Dwayne Haskins Sought Shea Patterson’s Advice for Dealing With MSU Defense

They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend, but what if the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy, yet also your friend for many years now?

That is the situation that Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins and Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson currently find themselves in.

The two have known each other since the eighth grade when they began attending the same quarterback camps. They even talk now and again.

Michigan’s starting quarterback and Ohio State’s starting quarterback, friendly enough to call each other on the phone.

What kind of world are we leaving for our children?

Have Millennials now also killed rivalries?

One such conversation took place this week when Haskins called up his old pal to get some tips on playing Michigan State. Patterson led the Wolverines to a 21-7 win in East Lansing a few weeks ago, so he was well-versed in what the Spartan defense can do.

What did Patterson tell Haskins?

“They play really hard,” the Buckeye quarterback said. “They’re going to bring a lot of different stuff. Watch their film. Lots of empty stuff. They brought six-man pressure to five-man protection. We’re just going to figure out what we need to do as far as the game plan goes, and then I’m going to get myself together for different types of pressures and looks I get to see.”

That’s not much different than what Haskins saw when he watched the film as well.

“I watched like five games already since Sunday,” he said on Tuesday. “They’re a blitz-package team. Just a lot of different looks they give. Just trying to figure out what we can do against those coverages and not try to stress ourselves out trying to call good plays. Just make plays that work. Just trying to figure out how we can get into good situations and not cause ourselves to get behind the ball.”

Haskins said he and Patterson talked for about 20 minutes on Tuesday. Most of it was about the Spartans. As for trash talking, that hasn’t happened for a while, but it did happen.

“Maybe when he decided to go to Michigan, that’s when we started talking [trash] a little bit,” Haskins said. “But we’ve been in our own lanes and I haven’t really been bothering him too much about the rivalry we’ve got right now. It just helps out that I know him and when we play him, it’s going to be a lot of fun playing him.”

Patterson hasn’t yet called Haskins for advice, not that he would need to do it for the Rutgers game this weekend.

Perhaps Patterson will call prior to the Indiana game next week.

If he doesn’t call before then, however, don’t expect Haskins to pick up the phone during Michigan Week.

“I’m not going to talk to him that week,” Haskins said.

Some things, thankfully, will never change.