicited a standing ovation. Of all the players and coaches who spoke, it was only his words that inspired such a reaction. Earlier that morning, when he spoke to rotating journalists at the conference media days, he again stood out as one of the best public speakers.
“I’ll always feel overlooked, I’m always looking for motivation. I just told my brother the other day: I said Kyle, go on the internet and look up every article you can. Go find every preseason magazine you can, and compile a list, of all the quotes, articles, anything that disrespects us, or doesn’t give us our due,” Cousins told the media.
“I want copies made of those and I want them put in front of the team at training camp. He’s already got a pile, and he’s working on it more. And believe me, come 2-3 weeks into training camp I’ll be putting that up in front of the team at night and making sure that kindles a fire beneath us,” he continued.
Kyle Cousins, if you come across this exact post:
Check out my Big Ten Power Rankings. I have Michigan State 4th. And my conference QB power rankings, where I have your brother ranked third.
I’m also doing a “77 in 77” ranking the top 77 teams in college football. I have MSU #19, schedule to publish on Tuesday August 16th.
So what are these publications saying?
“The cover of one of the preseason magazines, it’s says in the corner ‘Title time for Spartans?’ And last year was title time for Spartans, there’s on question mark, we won the title. It should be a period. And then ‘Repeat Time?” So the title has been a little bit forgotten, and that’s fine. I appreciate the bad press, we’ll use it as motivation,” Cousins answered.
I then followed up by asking if the bowl game, a very lopsided loss to Alabama, has something to do with that.
“Absolutely it has something to do with that. It left a sour taste in some people’s mouths about our season. That’s okay, we’re using that as motivation too. There’s a silver lining in that game to help us this year,” he responded.
But Cousins believes the sports media are good at their jobs, even though he disagrees with much of what they say.
“You guys do your homework, and you understand who you should be preseason this or preseason that, and it’s not for no reason,” he said.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site that generates millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
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