MSU FOOTBALL HOME MARK BITTERSWEET

By Mark Wilson
November 22, 2014

13-and-1 at Spartan Stadium the last two seasons.

On the surface, you’d say MSU really has something going for a change in the renovated facility.

The one game they did NOT win will sting despite those 13 they did win.

Losing to Ohio State 49-37 two weeks ago taints another terrific season in East Lansing.

With the blowout victory over Rutgers 45-3, the Spartans ran their 2014 record to 9-and-2. They finish the regular season two days after Thanksgiving at Penn State.

While the rout was finishing in front of 70,000 chilly Michigan State fans (because the Scarlet Knights don’t exactly travel real well), the Buckeyes were wrapping up the Big Ten East Division title.

It means Urban Meyer will have OSU in the conference championship game on December 6th at Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis.

What Meyer has done in Columbus is nothing short of spectacular.

After leaving Florida in 2010 and taking a year off in ’11, he surfaced in Ohio replacing his now-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell in 2012.

Think about it.

Fickell replaced Jim Tressel amidst all that controversy in Bucknut land and had the nation LAUGHING at Ohio State when they ended 6-and-7, 3-and-5 in the Big Ten and a loss in the Gator Bowl.

Meyer came in and the Buckeyes have lost… THREE times.

Three… in three years. MSU, Clemson and Virginia Tech.

Fickell had three losses by week six of the 2011 campaign.

With one game left this season, against you-know-who, Meyer has a third consecutive division crown in Big Ten play.

Unless Michigan has something up its sleeve on Saturday, the “Urban Legend” is going to roll through another conference slate without a defeat.

“I’m just glad we won our division and get to play our rival and then the championship game,” Meyer said to Lisa Byington on the Big Ten Network following the “W” over Indiana.

Frankly, Meyer confuses me.

I get his thing about not letting his emotions show. He probably felt like he allowed too much of that during his time with Tim Tebow at Florida.

But, he really doesn’t seem to be enjoying ANY of what he has done in Columbus.

23-0.

That’s Urban’s up to date record as Ohio State football coach in regular season conference games.

If Brady Hoke can’t find a way to stop “Ohio” as he likes to say, that record is going in the books as 24-and-0.

Three seasons… no B1G losses.

That… is just stupid.

Even the great Columbus icon Woody Hayes never did that.

Ohio State has had a few close calls but for the most part, the Buckeyes have been swift and efficient in disposing of all conference comers.

It’s why the Spartans have to be kicking themselves.

Mark Dantonio had a tiny little streak of consecutive Big Ten victories going until Meyer rolled into E.L.

It was the ONE conference game they HAD to win.

The Buckeyes prevented that from happening so, way it goes. It basically ended MSU’s dream of being part of the first ever college football four team playoff.

For now.

Dantonio has something going in Sparty partyville that hasn’t been seen around the Capital City since Duffy Daugherty was parading the sidelines in the 1960’s.

Denny Stolz, Darryl Rogers, Muddy Waters, George Perles, Nick Saban, Bobby Williams and John L. Smith all followed Duffy but couldn’t put together this kind of string.

With a win in Happy Valley, Michigan State will have its fourth season of double digit victories in five years.

He’ll also be 15-and-1 the past two seasons in conference play.

OH that ONE damn loss.

Thanks a lot, Urban.

Before Dantonio arrived in 2007, MSU had exactly TWO seasons of double digit victories.

10-and-1 in 1965 under Daugherty and 10-and-2 in 1999 under Saban. Williams was the coach in the bowl game against the Gators that produced the 10th win in ’99.

Mark D. is about to do it for the fourth time.

I’ve known a lot of Spartan football coaches in my days. Certainly all of them that have coached since 1977.

I got to know Duffy very well before he passed away in 1987. Denny I got to know minimally when he coached at Bowling Green following his Spartan tenure.

Going back even further, I got to know Charlie Bachman who led the Spartans from 1933 through 1946. He was a joy to speak with and he lived to the ripe age of 93.

Before Bachman, I had the pleasure of knowing the legendary Jim Crowley who coached MSU prior to Bachman.

Crowley was Spartan football mentor from 1929 to ’32.

If you don’t know the name, Crowley was best known as one of Notre Dames’ famed “Four Horsemen” immortalized in statue at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana.

Not only that but Crowley also created the “Seven Blocks of Granite” when he was coach at Fordham after his Spartan experience.

THAT dude is why the word “legend” was created.

Crowley passed away a year after Bachman in 1986 at age 83.

I never got to meet Ralph Young or the great Biggie Munn. Both were long gone before I ever sniffed the MSU campus.

My point is Michigan State ranks right up there in the KIND of coaches it has employed the past century. Very few schools can claim the talent that has motored through the doors off Grand River.

Dantonio is not there yet, but he sure is giving it a whirl.

It’s been nearly 50 years since MSU last won an NCAA football title.

Duffy wore FOUR of the university’s six rings. He grabbed the spotlight in 1955, ’57, ’65 and ’66.

Biggie won championships in 1951 and ’52 when the Spartans were ripping off 28 consecutive victories.

Including Daugherty, what Dantonio has going now is the closest thing to rival Munn’s streak.

If not for the hiccup in 2012, Mark D. might be right there with Biggie M.

Unfortunately, this will be another year when the Spartans do not compete for a national title.

Since that last one by the little Irishman in 1966, MSU has NEVER really been in the discussion.

The Spartans were not involved in the BCS era and their 3rd position in the final 2013 poll was more a result of others falling off the board at the end than anything else.

Perles lost two huge games early in 1987, to Florida State and Notre Dame, to be included in any talk of a national crown despite the Rose Bowl victory over USC.

I know it hurt George that he never got to the point that Biggie or Duffy did.

