Mark Dantonio has some fun downplaying the importance of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry in the Big Ten East Division, which includes Michigan State.
The Michigan State Spartans are 9-1 (5-1) and are the number nine team in the nation entering their divisional rivalry game with the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus on Saturday. A reporter tried to tell Michigan State Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio how important the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry was to the region.
Dantonio pokes fun at The Big Game with a two-word response, “not really.”
Here's the interaction between @Lynn_Henning and Coach Dantonio at today's presser:pic.twitter.com/ijf7zmDhFV
— David Harns (@DavidHarns) November 17, 2015
Ohio State rarely has a bad football team. Though Michigan State doesn’t have the storied history of in-state rival Michigan on the gridiron, the Wolverines haven’t been a top flight program in recent years while Mark Dantonio is doing a better job in East Lansing than former head coach Nick Saban did a decade and a half ago.
Michigan State’s lone loss on the year is by a point to Nebraska and has already beat in-state rival Michigan on a strange muffed punt play as time expired. The Spartans still have two big rivalry games remaining in the Big Ten East: the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday and the Penn State Nittany Lions in two weeks.
A win over Ohio State would give the Spartans the crucial tiebreaker over both Michigan and Ohio State. Then a win over Penn State for Michigan State to play presumably Iowa in the Big Ten Championship Game.
Dantonio obviously knows about the storied rivalry that is Michigan-Ohio State, but his two-word response exudes a bitter of swagger, as the Michigan State Spartans under his guidance have earned their seat at the grown-ups’ table in the Big Ten conversation. It isn’t reserved solely for the winner of Michigan-Ohio State.