EAST LANSING — Michigan State football can't seem to get any respect.

A poll from a panel of Big Ten football writers released on Monday shows just how little faith some media experts have in Michigan State, even after all that coach Mark Dantonio has accomplished.

A panel of 26 Big Ten football writers voted the Spartans as the team most likely to be disappointing in 2013.

Last season? Sure, Michigan State disappointed, failing to win a Big Ten home game.

The Spartans ultimately salvaged their injury-riddled season with a bowl victory, but not before falling out of the Top 25 after back-to-back 11-win seasons.

But this season, a prediction of disappointment is curious and somewhat insulting to Dantonio.

CNN-SI.com put out its list of top 10 coaches earlier this offseason, and Dantonio didn't make the list.

He wasn't among the five on the "just missed" listed, either.

But Dantonio was certainly familiar with those top 15 coaches, having faced seven of them in his six seasons as the Spartans head coach.

Dantonio is a cumulative 8-8 against SI.Com's 15 top coaches at MSU, with wins over five of the seven he faced: Boise State's Chris Petersen (1-0), TCU's Gary Patterson (1-0), Georgia's Mark Richt (1-1), Notre Dame's Brian Kelly (1-2) and Arkansas' (formerly at Wisconsin) Brett Bielema (4-3).

Dantonio's losses have been to the top two coaches; decisively to Alabama's Nick Saban in the Capital One Bowl following the 2010 season, and by a point to Ohio State's Urban Meyer last season.

The Big Ten writer's poll ranked Dantonio fourth among the league's coaches.

That makes the "most disappointing'' team vote even more confusing, especially when accompanied by the the voting panel projecting Michigan State to finish third in the Legends Division this season.

So, on the one hand, the Spartans are projected to be mediocre. On the other, they are also expected to be disappointing.

No respect.

Numbers can lie, and numbers can be used to make many different arguments for or against teams.

There are a few more numbers that support the theory that Michigan State isn't getting its fair due:

Dantonio has won more Big Ten games over the past five seasons than any Big Ten coach, and he's done so with only one recruiting class ranked in the top 20.

The Spartans are riding a school-record streak of six consecutive bowls, and it would be shocking if that streak were to end this season. Just check their schedule.

Michigan State has the longest active bowl win streak of any Big Ten team, and the Spartans got those wins against quality programs in Georgia and TCU.

Internally, Michigan State has great confidence heading into this season, bringing back seven starters from a defense that's led the Big Ten the past two seasons and also finished in the top 10 nationally.

The offense has its questions this season, but nothing like last season, when Michigan State was replacing 95 percent of its passing yardage from a season before. Not only did quarterback Kirk Cousins depart, but so did the team's top five wide receivers.

This season the task is to replace the Big Ten's leading rusher, Le'Veon Bell.

Still, for Michigan State to live down to the Big Ten writers' poll prediction that it will be the "most disappointing" team in 2013, after being projected third in its division, it would just about take a winless or one-win conference season.

That seems pretty far-fetched.