Crowley and Bachman were always worried that MSU couldn’t get past the Michigan thing.

Both agreed that until they figured out Bo Schembechler or whoever followed him, State would NOT be a contender on the national stage.

They were right.

Luckily for MSU, Michigan did it for them.

The guys that are still alive, like Stolz and Rogers and Perles and even Saban have to have a sense of pride that Dantonio has been able to figure out “the Michigan thing.”

Now the shoe is on the other foot in Ann Arbor.

It will be the new AD’s job to figure out the “Michigan State thing.”

Whether it’s Hoke or someone else, and most likely someone else, they’ll have to contend with the monolith that Dantonio has created.

I do believe that before Mark is in the conversation about current outstanding football coaches, he needs to be in the mix for a national title.

He either has to be IN the playoff or win it all.

Until then, he remains the cusp.

Don’t get me wrong, for Spartan Nation it is a very nice cusp to be on.

They remember the REALLY low points quite well.

In Waters final season of 1982, lowly Northwestern pulled off the transcontinental play with QB Sandy Schwab (yes, he is the son of financial whiz Charles Schwab) tossing the ball to Ricky Edwards who threw back to Schwab for the game-winning touchdown.

Two weeks later, Hayden Fry put a beat down on Muddy for Iowa and Waters was out of a job.

That 2-and-9 campaign brought in Perles.

1994 was another low point that rarely gets talked about anymore.

Due to NCAA violations, including grade tampering, Perles’ final season was riddled with atrocities. So much so, that then-President Peter McPherson oversaw the destruction of the football program.

The five victories that season were all forfeited and it sits in the books as an 0-and-11 slate.

I got a call not that long ago from a guy who happened to notice the 0-and-11 in ’94.

“MSU lost ALL its games that year?” he asked.

“Nope. They went 5-and-6 but had to forfeit the wins,” I responded.

“Why?” he asked loudly.

How quickly people forget.

And the guy is a HUGE Spartan football fan.

Saban came in so fast, it kind of swept that season under the green and white rug.

As recently as 2006, lest we forget, John L. Smith put up a real stinker of a season.

After starting the season with “W’s” over Idaho, Eastern Michigan and Pittsburgh, the Spartans were a weekly horror show.

They lost eight of the last nine with the only win coming at Northwestern. And it took the greatest comeback in college football history to get THAT darn win.

41-38, after being down 38-3 in the third quarter, thanks to Drew Stanton and Brett Swenson.

Four more defeats later, Smith was outtie.

There was even a low point early on in the Dantonio era.

In 2009, 15 players were involved in a hellacious brawl following the season-ending banquet. 11 were charged with a crime. Only five of the 15 finished their careers wearing the Sparty logo.

I wrote a piece for “Real Detroit Weekly” detailing why Dantonio should be either severely reprimanded or flat out fired. He had lost “institutional control.”

It was a real crossroads for the program.

How Mark handled it afterwards is a good indication of why he is having success now.
He restored order, formed a committee that would have players take responsibility for their actions and dismissed offenders from his watch.

It could have easily backfired.

Instead, MSU has flourished since the incident at Rather Hall.

Four of those five seasons in double-digit wins if they beat the Nittany Lions on Saturday.

Such symmetry.

Outside of 2012, it has been all high points for Spartan football.

Dantonio has run a squeaky clean program, as far as we know, and is now the second highest paid coach in the game.

Only his buddy Saban makes more cash.

When the official numbers were released last week, they turned some heads.

Coach “D” pulls in more salary than Bobby Stoops, Les Miles, Kevin Sumlin, Kirk Ferentz, Jimbo Fisher and yes… even Urban Meyer.

Saban and Dantonio rank above the rest.

It was Nick who brought Mark to East Lansing.

When Saban replaced Perles in 1995, he hired Dantonio away from Glen Mason at Kansas. Mark coached defensive backs. Dantonio himself was a DB when he played at South Carolina back in the 70’s.

Upon Nick’s end around sneak to LSU in ’99, his successor Bobby Williams promoted Dantonio to MSU assistant head coach where Mark remained through 2000 before booking for Tressel at Ohio State.

The chance to be MSU head coach in 2007 lured Dantonio back to the pioneer land grant university.

A 10-and-2 record brings with it a decent bowl trip. That’s what the Spartans are playing for against Penn State.

It’s not the playoff; but it’s still pretty good.

Right now, all signs point to a match up with Georgia in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

Losing to both Oregon and Ohio State prevents MSU from an even more special holiday junket.

At the very least, MSU fans and alum are now getting used to winning.

They expect winning.

NFL teams are paying more attention too.

Connor Cook, Jeremy Langford (now with 15 straight games 100+ rush yards in Big Ten competition) Jack Allen, Kurtis Drummond, Tony Lippett and others will either be drafted or get big opportunities to play on Sundays.

It should help Dantonio recruit more blue chip prospects.

Kids WANT to wear the Spartan green.

Wasn’t always that way. In fact, far from it.

I dare say MSU has become a MORE attractive situation for high school seniors than Michigan has.

Hoke and Rich Rodriguez have done their part to make MSU the place to be in the state.

Dantonio has done more.

He and defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi have been an outstanding tandem in producing winners the past half decade. Narduzzi could be lost this off-season to a program that wants to up the ante on defense right away.

Narduzzi leaving would be a big loss for Dantonio and the current crop of defensive players.
There is trust in the coach that he will find another guy to keep the defense fresh.

For now, MSU can relish a good home campaign despite the disappointment to the Buckeyes. Next time we see them again at home will be September 12, 2015 vs. those pesky Oregon Ducks.

13-and-1 the past two seasons at Spartan Stadium?

Very few would have predicted such a deal even if that “1” will linger a bit.