Couch: Five intriguing elements about MSU at WMU

• MSU's Jack Conklin grew up loving WMU's mascot, Buster Bronco
• A Flacco is playing QB for the Broncos
• WMU has a 28-year-old kicker
• Why P.J. Fleck to Illinois speculation is shortsighted

Sports columnist Graham Couch begins a new weekly column featuring five interesting elements about MSU’s next football game — oddities about the opponent, connections between the teams, financial figures, etc. This week: MSU at WMU, 7 p.m., Friday, ESPNU

EAST LANSING — Jack Conklin neglected to share his affection for Buster Bronco during our recent conversation. Instead, he spoke fondly about memories of the cannon firing at Western Michigan’s Waldo Stadium.

Cannons before cuddly mascots. Selective memory, no doubt.

Leave it to a mother to share the tender and less macho childhood stories.

“He loved Buster Bronco,” Conklin’s mother, Jennifer Jackson, said this week of MSU’s touted junior left tackle, who grew up attending WMU football, basketball and volleyball games.

Conklin is one of three Spartans with Waldo Stadium and/or Kalamazoo ties, along with reserve senior safety Chris Laneaux, from Portage, and junior kicker Brett Scanlon, who transferred from WMU after last season.

For Conklin and Laneaux, this Friday night’s date in Kalamazoo is an anticipated homecoming, and a party for family and friends.

For Scanlon, who didn’t anticipate he’d be making the trip with the team because he’s sitting out the season per transfer rules, this is weird timing. He just left WMU after two years, during which he kicked off 97 times for the Broncos. That was his role. He was a heralded scholarship kicker from Dowagiac, who couldn’t beat out the preferred walk-on in front of him. No different than when Kevin Muma couldn’t overtake Dan Conroy at MSU.

“They respect my decision and I still respect them,” Scanlon said of his old WMU teammates. “Some of those guys are my boys, especially my roommates.”

Conklin, too, has loads of friends at WMU. He grew up in nearby Plainwell, just north of Kalamazoo, and his late grandfather, Ron Jackson, is in the WMU Athletics Hall of Fame for his standout career in baseball and basketball in the 1950s.

Conklin estimated that his father was tracking down 20 to 25 tickets for Friday night’s game.

“I’m really excited,” Conklin said. “It’s 15 minutes from home. I’ve got a bunch of buddies who go to Western. My grandparents still have season tickets. It’ll be fun. I have a ton of family there that sometimes can’t make it up to games (in East Lansing). The whole community, I go home and people say, ‘We’re so excited to come see you.’”

Conklin’s mother said some long-time friends and clients from their family insurance agency have purchased WMU football season tickets just so they can have tickets to this game.

Conklin would happily have stayed home and played at WMU — or anywhere, he said — had the Broncos recruited him.

“Western, their mantra used to be they recruit a lot of guys from Florida and Illinois,” Conklin said. “Unfortunately that’s why I feel like I didn’t get recruited there. Sort of another chip on the shoulder game, a team that didn’t look at me.”

Of course, he originally had to walk on at MSU, as well.

“We were wrong not to offer (Conklin an opportunity) earlier,” MSU offensive line coach Mark Staten admitted last winter.

Laneaux also walked on at MSU, after a standout career as a receiver and defensive back at Portage Northern High School. He plays primarily on special teams and tallied one tackle in seven games last year.

He’s more than a “Rudy” story and he’ll actually be on the field playing when he returns to his hometown, which is important to him.

“That’s a great feeling, just being able to contribute to the program,” Laneaux said. “That was my goal coming here, to get on the field and play. Just to be able to do that is a blessing.”

Flacco under center for Broncos

If you see the name Flacco on WMU’s sidelines Friday night, it is not Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco. It is, however, his brother Tom, a true freshman quarterback for the Broncos. Flacco is the backup to starter Zach Terrell.

A 28-year-old kicker

Derrick Mitchell was never quite considered the next Derek Jeter in Kalamazoo. But he was a relatively big-time local prospect when the Philadelphia Phillies selected him in the 23rd round of the 2005 amateur draft out of Paw Paw High School. He chose the minor leagues over a scholarship to Michigan State.

Now, after nearly a decade in minor league baseball, he’s WMU’s kickoff specialist. At age 28. Per his contract, the Phillies are paying for his college education.

Fleck speculation

After Illinois fired football coach Tim Beckman last week, speculation swirled that third-year WMU coach P.J. Fleck would be the Illini’s desired next head coach, eventually replacing interim Illinois coach Bill Cubit, whom Fleck replaced at WMU.

It could happen. Fleck’s coaching profile is soaring. But it should also be noted that Cubit was similarly considered a rising name heading into his third season with the Broncos in 2007. Cubit had taken a 1-10 program in 2004, before he got there, and gone 15-9 with a bowl appearance in his first two seasons. Fleck, who went 1-11 in his first year at WMU, matched Cubit’s 8-5 mark in his second season.

Hampered by a wicked early schedule and five assistant coaches departing — including his defensive coordinator to be the DC under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford — Cubit went 5-7 in his third season.

Fleck has a similarly young team. His third season begins against No. 5 MSU. Three weeks later, the Broncos travel to No. 1 Ohio State. They close the season at division rivals Northern Illinois and Toledo. WMU might be better this season than last, but with a lesser record. Fleck will be the same coach. We’ll see if athletic directors are savvy enough to see it. They weren’t with Cubit.

Financial sense

MSU’s willingness to play at WMU this season (and Central Michigan in 2012) is noble. Michigan and Notre Dame will probably never do it. But this wasn’t a completely altruistic offering from MSU athletic director Mark Hollis. It was part of a three-for-one contract with the Broncos, in which WMU gets one home game and MSU gets three, paying barely more than $1 million in total guarantees to WMU for its three visits to East Lansing.

Four separate games against WMU in East Lansing these days would run MSU a tab of about $4 million. By scheduling the series so far out in 2009 and agreeing to play once at WMU, MSU saved about $3 million. To put that in perspective, that savings nearly covers the cost of having Mark Dantonio as MSU’s coach for an entire year and does cover the salaries of his entire staff.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.