EAST LANSING — No Michigan State coach or player hears more venom than Dave Warner, the Spartans’ co-offensive coordinator and primary play-caller.

Those same fans, who often ascribe to the video game theory of pass-happy offense, also delivered many of the same complaints about his predecessors Don Treadwell and Dan Roushar.

What is the common thread over the past 12 years?

Mark Dantonio.

It’s still his team, his offense, his final call. The head coach, who specializes in defense, wants the Spartans to run the ball and be balanced on the other side.

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“Most of it depends on how Coach D is in my ear, how hard he’s screaming in my ear,” Warner joked Wednesday. “We try and make sure we’re running the ball enough. We might not be getting the yards that we want to get running the football, but I think it’s still important that we keep banging away in there and try and get positive yards.”

That does not mean the 19th-ranked Spartans (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten) have friction among the coaching staff. Quite the opposite.

Warner and new defensive coordinator Mike Tressel have been part of Dantonio’s staff his entire 12 years at MSU, coming with him from Cincinnati. They are well-versed on what their boss’ demands are — and how they do their jobs in terms of satisfying those wishes while maintaining autonomy over their decisions.

“Coach Dantonio is a coaches’ coach, based on the track record of the assistants staying around,” Tressel said. “And I think that, more than me saying it or having anyone talk about the track record of people wanting to stay here, tell you he’s a coaches’ coach.”

Dantonio shaped his program’s identity from the moment he arrived in the winter of 2006.

He wanted to create a defense that applied pressure on all fronts, from defensive line getting to the quarterback to defensive backs jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage. Stop the run, stop the pass. That is his primary focus, having studied under Nick Saban as defensive backs coach at MSU from 1995-2000 and serving as defensive coordinator at Ohio State under Jim Tressel from 2001-03, winning a national title in the process.

But where Dantonio is a defensive architect, few realize the input he gives to the offensive side.

Run the ball with power. Mix in some passes. Stay balanced. Keep defenses off balance.

However, he still approaches the offense from a defensive coach’s perspective. That means he will “ask tough questions” while also wanting “to see certain things implemented.”

“I'm going to look to say, ‘Are we doing these things? Are we putting pressure on people on the perimeter? What are we doing inside?’” Dantonio explained Tuesday. “‘What's the basis of what we do? Do we have the concepts covered to be able attack a defense from an offense perspective? Are we covering all the aspects. Do we have a screen game? Do we have a perimeter game? Do we have an inside run game? How do we throw the ball down the field? How do we attack the football field vertically? How do we attack the football field horizontally? All these different things. …

“So I'm involved, but I let our coaches coach. I empower our coaches, I do that with the offense and the defense and our special teams. You have to do that because you can't possibly be an expert on every subject matter.”

Enter Warner, who arrived as MSU’s quarterbacks coach for six seasons before moving over to running backs while also taking over as co-offensive coordinator with Jim Bollman in 2013. They have shared that role for two Big Ten championship, a College Football Playoff berth and wins in the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl Classic and Holiday Bowl.

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The subject piqued interest after MSU’s win at Indiana when Dantonio said Warner made a bad play call on a third-and-goal jet sweep that nearly cost the Spartans a touchdown. After it, Dantonio approved a fake field goal option that kicker Matt Coghlin scored a 6-yard rushing TD.

But with 13 years on Dantonio’s staff, dating back to one season at Cincinnati, Warner said he is comfortable with what Dantonio asks during a game because they meet regularly during the week to discuss what the boss wants to see on Saturdays.

“He’s going to suggest things, which is his job, and a lot of them are good suggestions,” Warner said. “But game day is great with him. I know what he wants, no doubt. I know what he wants.

"We meet before games, and it’s normally the same talk about what he’s looking for as we go through the game plan offensively. It’s normally the same thing that he tells me, so I know going into the game what he’s looking for and what he wants.”

The Spartans enter Saturday’s game with Northwestern (noon, Fox Sports 1) ranked 104th in the Football Bowl Subdivision at 129.8 rushing yards while 50th in passing offense at 251.3 yards per game. Their 29.3 points per game is 71st.

However, one of the major tenets of Dantonio-ball is to sustain drives and keep the defense off the field and fresh. The Spartans rank 10th in the nation with a 34-minute, 42-second time of possession.

“I allow our coordinators to make these decisions,” Dantonio said. “Now, I'm going to always enter my opinions, maybe after the fact or before the fact. Well, before the fact, but I'm not going to disrupt play calling. I think if we get the play in fast, that's as important as anything. Give our players time to digest what's being called.”

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His philosophy also means balancing passing and running attempts, even when one may not be working. That is something Warner understands.

“It’s definitely a difficult thing to try and weigh, especially if you’re throwing the ball well,” Warner said. “If you’re throwing the ball well, obviously the tendency is to just keep throwing it. But we still need to put the ball in our tailbacks’ hands. We’ve got some good tailbacks.

“Obviously, we know we have not run the ball well. But a lot of that so far is because we haven’t gotten those big, explosive plays. We’ve been somewhat steady, getting the 3, 4, 5 yard gains — that’s not enough. But what has been sort of missing is those explosive runs.”

It has worked for 12 years. Dantonio is now seven wins away from surpassing Duffy Daugherty as MSU’s all-time winningest coach.

And he has done so by having his assistant stick to his program’s principles. Something Dantonio learned from having Saban and Jim Tressel as mentors.

“My uncle used to come in periodically at the beginning of the week, particularly in big games and he would walk in and say, ‘You know, Field 8 looks awful good this week,’ and field eight was about as base a defense as you could be,” Mike Tressel said. “It was just sort of his way of reminding (him), just play good, sound, fundamental defense. You don’t have to get crazy, you don’t have to out scheme them.

“And I think that’s what Coach D is allowed us to do here over our 12 years. Play our base football, play it fast, play it hard and play it well.”

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