Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio embraces preseason AP ranking

It’s easy to like flattery. When you’re on the receiving end of good rankings, there’s no point in arguing with them. You might as well embrace them. Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio, whose Spartans are ranked eighth in the AP Top 25 poll, thinks his school’s standings are just right.

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“Our focus remains on winning championships,” Dantonio told the Lansing State Journal‘s Graham Couch. “We have proven that we can compete consistently with the top teams in the country & will continue to dream big. We need embrace our preseason ranking and display the maturity it takes to manage that success.”

Naturally, most people in the sporting world think the rankings are hogwash. But it’s no surprise for a bold coach like Dantonio to embrace the rankings. After all, he though his team would have won the college playoffs, had they been implemented last year.

“I thought we would have been national champions, to be perfectly honest with you,” Dantonio told reporters at Big Ten media days Tuesday, per the Detroit News. “I think we would have had a shot to do that because I think we were playing, coming out of the end of the season — that stretch coming out of the season — we were playing great football and we were believing in ourselves.”

With their current standing, they have the inside route to making the playoffs in 2014. He expects nothing less of his team that features key offensive returners in Connor Cook and Jeremy Langford.

“It’s been expected before in this time since I’ve been here,” Dantonio said after the team banquet in early August. “It was expected in ’09 and we couldn’t do it. It was expected in 12 and we didn’t do it.”

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