CHICAGO — The five years Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio spent under Alabama coach Nick Saban at the pairs' prior coaching stint with the Spartans should be considered a badge of honor.

"I coached with him five years,'' Dantonio said when asked about Saban at Thursday's Big Ten Football Media Day session, "maybe longer than anyone at that time that made it with him.''

Dantonio "made it" as the secondary coach, at that — the very position where Saban is known to specialize.

Saban's image and public perception has improved greatly since he left the Michigan State head coaching job following the 1999 season, as one might expect with him having won four national championships.

Saban is one of very few to have a statue built in his likeness in the midst of his coaching career.

From 1995-1999, however, Dantonio was working for the raw, unedited version of Saban.

Dantonio said it was a pivotal opportunity that he'll always appreciate.

"I wouldn't be where I am without Nick Saban,'' Dantonio said. "I have the utmost respect for Nick Saban; he brought me from Kansas to MSU and into the Big Ten.''

From Michigan State, Dantonio went to Ohio State and was the Buckeyes defensive coordinator under Jim Tressel during the 2002 national championship season.

Dantonio has said many times he has adopted some of Tressel's leadership techniques, particularly when it comes to dealing with assistant coaches.

"I got asked in a film session here, who's the single most person that impacted me, and I can't say there's a single person,'' Dantonio said. "But Saban had an impact on my life. I was one of his recruiters, and I recruited a lot of players, so we drove around a lot.''

Dantonio, like Saban, has proven to have an eye for talent.

As for coaching defensive backs, Dantonio said he learned a lot from Saban in that area as well.

"He's a defensive backs coach, he's going to be in your meeting, and he was in my meeting every day that first year,'' Dantonio said. "I gained a lot of football knowledge.''

Dantonio said during his first year on Saban's staff he was sometimes reduced to watching the head coach run the defensive backs meeting.

"Early on, he would get in front and take over meetings, and that was OK,'' Dantonio said. "But after a year of that, I watched, and he could start a sentence and I could finish it. I knew what he knew, and there was power in that.''

There was also some security in that.

"When the ball went over a defensive back's head in a game, he knew it wasn't the coach, because he knew what was being taught in that room,'' Dantonio said. "So there was a silver lining in that, being able to be his secondary coach. It's like my dad used to say, you take that good with the bad.''

Dantonio said he chooses not to employ the same sort of tactics when it comes to his position coaches at Michigan State.

"It's stressful,'' Dantonio said. "I don't put that kind of stress on (defensive backs coach) Harlan (Barnett). I want continuity on our staff. I don't come into unit meetings very often.''

As much as national championship coaches Saban and Tressel helped groom Dantonio, the Spartans head coach said there were others who influenced him.

"I was a graduate assistant for Dom Capers,'' Dantonio said, referring to the veteran defensive coordinator who's now with the Green Bay Packers. "And (former Ohio State assistant and Bowling Green head coach) Gary Blackney.''

Where his time with Saban was concerned, Dantonio shows no regrets nor resentment.

"That was a good thing for me,'' Dantonio said, "because I needed that to grow.''

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