News and Notes from Spartan Football As Camp Starts Friday. Part One

News and Notes from Spartan Football As Camp Starts Friday In today’s column, I am going to use a bullet point format updating you on several issues. ·  Â

News and Notes from Spartan Football As Camp Starts Friday

In today’s column, I am going to use a bullet point format updating you on several issues.

• ·        I asked Mark Dantonio not as a coach, but as a man how rewarding it was to have Delton Williams back on his football team. He paused, gave me a big smile, and said, “VERY rewarding.” The cynical will say it is because Williams is a very talented player at a position of need, but the cynical do not know Dantonio. Since day one he has taken the approach his father did as a public school administrator and that is turning young people into men. Williams deserved the chance to come back, his teammates love him and for Dantonio, seeing Williams earn that chance was as rewarding as a Rose Bowl win. Dantonio is fond of saying that he has to be a realist and that all the good deeds don’t count if you don’t win, but Dantonio is proving every single day that you can win, be a good man, and still impact lives OFF the football field.
• ·        One other Williams note of interest. I asked Mark Hollis point blank earlier this summer if Dantonio would be able to make the call on Williams’s return or if others would. Hollis emphatically stated that the decision was not Coach Dantonio’s alone to make. When I asked Dantonio the question about Williams’s return being rewarding he added more emphatically and without being asked, “I was the decision maker in the process.” Clearly, those two opinions are not in concert.
• ·        Biggest quote this off season from Dantonio? It shocked me and several others. “We won 11 games last year and I WOULD NOT say we accomplished our goals.” That took stones.
• ·        I told you all last year how Dantonio wanted more mobility out of Connor Cook. He didn’t have to run like Jeremy Langford, but he had to run more.  Dantonio told me this week, “I continue to try to encourage him (Cook) to do that. Take a bad play, run, and make it a big play.” I suspect we will see more out of Cook this year. If we do, I have zero doubts the Spartans could have a very special campaign. Later in the day when asked about today’s college football Dantonio added, “You have to have a guy at QB who can take a bad play and create a good play.”
• ·        It is funny how MSU is getting more recruiting love nationally. It surprises Dantonio who said of every offer they extend, “I see a 1st round recruit in every player we take. I really do.”
• ·        Dantonio can’t comment specifically about any unsigned player BUT when asked a question about recruits taking visits after committing (read into Gavin Cupp’s offer being taken away), he said that his policy isn’t about visiting, “Recruiting is a very fluid thing. I have a policy on communication.”
• ·        I always laugh when I hear people throwing around terms like “Player X has a non-commutable offer.” Dantonio does as well. When asked if he ever says to a recruit that here is an offer, but you can’t commit he laughed. “Non-committable offer? (More laughter) If I offer a scholarship they have an offer. They can’t commit until they meet me.” Again on the non-committable offer, “I never say that.”
• ·        I asked Dantonio about the 2011 Izzo team. The players, without being asked openly, said that team was a national title team or bust. I asked if he had concern that this team with so much talent might do that. He said, “You play yourself into situations (championship opportunities), you don’t talk your way in. Stay focused at the task at hand.”
• ·        Dantonio said something that I had never heard him say before and I have never in his entire time at MSU missed a press conference or media availability. When asked about this program taking off under his leadership he said, “In 2007 we had zero attrition (players leaving) on that team. That team went to a bowl game and we surged. We didn’t take a step back.” Very interesting insight.
• ·        A lot of people are talking about the loss of Trae Waynes and they should. A first round draft pick and a star CB. BUT, Dantonio shocked some folks if they don’t know him when he said, “Losing Kurtis Drummond was critical. Trae had not yet assumed a leadership role.” I agree with him and it was not a slight on Waynes, but it was VERY telling.
• ·        Dantonio also publicly talked about coaching football saying, “I was close to getting out of football before I got married. I got turned down for a high school job.” How would you like to be that school?Â
• ·        I have sung the praises of FB Trevon Pendleton and Dantonio did as well. High praise calling him, “I think he is the best full back we have had at Michigan State.”
• ·        When you have any group, whether it is a football team or the University as a whole, and you have 105 people you will never have a group of saints in its entirety. With that being established, I think top to bottom this could be Dantonio’s best group of people; young men. I asked him about it.  He chuckled and said, “I hope so, but I am going to hold out on that one until the end of the year.” He’s right. If he admitted it and someone screwed up he would get slapped in the face by critics, but I am telling you that I have been around a long time. There are a couple of bad apples, but top to bottom this is the best group of young men Dantonio has had. That speaks volumes that you can win and do it right. Dantonio admitted, “We have good people.” He added, “We have won because we have good people. “
• ·        I heard a lot this spring and since about the play of Jermaine Edmondson. He is third on the depth chart at the field corner behind Darian Hicks and Arjen Colquhoun who are tied. I think he is in play to win that job and so do others inside the program. Dantonio is not one to use hyperbole and when he was asked recently about the junior he smiled and said, “He had a great spring.” Read into that. Dantonio doesn’t waste words good or bad. I say often that you can read Dantonio by what he does and doesn’t say.
• ·        The Spartans have questions at CB, but they also have answers. That is a big thing. Dantonio called his cornerback position “Fluid.” He added, “I don’t know who’s first.”
• ·        Dantonio wants the message out because coaches are lying on the recruiting trail saying freshmen don’t play at MSU. He reiterated, “We played a lot of true freshmen.”
• ·        One player that Dantonio can’t stop gushing about is Demetrious Cox. He said, “He will start at corner, but he has to be on the field, as a starter.” Another bold statement. Usually Dantonio prefers to talk about “Winning the job” and “Earning the job,” but he left no wiggle room. I found that very interesting.
• ·        I have been heralding Ed Davis all off season. I think he is going to make a lot of money with his play this year setting the NFL on notice. He is also a terrific young person. I asked Dantonio about Davis who is gentle off the field and a head hunter on it. “A quiet guy. But when he gets on the field he is a different person. As good of a linebacker as we’ve had. Is he a leader? Most would say no, except when he is on the field, he is a different person.”
• ·        Dantonio was asked to compare Connor Cook with Kirk Cousins. Both fine QB’s in and of themselves, but if you simply grade only on field results I don’t think that is fair to Cook. Dantonio did smile and say, “Connor is a little more mischievous.” Don’t read a negative into that, it’s just a subtle difference in personality. There is an adage with QB’s that you want them to have a short memory. Cousins didn’t. Cook does.
• ·        Dantonio thinks there are three positions that true freshmen could play this year; running back, wide receiver, and cornerback. He simply was validating our reporting to you since signing day.
• ·        When this season is over, if the Spartans have a great season, here is one name that you know will have been a big part; RJ Shelton. Dantonio again waxed loquacious saying, “I have a very high standard for RJ. He is one of the most dynamic players on our team. Take a play and go the distance. We could stick him at tailback and he could be a great one like Jeremy Langford. He has a huge ceiling.”