Michigan State, the Big Ten's most overlooked team, might be its best
CHICAGO — Mark Dantonio’s public speech rarely deviates from a standard tone and tempo, one that might best be described as unvaried or, unkindly, as monotonous.
Yet there are hidden messages speckled within the measured rhythm — those of plus-sized assurance, uttered quietly, in a manner that fits into Michigan State’s ethos of workmanlike efficiency amid a run of historic success.
It’s been eight years since Dantonio’s Big Ten Conference debut: In 2007, the then-new Michigan State head coach delivered at conference media days an address of cautious optimism, even if his words belied the confidence he carried into a dormant program struggling to crack the conference hierarchy.
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“I’ve tried to live in the present,” Dantonio told USA TODAY Sports, recalling his program’s growth from Big Ten also-ran to national power. “But I know this: In my heart, I believed from Day 1 that we’d win every football game that we went to play. I never felt like we didn’t have a chance to win.
“What we’ve tried to do, and it’s worked for us, is to keep our mind on our own business and try to stay in the present. Everyone’s got areas of weakness they’ve got to work on and areas of strength that they’re going to play to. We’re going to do the same thing.”
So it was, and so it remains today. Michigan State has won 11 or more games in four of the past five seasons, capping last fall with a rousing Cotton Bowl victory against Baylor and a top-five finish for the second year in a row, a program first since 1965-66.
Yet that win — the final game for then-defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, now head coach at Pittsburgh — was overshadowed hours later by Ohio State’s defeat of Alabama, not to mention the Buckeyes’ national championship a week later. The Spartans were forgotten.
Fifteen starters return to campus in 2015, including an elite quarterback, senior Connor Cook, and matching offensive and defensive lines that sit comfortably among the best of Dantonio’s tenure. Even without Narduzzi in tow, the defense is expected to rank among the nation’s best.
Yet the national dialogue circling the Big Ten is not just Ohio State’s quest to defend its national championship but the arrival of new Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh; his shirtless photos from a satellite camp in Alabama, among other moments, splashed the spotlight on the Wolverines at the Spartans’ expense, even if Michigan State has won six of the past seven in the rivalry.
“We’ve always had a chip on our shoulder no matter what,” Cook said. “Since I’ve been here, people have always talked about Michigan and about Ohio State and left us in the dust. So it’s nothing new for me.
“Things aren’t going to change. We’re still going to come into work every day and try and prove to people that we’re one of the best teams in the Big Ten and one of the best teams in the country.”
No, very little has changed. Ohio State won in January; Michigan won the offseason. Michigan State, meanwhile, is poised to win the fall.
The Spartans’ approach blends old-fashioned concepts — schemes and personnel-driven packages rooted in simplicity — with signs of program-wide growth. This program has long had elite defensive fronts, befitting Dantonio’s defensive background; this year’s group, however, rivals the defensive line at Ohio State in 2002, when Dantonio served as an assistant under Jim Tressel, he said.
A piece-by-piece construction project along the offensive line has yielded the best front of Dantonio’s tenure, with a pair of likely All-America picks — center Jack Allen and left tackle Jack Conklin — among the four returning starters.
“We have as good an offensive line as we’ve had,” Dantonio said. “Our quarterback situation is very good, obviously. And our defensive line is as good as it’s been. So those components are there.”
Subtle offseason alterations to the team’s general blueprint were propelled, coincidentally, by Ohio State. Last year’s loss, 49-37 at home, still lingers, notably in the defensive tweaks made in pursuit of a winning formula against the Buckeyes’ spread-based offensive attack.
“Everybody needs to take responsibility for that game,” Dantonio said. “But we need to learn something from that. We need to understand that other people go to work and look at what we do, too. There always needs to be critiques in what we do and how we’re formulated, how we’re structured. Which we’ve always done.”
One aspect behind Michigan State’s success hasn’t changed. This isn’t the only program to be ignored; it is, however, the only elite program to not bemoan its lack of national attention, instead embracing this underdog status as perhaps its defining characteristic.
“A part of human nature is to care,” senior defensive end Shilique Calhoun said. “I don’t think we put too much effort into caring. We’re not going to be like, ‘Oh, they said Ohio State’s supposed to be preseason No. 1. Let’s just kill ourselves. Let’s just lose it.’ No, at the end of the day we still have to play against those guys.
“We’re not going to be like, ‘Since you’re preseason No. 1, can we possibly cancel this game? You guys already won, right?’ Our mind-set is we have to go into every game and compete and play. The game’s not over until the clock strikes zero. When we get that opportunity we’ll see how that goes. I’m not really worried about too much media talk.”
It’s an interesting brew: part talent, part development, part discipline and part motivation. It’s also unique to Michigan State, and the primary reason why a perennially overlooked program stands prepared to buck perception and steal headlines away from its in-conference rivals.
“We have won because of chemistry,” Dantonio said. “As long as we continue to have chemistry with each other we’re going to continue to win. If we lose the chemistry, if we lose the trust in each other, bad things follow.”
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