EAST LANSING — Joe Bachie issued a public captain’s ultimatum to his fellow Michigan State team leaders in a few different forums.

On the postgame radio show: “When you're put in a leadership position, you gotta lead. And if you don't wanna lead, well, you better get out of that position because the train is gonna move forward.”

On the dais during media interviews: “You gotta challenge certain people, leaders on this team. If you really want to lead, you’re gonna get challenged. I’m gonna let them know that. … If you don’t want to lead, if you don’t want to go win, get out of the locker room.”

MSU has reached that point in the season, where national rankings have been replaced by players-only meetings. Hopeful feelings of chasing championships are giving way to the tension of feeling and seeing those dreams slipping.

Now comes a visit to No. 8 Penn State on Saturday (3:30 p.m./BTN), an always-tough place to play when 100-percent healthy and mentally prepared.

And the Spartans are neither right now. From top to bottom.

“The main thing, as I told my staff when I got up this morning after being depressed last night, depressed this morning when crawling out of bed — you gotta get up and go,” MSU coach Mark Dantonio said Sunday night, his voice rising emphatically and defiantly with each word. “Every day, you gotta get up and go, regardless of what goes on in your life. You gotta get up and go, and you gotta attack the next day.

“And that’s what we’re gonna do.”

The Spartans (3-2, 1-1 Big Ten) dropped out of both the Amway/USA Today Coaches Poll and the AP Top 25 this week for the first time this season after losing their homecoming game 29-19 to Northwestern.

They watched another offensive lineman — this time senior David Beedle — suffer a left arm injury two plays into that game, which will keep him out a month.

They have endured injury after injury to key players, which has chipped away at the top end of the preseason depth chart and damaged their roster depth.

They have failed to run the ball on offense. They have failed to stop the pass on defense. Two of the hallmarks of Dantonio’s program success the past decade.

And they see the gauntlet ahead, which only gets tougher the next two weeks with the trip to Penn State (4-1, 1-1) and a visit from Michigan. Two games that could keep MSU’s hope of winning the Big Ten East Division alive or completely end the Spartans’ quest to get back to Indianapolis.

“We don’t have many people like that,” Bachie continued about the team’s leadership. “But we just gotta make sure everyone is on board and we’re going in one direction together. … We understand we’ve got a tough task ahead. And we’re going to prepare with everything we got.”

Dantonio sensed his team was flat at halftime against Northwestern, and he issued a challenge to players to change that.

It worked for a quarter. Then the offense stagnated and put the defense in difficult situations, and the cycle repeated. More of the all-encompassing issues that have plagued the Spartans all season.

“I know that creates frustration. Not just for myself, but for everybody else here and elsewhere, OK?” Dantonio said. “But rest assured, everybody is working extremely hard at this.”

And Dantonio is ascribing blame across the board. Starting with himself.

“My function here is to lead, and our players need to lead and our other coaches need to lead. We need to have our priorities in mind as we get ready to move through it,” Dantonio said. “It’s one game. We need to be concerned about the overall health of our program as we move forward, too, so we need to keep pushing in the same direction.

“We’ll be all right, we’ll keep pushing. The attitude is very good on this team.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!

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