Scope of the Spartans: The Goal is Elevation Part Three

Scope of the Spartans: The Goal is Elevation Part Three

Here we go again, Spartan Nation. To being my tenth season talking Spartan Football with you all let’s take a close look at this team and program to being 2018. Almost a complete outlook, if you will. Here is part three: intangibles of the team!

Intangibles

 #5 Spartan Football's 2017 bounce back was impressive, but not completely unexpected to those of you that have followed this space before 2017 ever kicked off. What's in the proverbial tank for a follow-up? Well, some coaches and players moved on to different opportunities at other schools. That is a sign of the overall health of this program more than anything else. More important than how it looks on paper, Mark Dantonio and company have navigated those shifts rather well as fall camp transitions into a game-week. Those on-field losses should not have a negative impact on the Spartans this year. Coaching wise, it appears MSU will enjoy a net-upgrade over last year's staff.

The Spartan Football coaching and support staff has never been stronger under Mark Dantonio. Look through the roster and you'll find a mix of past, not so far past, and practically present names. Names like Treadwell (two of them), Gardiner, Tressel, and Bullough, bring up memories of a wide range of Spartan seasons. There are men on this staff that has played for championships, coached in them, and some that were in the program as Dantonio began laying the current foundation. That collective experience and knowledge base is what sets the 2018 staff apart from any other in Mark Dantonio's tenure. Spartan Football now measures up with any other program in the Big Ten and threatens to compete with the best programs across the country for the foreseeable future in those areas. No program will battle with the best around until they measure up, coach by coach, staff member by staff member, with the established powers.

Hunger should be the main intangible for the 2018 team. They do not look complacent with 2017. They do not have a culture that would permit a "fat and sassy" attitude to take over. Not from the inside out, from the outside in, or through the coaching staff and support staff around them. Unlike some Spartan teams of the past, this group does not appear susceptible to an ounce of the poisonous sense of entitlement that ruins different college football teams across the sport, year after year. One wonders who that will be this season. The Spartans look like a football team that is genuinely just looking for an opportunity to heave.

Overall

The stage is set for Spartan Football to begin a serious run towards the top of the sport as the year 2020 gets closer. The program is ready to compete for the Big Ten again and ready to push for space at the top of college football alongside the two current superpowers. This is the window for Michigan State to make that transition. This is their time.

MSU is not the only program hoping to make room at the top though. There may be twenty programs that think they’re making a run at it, and maybe a handful that actually can. Most of them are dealing hype out of a good-sized bowl of fool’s gold. Rest assured, this column is not a puff piece or written cheerleading exercise. Michigan State Football is truly among the few that have a chance to step up and win at the highest level of this sport. The entirety of Spartan Nation is eager to see what the program does with the opportunity.

Look for the Spartans to come out fast in 2018, picking up right where they left off while hammering the holiday out of Washington State in that bowl game. This program now appears to understand that how they win matters more than it probably should. In the last two seasons, the ideal of the College Football Playoff has been revealed for what it actually is: insufficient and incomplete. The Spartans have to recognize that, accept it, and adjust accordingly.

The mistake of pulling up too early on an opponent should not be repeated this fall as MSU plays some overmatched opponents. Those games should confirm that the Spartans fully appreciate the current day importance of “margin of victory.” Their appreciation of that reality will display progress for the program. It's not about showing anyone up, it's about safely securing a win so your efforts and the final result get their due respect. That has not always happened to Spartan Football.

2017 marked the start of another era of Spartan Football, highlighted by the needed transformation the Offense began at Northwestern. This is not the same program as it was from 2006 through 2016. 2018 is more like the second year of the second part of the Mark Dantonio era. The complexion of the coaching staff has evolved, the Spartans' roster has evolved, and the entire program appears on the rise. All signs in Green and White are pointing again towards the top of College Football. The scope of Spartan Football has, therefore, become crystal clear as Spartan Nation makes its final preparations to kickoff 2018. The goal, as a famous Irish rock singer belted out in Spartan Stadium seven summers ago, is elevation.

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