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Michigan State rebounds from last season's debacle
By George M. Thomas Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Thursday, Sep 27, 2007
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio apparently found a home in East Lansing, Mich., thanks to his team's defeat of Notre Dame 31-14 last week in South Bend, Ind.
Not a particularly stunning accomplishment this year, but for a Spartans team that had lost last year's game after holding a commanding lead, it was big.
''I think our guys have been suffering ever since then,'' Dantonio told the Lansing State Journal. ''We talked about it a lot. We've spent a year dealing with this, and our guys have been mocked, our guys have been made fun of.''
No one is making fun of MSU this year as Dantonio, who coached Ohio State's defense under Jim Tressel and assembled the unit that led the team to its most recent national championship, has the Spartans off to a 4-0 start, with no reason to believe that a postseason appearance isn't possible.
The Spartans jumped into the polls, No. 23 in the USA Today poll and No. 25 in the first Harris Interactive Poll this week.
Please see Big Ten, C8
Continued from Page C3
Joe Pa's warm seat?
The consensus when it comes to coaches at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, formerly Division I-A, is that if they win a national championship, they earn the right to leave the program on their own terms. Perhaps that has kept Penn State's Joe Paterno around all these years when other big-boy programs Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin have had coaching changes in the past decade. You have to wonder how long he can stick around.
Now the coaching legend is getting a bit of heat back home from those who think the Nittany Lions should have never joined the Big Ten.
''I can't react to that. You say the chorus. How many are in the chorus? Sopranos, baritones, what? I can't respond to that,'' he said in his weekly news conference this week. ''We're in the Big Ten, all right? It's a good conference. It's been good for the university academically, as well as for all our sports. We have to compete. We have competed. We just haven't dominated as some people want us to do.''
The Illini rise
Don't look now, but the Spartans aren't the only team marching through their schedule to success (this far). Coach Ron Zook, who left the University of Florida with the reputation of being able to recruit (see the team that thumped Ohio State in January) but not coach. In his third season with Illinois, Zook has them 3-1 (1-0 in the conference) and ready to face Joe Pa this week at home. Despite the Illini's checkered football history, Zook doesn't want his team to get complacent.
''I don't think that there's any question that we can go and compete against top teams. I think that I don't want them to wait until the second half, like we did at the Missouri game, to realize that they could play,'' Zook said. ''We have to take care of us. We can't get caught up in anything other than us. We've got to do the things that we do well. We have to play within ourselves, our program, our scheme, and not get outside of that.
''It is something that you're worried about because you're coming back home.''
Spartans hunt Badgers
Michigan State will see whether its success is fact or fiction this week against No. 9 Wisconsin, a team that continues to win, albeit unimpressively. Last week, the Badgers (4-0) struggled with Iowa (2-2). Dantonio knows that this game will be a litmus test for his squad.
''This will define us a little bit; there's no doubt about that. If you want to play in this conference and challenge for this conference title, you have to be able to go away and compete well in a place like Wisconsin, which is one of the more difficult places, I think, to play in the Big Ten Conference,'' he said. ''There's always going to be a top 10 team in the Big Ten, one or two or three. If you want to play to that level, you have to compete to that level.''
Wolverines bite back
Michigan (2-2, 1-0) is over those two opening losses one to Appalachian State and has its sights set on winning the Big Ten.
''You can't be too confident when you lose, but we have some coaches that were definitely on us, and they believed in us,'' said senior safety Jamar Adams this week. ''That's probably the biggest thing. The coaches believed in us, and because they believed in us so much, we started to believe in ourselves again, and we started playing better.''
Big Ten's best
Adams claimed the defensive player of the week award in the conference along with Illini defensive end Will Davis. Illinois junior running back Rashard Mendenhall grabbed the offensive honor, and Wisconsin punter Ken DeBauche was recognized for his special teams work.
George M. Thomas can be reached at gmthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/sportsblitz/.
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio apparently found a home in East Lansing, Mich., thanks to his team's defeat of Notre Dame 31-14 last week in South Bend, Ind.
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