East Lansing, Mich. – Whenever he’s been asked about the potential distraction factor in Michigan State’s Week 1 match-up, junior quarterback Payton Thorne has routinely downplayed the potential pitfalls of facing Western Michigan University, where his father Jeff Thorne is the offensive coordinator.
“I’ve played against my dad my whole life, whether it’s in the front yard playing basketball, or knee football when I was five,” Thorne said earlier this summer. “I’ve competed against him plenty. This will be a unique opportunity because obviously this is an official game, but it’s not anything crazy.”
The chances of anything crazy happening may be slim, but Spartan football coach Mel Tucker isn’t leaving anything to chance, which is why he took up the topic with his junior quarterback on Sunday.
“I had a long talk with him about it yesterday, and other things,” Tucker said. “I don’t think he’s been in the situation before. He says it’s not a distraction for him, but it’s a human performance business and that’s his dad. So we have to address it and talk about it, and then how are we going to handle it. We talked about it in detail and we are going to continue to talk about that just like we would anything thing else.”
Thorne, who was at one time committed to play football at Western Michigan before former Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio offered him a scholarship, credits his dad with helping him to learn the Spartan offensive playbook during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Going into my redshirt freshman year when our new coaches got here, I would talk to him about our offense all of the time because I was learning it,” said Thorne, whose father at that time was the head coach of North Central College in Naperville, Ill. “I was at home, not doing anything other than learning the offense.”
Thorne has impressed Tucker with his leadership throughout the off-season. The junior quarterback has taken ownership of this Michigan State football team, and the Spartans need Thorne to play and lead at a championship level to achieve their goals.
Part of being a leader is playing disciplined football on a game-in, game-out basis, and Tucker is looking for Thorne to do exactly that on Friday night.
“I believe that discipline is 85 percent anticipation,” Tucker said. “Discipline is doing what you’re supposed to do when you are supposed to do it. For him to have a disciplined football game, and prepare with discipline we have to anticipate these things. Here are some of the scenarios, some of the feelings that you might have. So how are we going to handle those things?”
We'll begin to find out, on Friday night.