COLUMBUS, Ohio -- There's a Michigan man in the Big Ten, as rightful an heir to Bo Schembechler's legacy as any candidate the Wolverines will find whenever their search for Brady Hoke's successor begins.

Like Schembechler, he's the acolyte of a successful and beloved Ohio State coach, steely-eyed and unforgiving with an absolute refusal to take guff from any other coach or program.

Like Schembechler so often was, he's fighting Ohio State for Big Ten supremacy, preparing Saturday night for Ohio State at Michigan State, the only game that seems to truly matter in the league this year.

He'd be the perfect coach for Michigan - if only he hadn't been kicking the Wolverines around for the last seven years.

As Sports Illustrated columnist Michael Rosenberg, who once penned a book about Schembechler and Woody Hayes, wrote recently, "Everything you could once say about Michigan, you can now say about Michigan State."

But maybe that's selling Mark Dantonio short, to compare him to any Wolverine. He's a Michigan State man.

The coach and his Michigan State program have carved out their own place in the conference, in the national landscape and in the East Division mix with the Buckeyes and Wolverines. In eight seasons in East Lansing, Jim Tressel's former right-hand man has situated himself at the apex opposite the Big Ten's foundational rivalry.

Urban Meyer and Brady Hoke are gunslingers facing off from opposite sides of the public square. Dantonio may be the perfect sheriff standing between them, content to let them blast away at each other (Hoke may want to get on his horse and get out of Dodge) while making it clear he's not going to let either of them mess with his town.

The outlaws always make the headlines. But this sheriff is 6-2 against Michigan, and last year he knocked Ohio State out of the national title picture with a Big Ten Championship win on the way to a Rose Bowl victory himself.

Leading man stuff. Yet this week, Dantonio will certainly cast himself as the faceless man with a badge, his Spartan deputies victorious when it matters, yet disrespected.

"They have a unique way of saying, "OK, I'm going to put the chip on my shoulder somewhat,'" said Ohio State tight ends coach Tim Hinton, who was on Dantonio's staff at Cincinnati for three years and was supposed to follow him to Michigan State in 2007 before changing his mind.

"I'm going to guarantee you they're going to put on a bulletin board somehow some way the world's against them. That's been their MO since the day I've known him. And they're going to do a great job of playing that out. Mark is a phenomenal coach, is really good people. And the bottom line is that they're going to have an element of toughness which they bring to the day."

Speaking with Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis last week, I told him the Spartans, to this outsider, are defined by three elements: toughness; a don't-mess-with-us edge that includes a forthright refusal to back down from anyone; and the risk-taking, most well-known in trick plays, that might separate them from other hard-nosed programs.

Hinton basically repeated those same three characteristics when describing the Spartans on Monday.

"They don't back down," Hinton said.

Michigan State knows what it is, and so does everyone else. That's not just winning, that's program building. After inheriting a team coming off three losing seasons, at a place that had won more than eight games just twice in the previous 40 years, Dantonio deserves every ounce of credit, with 7-1 Michigan State looking for a fourth 11-win season in five years.

Whatever coach Michigan finds this time, it has to work. Hoke is 19-16 the last three seasons, a stretch during which Dantonio is 27-8 and Meyer is 31-3. The Wolverines may want to follow the template Michigan State used in hiring Dantonio - defensive coach, tough, Midwest fit, experience at a fairly high-level program (he was 18-17 in three seasons at Cincinnati in the Big East).

Hollis said before hiring Dantonio, Michigan State studied 20 years of college coaching changes using about 40 different variables. Were there traits that the successes shared? The failures? Hollis said defensive coaches came out very well. Alums of the school didn't have as much luck.

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio (left) and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer met before the Big Ten Championship last year in Indianapolis. The Spartans won that game 34-24.

So there was a science to it. And "fit," something Tressel always talked about, was high on the list as well, Hollis said. Dantonio was a former Michigan State assistant with an understanding of Midwest recruiting and sensibilities.

But guess what other coaching hire would have matched all those same criteria - defensive coach, former school assistant but not an alum, Midwest background and understanding?

Hoke at Michigan.

So there's an art to it as well. Michigan State investigated a dozen candidates after John L. Smith was fired eight years ago. Dantonio wouldn't talk to Michigan State at all until Cincinnati's regular season was over, which Hollis said complicated the process but also impressed the Spartans' decision-makers.

"As soon as that game ended," Hollis told cleveland.com, "my phone was calling his phone. I said, 'We've been playing by your rules, now you play by ours.' And we were very quickly able to get him and his staff up here to East Lansing."

And Dantonio turned out to the right guy.

This week, expect that he'll have the Spartans in line, ensuring there are no assumptions made about a home game in which No. 8 Michigan State is ranked higher than No. 16 Ohio State and slightly favored.

"He always tells us to check ourselves," Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook said, "no matter where we're at in the season. Some guys might have big heads; he changes that. Guys that might be a little arrogant, he humbles everyone."

Get inside any high-achieving team and its staff and players and you'll find more similarities than differences. Ohio State and Michigan State are talented, hard-working, motivated, tough, smart and skilled. Their numbers this season, scoring about 46 points per game and allowing about 20, are remarkably similar. Yet they are not exactly the same. Asked to compare Dantonio and Meyer, Hinton slipped out of a true answer.

"Oh, my gosh, it would take a long time to talk about that difference, only because everybody is different," Hinton said. "It would take a long time probably to sit down and explain all those."

A simple comparison of the programs may describe Meyer's goal at Ohio State as wanting to bring a little of the SEC to the Big Ten. Asked by ESPN before the season to describe his team in one word, Meyer said, "Fast."

Hollis, knowing he was speaking to a reporter with a Cleveland outlet, cast Dantonio in Rust Belt tones after the "tough-no guff-tricky" trio of traits was explained.

"I think that's a great assessment of our program and I think that's a great assessment of the city of Cleveland or the city of Detroit," Hollis said. "We are interwoven with the fabric of what living in the Midwest is all about. It's hard work, it's grit, it's the blue collar attitude, it's coming up with some creative ways to get things done to gain success."

Gritty - that's a word Ohio State defensive tackle Michael Bennett used for the Spartans as well. Meanwhile, Cook seemed to co-opt the words of Ohio State's most famous fan - LeBron James.

"We're never given anything," Cook said. "Everything that we achieve here is earned."

In this triangle of relationships, Michigan State seems to have more animosity toward Michigan, perhaps stemming from the infamous "little brother" comment from Wolverine Mike Hart that Dantonio seized on seven years ago, warning Michigan that pride comes before the fall.

When Michigan planted a stake in the Spartans' turf before their last game two weeks ago, Dantonio noticed and had his team score a touchdown with 28 seconds left, turning a 17-point win into a 24-point win.

No guff.

Despite a recruiting kerfuffle soon after Meyer arrived at Ohio State, there may be more respect and less vitriol between the Buckeyes and Spartans, whether you want to judge it a rivalry or not. But Michigan State has clearly earned the Buckeyes' attention and respect - no other Big Ten team has beaten a Meyer-led Ohio State team.

Only a Michigan State man has done it. Saturday, he will try to do it again.