Win or Lose, the Spartan Program Marches On

When Mark Dantonio came to Michigan State, one thing was crystal clear: MSU would not be out-worked by its Wolverine nemesis in Ann Arbor anymore. On

When Mark Dantonio came to Michigan State, one thing was crystal clear: MSU would not be out-worked by its Wolverine nemesis in Ann Arbor anymore.

On Saturdays, during practice, on the field and off, Dantonio has used the University of Michigan as a bench mark and motivator, pushing the players who wear the green and white as well as the coaches who work endless hours improving the program.

So when Michigan week comes around, little else in the world matters. It matters not that UM is a resurgent program, a few short months after having been written off for the graveyard of has-been powerhouses. It matters not that MSU has struggled to secure W's in a season some predicted the Spartans had an outside chance to make a BCS bowl in. Third in the Big Ten at worst, many experts predicted.

While Big Ten title dreams are still in play, they seem a much loftier goal after getting slapped down three weeks in a row, beginning with the deflating loss Central Michigan. So what’s gone wrong? Coaching, some say. It's lack of talent, others insist. Poor execution is an oft repeated refrain. It's easy to find examples for every claim to defame, and the practice of Spartan fan self-flagellation that never seems to go away.

It would be nice if the whole story ot this year's disappointing Spartans could be explained so succinctly, like a Law and Order court case, wrapped up in an hour with little bits of evidence accumulated to reveal an unavoidable, fully understandable truth. But football isn't like network TV, and that's what makes it so great.

Time and again, Dantonio repeats the refrain that football is a game of inches, and the platitude holds truth. Another saying that might shed light on a season like MSU's is that everything in football is contextual: returning players matter; the calls of an opposing coach matter; injuries and player development matter; down and distance matters; how a ball bounces on an onside kick matters.

It's a fantasy to think that in football everything is controllable. It's a farce to believe that wins and losses can be identified by a single play or play call, by a moment on the field or in the coach's box. No, football games are complex events, filled with wayward bounces, guesses — both educated and otherwise — and split-second decisions. If football contests were predictable, if explanations after the fact made prognosticating next week's game any easier, the country would be filled with middle-aged millionaires whose sole income was derived out of Las Vegas.

No, football is a finicky beast, a game that refuses to be pigeon-holed by water cooler and message board chatter. Everything in football has context, and to ignore it is to ignore reality. MSU is in a long-term rebuilding effort; the teams it faces every week have players on scholarship, too. And the pigskin bounces the way the football gods say it should, regardless of how well a coach coaches or a player plays.

So this week, when Michigan rolls into town sporting a shiny new Top 25 ranking and 4-0 record, it's swagger restored and supreme confidence annoyingly intact, to face a an MSU team still struggling to find a 2009 identity, not much matters aside from the series of events that will play out Saturday afternoon.

Rivalry games are always special. But they aren’t always competitive, and, deep down, that's what has Spartan Nation worried. For all the bellyaching about MSU's disappointing record, for all the bombastic claims that only wins and losses matter, Michigan State football continues to show, even in the face of adversity, that the program is on the right track. In the age of Appalachian State, upsets happen. In year three of a five-year plan, disappointments may occur. In college football, ups and downs are inevitable, unavoidable.

Which is why the game this weekend, win or lose, will once again reveal the state of MSU football. Some teams quit on seasons. Some teams don’t play for their coach or the name on the front of its players' jerseys. Some coaches lose their teams when things don’t go as planned. So far, under Mark Dantonio, Michigan State has shown a resilience unseen in these parts for a long time. And that resilience is being tested more and more with every passing week.

Teams, players and coaches get amped up for rivalry games circled on the schedule. Programs define themselves by how well they do against arch enemies. Everyone wants a winner, everyone wants a bowl game, noone wants to lose. This goes for both teams that line up across from each other on the white-striped field of green encircled with cheering and jeering throngs.

Not much of that matters, though, on any given play, rivalry game or not. What matters is how well players and coaches are prepared and how the ball bounces once it's booted from a tee to start the game. For MSU, fans can be confident that everything that can be controlled is. The focus of players and coaches is laser sharp this week, and if wishing were reality, the Spartans would have a win already. But it's not. So the teams will line up in a few days, ready to dominate control each other through game plans and execution. Both will succeed. And both will fail.

In the end, both MSU and UM need this game. Both will leave it all out on the field. And while only one will walk away with a victory, programs are not determined by the context of a single game. That might not make those fans who need instant gratification happy, it might not be intellectually satisfying to either fan base, but football isn’t an intellectual game. It's a physical game, a game of high speed collisions as Dantonio says, and when that's the kind of contest you're invested in, you have to be at peace with not being able to explain everything away. Some things just happen. This weekend, one thing's for sure inside Spartan Nation: MSU will fight tooth and nail to make sure it does everything it can to make a win happen. But if it doesn’t, the program will march on.