Tom Izzo is not a coach who likes to take his foot off the gas pedal. But he did, and as a result, 11th-ranked Michigan State had more fuel in the tank.
ANGOLA – For the first time under the home lights, Trine played lights out football.
To commemorate its nearly $4 million renovation of Fred Zollner Athletic Stadium, which included lights that were purchased from what was once Memorial Stadium, home of the former Wizards, Trine scored on its first three possessions and turned up the wattage the rest of the way in a 55-7 blistering of Manchester in the teams’ season opener Thursday.
In a festive night complete with fireworks, skydivers, a bouncy house for kids and a pregame motorcycle parade that cruised across the field itself, it was a rousing debut for the home Thunder, who was picked as the nation’s fifth best NCAA Division III team, at least according to Lindy’s Football magazine.
Trine, 10-2 last season, more than lived up to its preseason billing.
Senior quarterback Eric Watt ran for two touchdowns, passed for two more, and sophomore running back Ja Vontae Hence ran for 99 yards and three touchdowns in an offensive display as loud and bright as the postgame fireworks.
Thursday was no nail-biter, as was the case last season when Trine held on for a 16-14 victory over the Spartans. It was a game with little suspense and long on style for the Thunder.
“I could just tell in their eyes, when they walked out here during warmups, that they were ready to play,” Trine coach Matt Land said.
Trine wasted little time in wasting Manchester.
Watt scored on a 9-yard touchdown run with less than two minutes gone in the season, Hence had a 3-yard scoring run on the team’s next possession, and the Thunder went 3 for 3 on early possessions when Paul Curtis hauled in a 33-yard touchdown pass from Watt.
From then on, it was party time for the record crowd of 5,187.
“We had a few practices that could have been better, but we were interested to see what we were going to come out and do,” said Watt, who completed 14 of 18 passes for 255 yards and ran for 45.
Hence had 99 yards on 10 carries, which included a 52-yard scoring run midway through the third quarter.
“We want to get the ball in the hands of No. 2,” Land said, referring to Hence’s number.
In all, Trine dominated with 642 total yards on 63 plays – or a shade more than 10 yards per play.
“We executed,” Land said. “That’s what we did – we just executed.”
