College football teams go out of their way to avoid putting out any bulletin board material before big games.
No one wants to give their opposition any additional motivation.
That means pregame interviews are loaded with syrupy compliments about how great and well-coached the opposing team is.
Everyone usually “plays hard” and “doesn’t quit” and “fights to the end.”
Penn State defensive end Shareef Miller went a different direction during an interview that aired on ESPN on Saturday.
Miller said, “Couple of guys on our team played with him. They told me if you hit him a lot of times, he’s gonna fold.”
Haskins played his high school football in Maryland, which is prime recruiting territory for the Nittany Lions.
He played with and against a number of current and former PSU players.
If you’re wondering whether word about the comment made its way back to Haskins, yes. Yes it did.
You poking the wrong lion buddy.. ? #Shhh https://t.co/m0pdBWcLPQ
— Dwayne Haskins, Jr? (@dh_simba7) September 29, 2018
Pregame trash talk has a long history, and how it’s remembered always boils down to how the game plays out on the field.
Michigan captain Walter Smith saying the Wolverines “wanted to get (OSU Coach John) Cooper fired” looked pretty bad in hindsight after the Buckeyes thumped the Wolverines, 22-6 in 1994.
A year later, OSU wide receiver Terry Glenn said “Michigan is nothing” before the Wolverines upset the previously unbeaten Buckeyes, 31-23.
But it doesn’t always go badly. Jim Harbaugh famously guaranteed that Michigan would beat OSU in 1986, and then backed it up with a 26-24 win.
But it took a very narrow miss of a 45-yard field goal by OSU’s Matt Frantz to give Harbaugh what is, to date, his most recent win over the Buckeyes.
Late Saturday night, Shareef Miller’s comments are going to go down in OSU-PSU history. Now it’s just a matter of how they’re remembered.