Dantonio Can't Win at East Lansing
New Spartan Coach Will Soon Find Out Why His Predecessors Failed
Mark Dantonio brings tremendous credentials with him to Michigan State's football program as head coach. But that doesn't mean the new Spartan skipper will have success.
Head Coach Mark Dantonio comes to Michigan State in East Lansing for his first season with impressive credentials.
But it won’t take long for the new Spartan coach to find out that it’s next to impossible to build a strong tradition of winning success at his new school.
There are four simple reasons for that statement:
Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Penn State.
They’re the four teams that regularly show up on the Spartan schedule. While it’s possible Michigan State might have the talent some years to knock off a couple of those teams, sweeping all four, which is necessary to be a legitimate Big Ten and national title contender, has proven to be next to impossible for the Spartans.
But the fact that Michigan and Notre Dame seem to be headed for struggling seasons could give Dantonio a reprieve. But the Big Ten has other teams that could give the Spartans fits.
A winning background
During a May press conference by the Michigan Associated Press in Gaylord, Mich., Dantonio pointed to his background, to suggest he could make the Spartans a national power.
“I'm 51 years old, and this is the final destination. I've been fortunate to be around a lot of good coaches. I'm a Midwestern guy, that's where I'm going to coach at. I knew when I came to the press conference (announcing his hiring at MSU) that it was the right place because there's so many people I knew from before,” he said during the press conference with Associated Press. “Because of the continuity of our staff, we were able to have a good recruiting year.”
Dantonio certainly has an impressive background with assistant coaching stints at Youngstown State,Jim under Jim Tressel, now at Ohio State; at the University of Kansas under Glen Mason, at Michigan State under Nick Saban, now at Alabama, and again under Tressel at OSU.
Success at Cincinnati
As head coach of the University of Cincinnati, he became the first coach in 23 years to lead his team to a winning record in his initial season there. He engineered the transition from Conference USA to the Big East. But an 18-17 record in three seasons at Cincinnati hardly qualifies Dantonio to take Michigan State to championship status.
Perhaps Dantonio’s predecessor at Michigan State, John L. Smith, was underqualified for the job. But if Nick Saban couldn’t make the Spartans a Big Ten power, what makes anyone think Dantonio can do any better?
Spartan fans can only hope.
A promising vision
“I believe our vision is this — in a nutshell — to graduate our players, win championships and go to bowl games. Those are our three basic goals,” Dantonio said.
“At Ohio State, we spent our time with players and people. When you develop a passion for players on that field, that's when they're able to overachieve and succeed. You have to be able to overachieve to win championships. They have to make the right choices. When they don't, they have to face the consequences.”
Dantonio sounds exactly like his predecessors. They were convinced they could win at Michigan State. They found out after a couple of seasons that they couldn’t. Mark Dantonio will find that out, also.
