Dantonio Sustains Winning Culture At Michigan State
10/15/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist | @GrinzOnGreen
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The 100 game club isn't exclusive by design. It's open to every coach, but membership numbers are kept down by impatience, incompatibility, or incompetence, or any combination of the three.
Of the 14 Big Ten coaches, only Iowa's Kirk Ferentz and Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern have coached in 100 games at their respective universities. On Saturday, they will be joined by Mark Dantonio when he reaches the century level with Michigan State's game at Indiana.
What's more, five of the nine assistant coaches - Harlon Barnett, Pat Narduzzi, Mark Staten, Mike Tressel and Dave Warner - are still on the staff.
As milestones go, the 100-game plateau is far from being the most recognized or celebrated, but it is significant for a variety of reasons.
Without delivering on a promise of sustained success, coaches rarely make it to the sixth game of an eighth season, as Dantonio has. It also underscores how valuable stability and continuity, which were sorely lacking at MSU for decades, are to a program.
"The most important thing I did in coming here was to select our staff," said Dantonio, who owns a 69-30 record as head coach of the Spartans. "The continuity that we've had as a staff throughout this time has been largely responsible for our success both on the playing field and off the playing field.
"When I say that, I mean our players, too. We have not had a lot of attrition here. Most of our players have stayed and worked extremely hard to become a part of this. I think we tried to do it the right way and I think that there's consistency in what we've done."
The Spartans have reached the postseason each year under Dantonio and their only losing record came in 2009 after a loss to Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl. Since then, Michigan State has won two Big Ten Championships, a pair of division titles and the Rose Bowl while posting a 47-13 (.783) record.
Fifth-year senior running back Nick Hill has been around for 60 of those 99 games, and counting, and acknowledges that in many ways MSU must be the envy of many less-established programs around the country.
"I remember growing up, Michigan State wasn't really a top-10 program," Hill said. "Michigan State was an average program before Coach D came here and really wasn't a winning team. Once Coach Dantonio and his staff came here, it turned completely around.
"The first time I saw them in person was in 2007 when they destroyed Notre Dame (31-14) at their place and it's just continued from there. It means something when a program has success year after year because when we bring in recruits, they come here expecting to win championships. Having that culture and mindset from each and every player is a good feeling."
While Hill appreciates Dantonio and the staff's efforts to continually add new wrinkles to keep things fresh and add an air of unpredictability, there is comfort in having a firmly established baseline.
 | "The most important thing I did in coming here was to select our staff. The continuity that we've had as a staff throughout this time has been largely responsible for our success both on the playing field and off the playing field." -Mark Dantonio, who owns a 69-30 record as head coach of the Spartans |
"When I first came here, there was talk of going to a bowl game and hopes of winning a Big Ten Championship," Hill said. "Now, it's just expected. We're expected to be a great team. We're expected to be in Indy every year. We're expected to be one of the top teams in the Big Ten.
"When you have a foundation like that laid out for everyone, it makes individuals dangerous and it makes for a dangerous football team. Instead of having to preach hard work and toughness, people are coming in here with those characteristics and it makes us that much better."
And yet, it doesn't hurt to have something new on the agenda to rally around.
"How this impacts us as players going into their 100th game shows that A., they've had success and B., we're playing for not just any old game," Hill said. "So, it means a lot to us and we want to win this one for Coach D and the staff because it's something special for them and for us, too."
Sophomore Darian Hicks has played in just 20 games, including six this season as a starting cornerback, so his reference points have come after MSU made the transition from being a hopeful program to an entrenched conference power.
"This is just another thing that makes me want to play my best defense and be the best athlete I can be so the coaches get a win in their 100th game as a staff," he said. "What the fact they've been together so long means to me is they know what they're talking about and what they're teaching us works."
Considering how effective the defense has been and how many outstanding players MSU has turned out over the years, Hicks said there isn't much room to question the staff's methodology.
"I don't say anything, I listen to what the coaches say to me and I try to go out on the field and do the best I can to do it," Hicks said. "It's pretty much been proven over 99 games. They've played college football and some of them have played in the NFL so they know what they're talking about. So they're going to tell us what they think is going to make us the best athletes we can be here."
Being together for 100 games - actually more for offensive line coach Mark Staten and the other staff members who were with Dantonio for three seasons at Cincinnati - has its advantages. However, Staten said the staff is also wary of the adage that familiarity breeds contempt.
"Sometimes you can become comfortable, which is both good and bad," Staten said. "You don't want to be too comfortable because you owe it to the people you've grown together with over these last eight years to keep pushing the envelope.
"On the other side it's nice because you know that if there is a problem, you've got nine brothers that are going to help you out, whether it's personally, with a player, family, etc. What people don't realize about Mark Dantonio is that even though the stakes are higher than they ever were when we got here, he still keeps a family-and-God-first mentality."
There has been just enough turn over through the course of these 100 games, such as when Dantonio hired co-offensive coordinator Jim Bollman and defensive line coach Ron Burton in 2013, to provide exposure to fresh concepts and interpretations.
"When Bolls came in, he brought some ideas which we have implemented here and there and he also brought the way he is, which is that fatherly, or for our players, grandfatherly type, and that was excellent and it helped," Staten said. "And then Burton came in and brought this different level of energy.
"I'm not saying the puzzle was missing any pieces before, but it was like a new piece. We pulled this piece out, and put this other one in, and darn, it fit, too. When things fit together, they function better."
