Mark Dantonio, Cincinnati Bearcats’ head coach and former Michigan State and the Ohio State University assistant coach, is expected to be named the next Michigan State University head coach for the football program. Although this move is not officially confirmed, reports out of East Lansing and Cincinnati, have stated Dantonio will be announced as the new Spartan head coach.
Cleveland Brown’s defensive coordinator, Todd Grantham, was apparently offered the job, but declined the offer and withdrew his name from the head coach list. Brian Kelly also withdrew from the coaching search and accepted a job at Iowa State. Shortly after this Michigan State officials met with Dantonio and offered him the open spot.
Dantonio was at Michigan State for six years, 1995-2000, as cornerback’s coach under Nick Saban and then associate head coach under Bobby Williams. Then he left for the Ohio State University where he was the defensive coordinator for the 2002 National Championship. Dantonio finally landed at Cincinnati as a head coach in 2003 and established a 18-17 record over the last three seasons and upset the Rutgers Scarlet Nights earlier this year.
The Blog Alliance will have more on Mark Dantonio later.
EDIT: (From ESPN - 12:32am)
Michigan State has a scheduled a 1 p.m. ET news conference related to its football program, the university said in a statement late Sunday night.
Dantonio, a former defensive coordinator at Ohio State and at one time an assistant to Nick Saban in East Lansing, has shepherded the Bearcats into the Big East Conference with success. His three-year record at Cincinnati is 18-17, including a 7-5 record this season against a difficult schedule.
Four of the five Bearcats' losses have been to teams ranked in the current top 15, and they also knocked Rutgers from the unbeaten ranks on Nov. 18. Dantonio is known as a disciplinarian who teaches hard-nosed football, qualities that ranked high at Michigan State in its search to replace John L. Smith.
10 comments:
i like the breaking msu news. journalism at its finest someone needs to convince me this is the right guy because i know very little about him.
i don't want to study so i'm going to continue to post comments to avoid the reality of finals.
oops i forgot some punctuation. there should be a period after finest. good thing i'm not in a journalism program anymore or i'd probably be kicked out
well continue to do that. i will address the medical issues next. then discuss dantonio in detail. he actually stole state recruits over the last couple of years so expect some transfers. great defensive coach. runs a spread like ohio state. hard nosed, but calm demeanor...like tressel. if tressel is your mentor, not a bad mentor.
state actually got this right. a fine college coach, with strong ties to the mid-west who has been involved with winning at several different universities.
he went 7-5 this year with a young team and upset rutgers.
on the banks of the red cedar theres a school thats known to all their speciality is winning and the spartans play good ball spartan teams are never beaten all through the game they fight fight for the only colors green and white
go right through for MSU watch the points keep growing spartan teams are bound to win they're fighting with a vim rahrahrah see their team is weakening we're going to win this game fight fight rah team fight VICTORY FOR MSU!
(i dont know where the punctuation goes in songs so i dont use it except for at the end... sorry journalism major)
Ummm...... The fight song??? (That's weak).
I'm just kidding. I know nothing compared to Andy, but am trying to do research. All I know up to this point is that Andy mentioned Dantonio and Tressel in the same sentence in a positive light. I hate Jim Tressel.
How about this name drop: Dantonio and Sori Kanu? (You’re shit up a creek without Sori Kanu). Why put those two in the same sentence? Dantonio was the man who recruited Kanu.
Maybe I'm a pessimist (okay, I know I am) but 18-17 overall, 7-5 this season, does not impress me in the least. And at no point should the phrase "upset Rutgers" ever be uttered. Sure they had an uncharacteristically great season, but can you really call it an upset when they have gone 17-30 (7-20) over the last 4 seasons prior to this one? It's not like they're such an amazing program that a win against Cincy was a give-in.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a doubting Thomas. I'll believe a turnaround when I see it. For my money, State won't win more than 6 games next year, 3 in the BigTen. They've got some splainin' to do.
Oh, and if Dantonio wears a sweater vest on the sideline ala Jim Tressel then I fucking quit.
I thought I should point out that I'm not nearly as upset as the previous post would make you believe. I just simply don't trust anything related to Michigan State football. They could have hired Belichick and I'd still be pessimistic.
That being said, I hope that he is the best guy for the job and is as good as some make him out to be. He's got his work cut out for him, but it sounds like it's a step in the right direction after the embarrassment that was the J.L.S. era.
i'd have to agree with dave. it's hard to trust anything related to msu football, especially with the joke this search process had just about turned in to (the ad screws up so royally the first time he's not allowed to be a part of it the second time around, the board of trustees can't come to an agreement amongst themselves or with our she-man president, so our beloved basketball coach has to take over the situation). but that being said, i'd pretty much be elated at even a 500 season next year. and i really hope he is the right guy for the job because it's hard to root for a losing team year after year.
i also do not share andy's sanguine position towards the new guy. but i am pleasantly surprised. i thought msu would do something retarded. i think dantonio fits the role of what state needed. a younger guy who has head coaching experience. someone who will discipline the kids on the team and shoulg be able to recruit in the area. hopefully, he can recruit some kids w/ character and avoid the inferiorty complex that states coaches have shown be taking u of m's rejects b/c they can run .3 seconds faster in the 40.
his record doesnt give me a hard on, but i still think he fits the bill theoretically. this doesnt look like some guy using the job as a launch post to an nfl coordinator job or something. and i know most of the readers are michigan fans so they hate tressel, but its hard not to respect his coaching.
but i agree, a green sweater vest would change everything.
sorry, this was like a stream of consciousness comment
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