Michigan State OL Coach Mark Staten Took A Great Career Risk that has Paid Major Dividends for the Spartans and Eventually Him

Mark Dantonio is old school. That is not a criticism, in fact I love that attribute. The old school way was that an offensive line picked five guys and rode

Mark Dantonio is old school. That is not a criticism, in fact I love that attribute. The old school way was that an offensive line picked five guys and rode them long and hard. That was his philosophy. That was the philosophy of former OL Coach and OC Dan Roushar and former OC Don Treadwell before him. It wasn’t an idea that Dantonio harbored to himself. That type of thinking permeated the most successful college coaches’ mindset.

But something happened to Dantonio. Something that challenged him and frankly something that took a great risk by one MSU assistant that has paid off for all involved. Mark Staten was the TE coach and recruiting coordinator on the MSU staff when Dan Roushar was elevated to take the OC job for a departing Don Treadwell.

Dantonio was unsure what direction to take. He contemplated how to fill his OL coaching job and there were several ways he could have gone. In fact, multiple members of the Dantonio staff and athletic administration at the time DID NOT think he was going to go with Staten for the open job.

Well, they were right because he wasn’t going to but they were wrong because he did. Staten wowed his boss. Staten recounted the conversation to me at the 2014 kids’ clinic when he said, “I promised Coach D that if he gave me the opportunity we would give him his best offensive line. I had some new ideas and I really believed in them. That is why I believe in him. He is passionate. Coach D really cares and he listens. I admire that. You can’t just get to him with some idea, you have to think it out, plan it out and explain why it would work.”

I asked Dantonio this summer about the conversation with Staten and his recollection and after a chuckle he said, “That’s true. That is what he did. I respected him for his caring and his passion.”

In truth, Staten was underselling the job he did convincing his boss. Dantonio already liked Staten. He didn’t have to convince him of his talent; he had to convince him that his revolutionary ways would work. Staten had started at Miami of Ohio for four years on the DL and even played two years in the NFL.

Staten had seen how games are won at the line and although defensive coaches loved to give players a rest and play multiple players on the DL, offensive coaches did not. That often gave rested defenders an advantage that stubborn offensive hard liners missed or failed to recognize.

Ever loyal to his bosses Staten was never one to throw coaches under the bus but he subtly had been suggesting trying said rotation for a few years and was ignored or in some cases “shot down” according to one Dantonio staff member.

That changed. Dantonio knew he was getting excoriated in recruiting when the only position not drafted by the NFL from MSU under his leadership was on the OL. For as old school as the head coach Dantonio can be, he isn’t dumb and he is an innovator, and Staten parlayed his trust into confidence with his impassioned plea for a chance.

So Staten went to work. Staten was the one who stuck on Dantonio about a little known OT named Jack Conklin who would have been the Spartan’s first draft pick last year and will be should he go this year. If he stays for a senior year, there is zero doubt Jack Allen will take the mantle as the first OL NFL draft pick from the Dantonio era.

When I talked with Staten this week about living up to his promise he joked, “I don’t know about that, I have a 6’1” left tackle,” referring to Jack Allen who filled in as the 3rd string LT this past week when Dennis Finley went down.

“You know these guys. They trust one another. With that trust comes demands. So they demand from one another. Just because (David) Beedle went out there and played 33 plays, well that isn’t good enough. Beedle has to be good enough to play 50 plays. Brandon Clemmons played 26 plays and he has to be good enough to play 50 plays. That is the push.”

It is the philosophy of playing guys at multiple positions and having multiple players that has allowed the MSU OL to flourish under Staten. Adding Jim Bollman to the staff has only made Staten even better. To his credit, Staten hasn’t been happy to be the architect of a new way, he has also listened and adapted himself and it is because of that that while MSU future 1st round pick Jack Conklin was down and backup and NFL prospect Dennis Finley was out that Staten called for his All American 6’1” (don’t believe that figure) center to slide out to the land of the giants.

Coaches prefer their LT to be closer to 6’6” because of the long arms, but Staten had repped Allen at LT earlier in the week. Something OC Dave Warner said while laughing, “That was all Coach Staten. He repped him there earlier in the week of practice.”

Earlier this week it was Staten’s boss Mark Dantonio who spoke glowingly about his rising star OL Coach. When asked about the M*A*S*H* unit that he has on his team at offensive line he was asked how he sees this week’s game playing out. He chuckled and said, “Coach Staten does an outstanding job, and he's always taught the whole-part-whole theory. So all those guys are in the same meeting room. They all need to know what the other guy is doing. Many of the techniques are similar, to some extent. Guys have had opportunities. I mean, Donavon Clark, he's played right tackle, right guard. He's played left tackle in the past. So we have quite a bit of diversity, I guess, and age and experience with our senior group. So I think that gives us an advantage.”

Dantonio continued to sound like he was plagiarizing Staten when he added, “And what we'll do is we'll look and see what's the best way to go about it based on the other guys and fit the pieces around that puzzle. Is it better to have David Beedle at guard or is it better to have so and so at guard. How does Benny McGowan figure in this? Brandon Clemons played last week too. He's a fifth-year senior. We have quite a different number of ways we can go with this. And then there's possible other guys we'll be playing as well.”

Last week with an offensive line that was more tattered than a Halloween costume, the MSU OL led the Spartans to over 300 total yards rushing (302). The Spartans sit today at 5-0 and the MVP of Dantonio’s staff has been Staten.

Staten is a coach that had the vision to see into the future and changed the game. There is zero chance had MSU not employed the Staten approach to playing multiple men at multiple positions that they would be 5-0 right now. They are. This is not usually the case but with a 5-0 record and a top 5 ranking the Spartans MVP is not a player, it is Coach Mark Staten. Somehow someway with duct tape, super glue, and a lot of prayer the Spartan O line has remained dominate.

Certainly this staff has a lot of great football coaches, but let there is no doubt that Staten is the MVP of the staff and has a rising stature around college football. NFL and college personnel have all commented to me about the job he has done this year.

In the game of football they say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I agree and many programs started looking last year at what Staten had done. Well, how do you quantify invention? It was Staten who drew from his roots on the DL to change the way the OL is played. It is Staten who took the risk of telling his coach that he had a better way. Sure it would have been easy if he was a coordinator or a lifelong friend, but he was neither.

What Mark Staten was and remains is a very good football coach who will get his chance to be a head coach one day because he took risks, big risks, and it paid off. He has had a freshman All American four years in a row, but more importantly he gave Dantonio his best OL; just like he promised. You might not have seen a lot of it with the starting five because of injury, but you’ve seen it often with the entire unit.

Staten hails from Dowagiac, a small town in Michigan, and when you see him this season his hair has been shaved off. It is to support his father who has cancer. Staten has already revolutionized the way college football teams run their offensive line, but he never strays from those small town roots.

He enjoys football, but family is his passion. The game that Staten loves was presented to him by his dad Jerry and when he was struck with the disease you knew the pride of Dowagiac wouldn’t just sit back content to do nothing. He said earlier this summer, “I'm the Michigan State offensive line coach, so it's something to converse about, it's something to talk about, because I think we're close to a cure.”

While Spartan fans celebrate the success of Staten on the field with the MSU offensive line, he is brought to reality by his dad’s fight. I’m sure Mr. Staten is a fighter and will win his battle. His son took on the college football establishment and it has paid off big. A fight Coach Staten thought worthy of fighting because it was right. A fight he learned from his dad.