Spartan Head Coach Mark Dantonio Faces Biggest Game In Head Coaching Career

Spartan Head Coach Mark Dantonio Faces Biggest Game In Head Coaching Career  Mark Dantonio has already admitted that his Spartans 1-3 start, “Nobody saw

Spartan Head Coach Mark Dantonio Faces Biggest Game In Head Coaching Career

 

Mark Dantonio has already admitted that his Spartans 1-3 start, “Nobody saw this.” After one of the most impressive two years in college football, let alone MSU, Dantonio and his Spartans now face a different problem.

 

This program, since the departure of Duffy Daugherty, has had some highs, but many valleys and now they stand on the precipice of moving forward or going back…at least in perception. 

 

Coach Dantonio has talked a lot since he arrived about changing perception. To his credit, he and his staff have worked tirelessly all over the state to change it. Coming into this season he had three stated goals.

1.     Win the Big Ten Championship.

2.     Win their last game.

3.     Show up, compete, and win in big games.

 

All three are good goals. All three are goals that this program with its fan support, facilities, and wages that it pays should be there. #1 is mathematically possible, but won’t happen. #2 is still viable, and #3 will be determined on Saturday.

 

I have maintained for many years that this rivalry was not “back” until MSU had won two straight years. I can’t take credit for that “original” thought that goes to my buddy Jack Ebling. Regardless of credit it is 100% true.

 

The Spartans have built up two great years of goodwill. They have recruited like no tomorrow, and if you had looked at Mark Dantonio’s time up until this season you would say he had done everything right.

 

Since then, the scene has been brutal and the football has been UGLY! Poor coaching decisions, lack of adjustments, and sadly, indecisiveness. What Spartan fans loved (and still love) is the commanding presence of Coach D. When he took over the flimsy reigns of the struggling ship you could sense his command of the situation. You knew he got it. Everything he did was right, it was calculated. After years of knee jerk, hocus pocus, self-slapping chaos, he was the steady Eddie presence that the Spartan Nation needed and wanted.

 

Now, we are embarking upon our fifth game of the season with a season on the cusp of spiraling out of control as far as expectations and God forbid, a bowl. Players that once did well now struggle. Players that it was safe to expect to at least stay the same, if not get better, haven’t. The indecisiveness at QB has both of them wondering if they are playing to stay in or win.

 

Nichol and Cousins are two great young men. MSU can win with either one. In fact, it is unfair BY ANYONE to blame the failures of this season on QB. The offense has not been the issue. The QB situation, however, has been a symptom of bigger issues, which are inside the program. This should have been settled. The debate raging among fans and water coolers is not good. They will say that players aren’t paying attention, but we all know that is disingenuous and foolish. They are. This has now become an issue that should be resolved.

 

Pick one and ride them. If a change is necessary you make it and stay with it. This team needs stability. This team needs a rudder; a rudder that a QB can give. I frankly have an opinion, but my choice for the spot doesn’t matter. The QB is the general, and last season when the fans were frustrated with Brian Hoyer Coach never wavered and that helped this team.

 

Is it fair to Kirk Cousins to constantly wonder if he needs to pick up a clipboard or a helmet? How about Keith Nichol? He said all of the right things on Saturday, but being in Madison and watching him and Kirk on the sidelines, the stress of am I or aren’t I was very evident from the sideline. Naming one of them your starter doesn’t mean the other can’t play and compete at the starter’s job again next spring?

 

We now are at game five and we wonder if a RB will step up? Again, I know that Coach D prefers a two RB system, but the logjam can’t be good. Last season it was incredibly frustrating that no one stepped up for some relief of Javon, but we heard that although it wasn’t ideal, it allowed him to get in a groove. Now our MULTIPLE RBs’ only groove is the one in the grass from the huddle to the sideline because after nearly every play they are running to the sideline for the next RB to come in.

 

Practicing on a Sunday, closing practice to the media, rearranging the depth chart are all signs that they are trying. There is no doubt that the countenance around the Duffy is concern and it should be.

