Chris Solari

Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING –Mark Dantonio erupted inside the visitors’ locker room on a frigid Halloween night in Minneapolis.

It wasn’t because of Michigan State’s frustrating loss to Minnesota, nor the 42 points and 505 yards his defense allowed. It wasn’t because of the two touchdowns in the first two minutes of the game or the two in the fourth quarter that sealed the Gophers’ victory. It wasn’t even because the Spartans’ 2009 bowl hopes were in peril.

Dantonio was livid with his players for how they left the field.

“They did not go across and shake a lot of hands and so forth,” assistant coach Dave Warner recalled. “I don’t know if that’s a defining moment or not, but that just shows what is most important to him after a game. It wasn’t necessarily the wins and losses, it’s how our players handle themselves.”

In the last decade, there have been a lot more wins than losses for the Spartans.

MSU’s 10th season with Dantonio as head coach begins Sept. 2 at home against Furman, a small South Carolina school from the second-tier Football Championship Subdivision. It’s been a decade of extreme highs – three Big Ten titles, four top-10 finishes – and a very few lows, particularly when compared to the previous 50 years. He has pushed his program to the point where the Spartans are annually in the conversation about winning a national championship.

“You're always going to try to go a little bit farther,” the 60-year-old Dantonio said Monday about his program’s past decade. “We've had success here. We can sell that, as I said earlier. With that being said, I think you always need to aspire to be a little bit better or go a little bit farther. That's the way we need to be built here.”

'On the same page'

On another frigid night, hours after Dantonio was hired by MSU on Nov. 27, 2006, he sent a plane to the airport in Cincinnati. It was the same thing his old boss, Nick Saban, did at Capital City Airport in the winter of 1999.

None of the Saban’s assistants followed him from East Lansing to Louisiana State, including Dantonio, who was the Spartans’ defensive secondary coach at the time.

Seats filled quickly on Dantonio’s flight.

“When he accepted the job, that night, he sent the plane down and he said, ‘If you’re coming, jump in the plane,’” Warner said of Dantonio’s offer. “We didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it, but you didn’t need any time to think about it. I think every guy but one jumped in the plane. … It was a no-brainer.”

MSU football chronology Part I: From Saban to Dantonio

MSU’s program was in disarray. Outside of a brief bump under Saban between 1995 to 1999, the Spartans never won consistently after Duffy Daugherty retired in 1972. Off-field issues doomed Bobby Williams after three seasons. John L. Smith had just one winning season, his first, in four years and a host of comically cringe-worthy on-camera antics before his dismissal.

“It was just tough times,” said fifth-year senior receiver Matt Macksood, who followed the Spartans growing up and played at nearby Lansing Catholic High.“It wasn’t cool to be a Michigan State fan. … I don’t want to say it was embarrassing to be a State fan, but it was hard for sure.”

Enter Dantonio.

His coaches have been loyal. Four of those assistants – offensive coordinator Warner, co-defensive coordinators Harlon Barnett and Mike Tressel, and offensive line coach Mark Staten – remain with him today. Three of his nine original assistants - Dan Enos, Don Treadwell and Pat Narduzzi - left for head coaching positions, and one - Dan Roushar - for an NFL job.

“How did we get here now? By being consistent, by everybody being on the same page like coach D talks about,” said Barnett, who played at MSU from 1986 to 1989. “We have cohesion, just everybody working together, believing in the goal that, hey, we can get it done. If we work together, we can win.”

Life is good for MSU's crucial assistant coaches

'Culture of winning'

And winning is exactly what Dantonio and his staff has done, presiding over one of the most prolific eras in Spartan football history. Even his old boss Saban, who has won five national titles since leaving MSU, is impressed his protegee.

"I always thought he'd do great if he ever got an opportunity to be a head coach," Saban said before the two met in the College Football Playoff. "He's certainly done a lot better job at Michigan State than I ever could do.

Dantonio owns an 87-33 record at MSU. He has directed nine straight bowl appearances. He's the first Big Ten coach to produce five 11-win seasons in six seasons. He beat Michigan for the first time in 2008, the first of four straight in the series, and is 7-2 against the rival Wolverines.

