Joe Rexrode

Detroit Free Press

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. –

The letdowns within games signal new territory for Mark Dantonio, and I'm sure he'd love to build a huge lead in Michigan State's next game at Indiana and see whether his team can preserve it this time.

The true definition of a letdown, though, happens between games. It's a team not caring enough or respecting its opponent enough or being emotionally mature enough to prepare enough. And with Dantonio approaching two milestones in his eighth season, the remarkable absence of that in his program also should get some attention.

Dantonio will be seeking his 70th win in his 100th game at Indiana on Saturday, and it'll be a big surprise if he doesn't get it. If he suffers his 31st loss instead, it will be the most shocking by far of his tenure — just as Saturday's 45-31 win at Purdue would have been had MSU completed the process of blowing a 21-point lead.

If you look at the 30 losses, you'll be hard-pressed to find a major upset. The 2009 loss to Central Michigan comes to mind, but in reality, that CMU team with Dan LeFevour and Antonio Brown was evenly matched with those 6-7 Spartans.

There was a 2012 home loss to Iowa, which seemed a lot more surprising at the time than when MSU had to fight back from a 5-6 record to win its last two games. A home loss to Northwestern in 2007 deserves a look, but both of those teams finished with six losses — just as the Spartans and Minnesota Golden Gophers ended up with seven after a Halloween night setback for MSU there in 2009.

And that's it. Nothing else would even be considered. Which is ridiculous when you think about it. And then, think about this: Letdowns aren't just bad games against bad teams, they can be bad games after big games against good teams. Dantonio's Spartans have managed to avoid those, too.

His 7-0 record the week after MSU plays Michigan is impressive enough — the game after U-M used to be the New Year's Day of hangovers for this program. If you also consider Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Notre Dame — big games every time — Saturday's win at Purdue means MSU is 23-7 the week after playing one of those five teams. And four of those losses came against one of those five teams.

This speaks to a reliability, a steadiness, that can't be easy to create. Defense, power running and character in the locker room are obvious contributors. Some of it probably has to do with one of MSU's consistent motivators.

"A lot of people don't respect us," senior linebacker Taiwan Jones said. "They still feel we're not good enough. So we've got to show them we're good enough."

The problem is, that's less and less the reality. MSU has won 20 of its past 22 games and is getting quite a bit of respect. And that's not easy as a Big Ten team these days. This is going to be four out of five seasons with double-digit wins, but this is the first season the Spartans really have had to deal with being everyone's big game.

Maybe that has something to do with the way the past couple have gone, though some things are too weird to be explained. While celebrating Dantonio's achievements, by the way, it's worth pointing out that he just made one of the weirdest in-game calls of his career — five Purdue players could have tackled Lawrence Thomas before he got halfway to the first down on that doomed fake punt.

The Spartans overcame it and won anyway. That's familiar territory for them.

Contact Joe Rexrode: jrexrode@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @joerexrode. Check out his MSU blog at freep.com/heyjoe.