 

Spartan fans are among the best and most loyal in the nation. They have for years been mocked for their commitment to a program that has been more often used as a toy for politicians. They are angry. Ticket prices were foolishly raised this season and they paid them. Don’t blame the fans for high hopes. You use them to raise revenue and they want a return. They were asked to pay more for this Saturday’s Michigan game, because it is a “Premium” game, yet given no discount for the scrimmage with Montana State. 

 

The Spartan ticket office made a terrible decision, when after offering additional tickets to donors they opened up the remaining tickets to the general public for the Michigan game. Really? A decision that reeks of elitism and disrespect for the rank and file non-caviar and champagne fan. Season ticket holders, who struggle in this economy to pay for their seats and can’t afford the luxurious “DONOR” seats, weren’t offered extras. They simply opened them to the public and passed over, once again, the blue-collar fan. Opening them to the general public that included our friends to the southeast.

 

Wolverines bought up extra tickets, not from the vilified ticket brokers, but from our beloved University itself. If they blame season ticket holders for all of the yellow on Saturday, you must remember that they, the ticket office, work for Sparty.

This game on Saturday is the biggest of the Mark Dantonio’s head-coaching career. I believe in him, win or lose, but this isn’t about people like me who are close to the program needing proof that he is the right guy. Those close know that he is.

 

This is about the every day, salt of the earth, blue-collar family that knows that their job, if they still have it, is predicated on working hard every day. It is about progress. It is about not taking days off, so if layoffs come, they are seen as the guy or gal that can be depended on. This game is about saving face.

 

Coach Dantonio said before the year that this season they had to step up and play and win in big games. Only God knows if this group will make a bowl game. Whether they do or not, this is the BIGGEST game of the year. A win allows them a mulligan for the last three weeks and gives them back some room to grow for the rest of the year. It allows a poor or fantastic finish to be looked back on after the year and to have a line in the sand game they won.

 

This game is about this staff, getting guys back on track, giving that one player who hasn’t got a chance that moment. Mark Dantonio takes great pride (and he should) in the continuity of his staff. When approached by MSU last year for a raise he immediately wanted to take care of his staff first. I have been around a lot of football programs and NO ONE treats their staff as good as Mark Dantonio. He needs them to return that this week. They have to be better on all sides of the ball.

 

The Spartan Assitants Owe Mark Dantonio Their Best Effort on Saturday. Photo Courtesy of Starr Portice

I will talk more about this on Wednesday, but this game is about a group of kids that have played poorly as a unit, but have NEVER quit. This is one of those games that this staff has to pick them up and dust them off. We have all seen games that Izzo has simply willed his team to win. This needs to be a defining moment in Mark Dantonio’s career; a moment when all around him is struggling and he does what he did the first time he met with his team when he came back as head coach.

 

He entered the room with a group of young men that had been on an emotional roller coaster. They didn’t know who to believe or trust. Coach Dantonio looked them in the eye, proclaimed that in year one (2007) they would go bowling. He had them at hello. He fulfilled that promise.

 

Regardless of the season’s final record, Saturday is one of those moments; defining moments, program building moments. It will be showing up and winning. In 2007, the Spartans didn’t even belong on the field at Ohio State. Somehow, Coach Dantonio kept them close and by a miracle the Spartans even had a shot. That game defined progress and gave the Spartan Nation hope.

 

In 2008, a team with no right, and sad to say nowhere near the talent, was playing for a Big Ten title at Happy Valley. There was a glimpse of the future with them even playing that game and the loss was palatable because of how far he had brought them. That game defined progress and gave the Spartan Nation hope.

 

Saturday’s game is his 2009 moment. Unlike the first two seasons defining moments mentioned above, this years can only come with a win. A win soothes the last three games’ heartache and paves the road for a rough rest of the season or resurgence. Saturday is 2009’s moment. This is the game, that at MSU, careers are made of. Spartan fans don’t clamor for BCS games every season. They don’t even ask for a win against UM every year. They want the rivalry back. They want respect. They need this game. As much as the entire State needed Izzo’s run to Detroit, the Spartan Nation needs Saturday even more.

 

This is about pride, this is about fight, and this is about Michigan. It is about every fan that everyday doesn’t work among the green walls, but in the real world. It is about a game being bigger then life, when life has given people little to smile about. This game is Pure Michigan…State!