Outside of a down year in 2012, Dantonio has built a consistent winner. The Spartans’ 65 victories since 2010 are tied for fifth-most in the Football Bowl Subdivision in that time and include a Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl crown. It also has included a string of memorable victories, including the "Little Giants" fake field goal-for-a-touchdown against Notre Dame in 2010, the "Rocket" Hail Mary touchdown against Wisconsin in 2011 and the botched punt returned for a touchdown against Michigan last season.

“It’s a statement for your program that you're here to stay,” Dantonio said. “Go back to what you talk about, your culture. Culture is consistency – whether that's winning or losing, it's doing something over and over. Right now, we have a culture of winning. We need to continue to do that.”

The Spartans captured Big Ten titles in 2010, 2013 and 2015. Last year’s championship propelled MSU into the second College Football Playoff, where it lost to Dantonio’s mentor Saban and eventual national champion Alabama.

“How has coach D changed? I wouldn’t say he’s changed,” Barnett said. “That’s the good thing about it. He has stayed consistent in who he is and what he does. And the program has stayed consistent in who we are and what we’re doing.”

Handling adversity

Delton Williams knew he was in big trouble. He didn't know what Dantonio's reaction would be when he learned his player had pulled a gun on another driver during a road rage incident on campus in March of last year.

But he knew it wouldn't be good.

“He was really, really mad because, at the end of the day, he didn’t think it would be me,” Williams recalled. "I’m a guy he looked at as being a leader … and I should know that’s not the way to handle things."

Dantonio and the university suspended Williams from the team for spring practice and that summer. Williams feared for the worst. He eventually was allowed to rejoin the Spartans before last season, but only after Dantonio also stripped Williams of his scholarship.

“He always let me know, ‘The door is cracked. It’s not shut yet, it’s cracked.’ That’s the first thing he said to me," said Williams, now a senior. "He said, ‘I’m not closing the door on you. It’s about to close, but it’s cracked. So if you want that door to open up, you gotta take care of what you need to take care of.’”

Delton Williams on a quest for redemption

Success at MSU hasn’t come without problems. Early in Dantonio's tenure, in particular, he dealt with the sorts of problems that had plagued previous head coaches.

Glenn Winston went to jail after a fight with MSU hockey players, then was one of two players kicked off the football team by Dantonio in December 2009 following another fight at Rather Hall. Chris L. Rucker, one of 11 players involved in the Rather Hall incident, was arrested for DUI and a probation violation in 2010, but Dantonio kept him on the team. Max Bullough was suspended for undisclosed reasons in December 2013, days before the Spartans played in the Rose Bowl. Other players have been quietly dismissed from the program or punished for minor transgressions.

But major issues have become less frequent as Dantonio made his imprint on the culture of his program.

“There’s a confidence level and a trust where everybody else 100 percent believes in what he says,” Tressel said. “There’s no doubt if this is the direction we’re going, like coach says, we’re all going in the same direction. … Adults handle adversity a little bit better than young kids do, and we really preach on trying to teach our guys how to handle adversity.”

Senior linebacker Riley Bullough, who first met Dantonio at MSU’s 2007 summer camp, said, “He’s just a stern guy. He tells you how it is. As a young player, that’s what you want.”

Williams said his mother’s “tough love” when he was growing up allowed him to appreciate Dantonio’s approach to his issues. When Williams was struggling with a class this past spring, Dantonio once again had a firm discussion with his fullback.

“He said, ‘You’re going to swim all the way across the water and drown right when you’re about to be at the shore?’” Williams said. “He put it in that perspective, and I was like, OK, it’s time to really buckle down and push through. Throughout the whole process, he always stayed on top of me and kept me focused, and I appreciate that.”

Tough, but gentle

The no-nonsense, gruff side of Dantonio typically is the one he shows in the media. If you only knew him from his soundbites, you might think of him as caustic and curt.

But there also is a softer side to the man, one he rarely presents for television cameras. It’s the part that fosters a family atmosphere within his program, for his players, his staff and their families.

“Everyone gives him this rap that he’s a hard tough coach – which he is, do not get me wrong. He is not soft by any means,” Macksood said. “He really and truly cares about his players. And he will do whatever it takes for any one of us, whether that’s helping us network with people, whether it’s keeping us safe. I mean, anytime we need to call him and talk to him, anytime we can go do that.

“I think people see his scowl when he’s up there at a press conference or (giving) short answers. They don’t really understand.”

Dantonio suffered a mild heart attack after MSU’s thrilling fake field goal victory over Notre Dame in 2010. The next week, per doctors’ orders, he did not coach the Spartans. Instead, he looked on as his oldest daughter, Kristen, was named Lansing Catholic's homecoming queen.

Mark Dantonio recognized as a humanitarian with award

That stuck with Macksood, who played for the Cougars that day. Dantonio chose to be with his family instead of watching MSU defeat Northern Colorado a few miles away at Spartan Stadium. It made the young player realize Dantonio wasn’t all about football all the time.

“He has such a good faith life, which is big for me coming from a Catholic school,” Macksood said. “He’s always trying to help people out and explore different faith lives, pray after practice. Just the little things like that that I think a lot of coaches take for granted, that’s what I like most about coach D.”

In 2009, less than three years after Staten followed Dantonio to East Lansing from Cincinnati, his 4-year-old, Quinn, lay in a hospital with an IV in his arm after suffering an allergic reaction. Dantonio gathered about eight of his players and took them to the hospital to cheer up his assistant and his family.

The visit lifted the spirits of Staten and his son. As Dantonio prepared to leave, he asked Quinn if he and his players could do anything else to help the boy feel better.

“Quinn goes, ‘Um, how about we play in the band?’” Mark Staten said. “We had just gotten him this toy trumpet, and he says, ‘You be the leader, you play the drums, you play the dadada, you play the dadada.’ Coach D goes, ‘All right, guys, you got it? One, two, three …”

Quinn blew his horn. The big, burly Spartans standing by his bed started mouthing the sounds of the other instruments.

Dantonio smiled silently, nodded his head and waved his arms back and forth in rhythm. Fittingly, he played the conductor.

Contact Chris Solari at (517) 377-1070 or csolari@lsj.com.

DANTONIO BY THE YEARS

Year Overall Big Ten (finish) USA Today poll

2007 7-6 3-5 (t-7th) -

2008 9-4 6-2 (3rd) 24th

2009 6-7 4-4 (t-6th) -

2010 11-2 7-1 (t-1st) 14th

2011 11-3 7-1 (1st*-) 10th

2012 7-6 3-5 (4th*) -

2013 13-1 8-0 (1st*+) 3rd

2014 11-2 7-1 (2nd#) 5th

2015 12-2 7-1 (t-1st#+) 6th

Totals 87-33 63-31

* Legends Division finish

- Lost Big Ten Championship Game

+ Won Big Ten Championship Game

# Big Ten East Division finish

RACING TOWARD HISTORY

Mark Dantonio enters his 10th season having already etched his name among MSU’s coaching elite. He has a chance to close in on a few more program records before he retires.

MOST WINS

1. Duffy Daugherty 109

2. Mark Dantonio 87

3. Charlie Bachman 70

BEST WINNING PERCENTAGE

1. John Macklin .853

2. Biggie Munn .846

3. Mark Dantonio .725

BIG TEN WINS

1. Duffy Daugherty 72

2. George Perles 53

3. Mark Dantonio 52

BOWL APPEARANCES/WINS

1. Mark Dantonio 9/4

2. George Perles 7/3

LONGEST TENURE

1. Duffy Daugherty 19

2. Charlie Bachman 13

3. George Perles 12

4. Chester Brewer 10

5. Mark Dantonio 9

DANTONIO ON...

Here are four of Mark Dantonio’s “philosophies for football … and life success” from the 2006 University of Cincinnati media guide.

SUCCESS: “Success is a journey that starts with knowing what you want to accomplish. Hard work, persistence, confidence, and the ability to handle adversity are all integral parts of being successful.”

WINNING FOOTBALL: “Football is a game of inches. Playing winning football requires an attitude of togetherness to develop a team concept. This requires character, which is a result of physical and mental toughness and an ability to play with great effort on each given play.”

ACADEMICS: “Getting a degree will have the most significant impact on an individual's quality of life. That commitment will become a person's most rewarding experience in college.”

COACHING: “Coaching is about relationships and relationships involve trust. There must be a genuire concern for the individual player and his life. This is when, as a coach, you will begin to impact a young person for a lifetime.”

- Source: University of Cincinnati