Mark Dantonio is the winningest head coach in Michigan State football history, but does he have to beat the Michigan Wolverines to keep his job?
The end could be coming soon for Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio.
In the last 13 seasons, Dantonio has made the Michigan State Spartans into a perennial bowl team and a consistent top-25 contender in the Big Ten. After arriving in 2007 from the Cincinnati Bearcats, Dantonio has won 111 games in East Lansing, taken Michigan State to 11 bowl games, won three Big Ten Championships and reach the College Football Playoff in 2015.
Dantonio may not have won a national title at Michigan State, but he’s made a mid-tier Big Ten program into a conference championship contender just about every single season. He’s the winningest coach in Michigan State football history for a reason. But unfortunately, all good things do come to an end? Will 2019 be the last year Dantonio is calling the shots in East Lansing?
At 4-5 (2-4) on the season, the Spartans have to win two of their next three conference games to even dream about going to a holiday season bowl. Since handing the Indiana Hoosiers one of their two losses of the season during the last weekend of September, Michigan State has dropped four games in a row, including its most recent to the Illinois Fighting Illini.
Does this mean Dantonio is on the hot seat or is on the way out? Not necessarily. While the 63-year-old head coach has seen his team struggle mightily offensively this season, those three losses before falling to Illinois were to teams then-ranked in the AP Top 10: at the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes, at the No. 8 Wisconsin Badgers and home vs. the No. 6 Penn State Nittany Lions.
Those are three of the best programs in recent years in the Big Ten. While Michigan State is typically seen in that class of Big Ten programs, or maybe only one tier below, one would think the Spartans would have won one of those games. That’s why the road game against the archrival Michigan Wolverines in The Big House on Saturday is so important.
This year, Michigan is very beatable, as the Wolverines have lost twice to both Wisconsin and Penn State. While the Wolverines seem to have gotten things right against teams like the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in recent weeks, this game between Michigan State and Michigan is huge for both parties, especially with the head coaches. Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh hasn’t won enough.
Even if the Spartans fall in Ann Arbor like they are probably going to and fall to 4-6 (2-5), they still have a good shot at still making it to a bowl game. That’s because the Spartans still haven’t played the dreck of the Big Ten East yet in the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and the Maryland Terrapins to end their regular season.
Dantonio presents a huge coaching mismatch in those two games and should prove victorious. But should Sparty fall twice in the next three weeks, that might be curtains for Dantonio. His team’s offense is looking more antiquated by the second and Michigan State will have had only one 10-win season since losing in the Cotton Bowl Classic to the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2015.
One could argue the game is passing Dantonio by. Or maybe he could find new life as Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz did and coach at South Carolina, his alma mater, if Will Muschamp is fired. South Carolina is every head coach’s last football job, so it would be fitting before Dantonio retires somewhere warm.
Dantonio has done more than enough to leave Michigan State when he wants. He may decide he wants to retire at the end of the year. He may not have won a national championship in East Lansing, but Michigan State fans need to realize Dantonio turned the Spartans into a perennial Big Ten contender who competed for national championships.
So does Dantonio have to beat Harbaugh’s Wolverines in The Big House to keep his job? No, because that would have been a tough game to win anyway. What he does need to do is beat Rutgers and Maryland. If he can’t do that and go bowling, Michigan State may need to get a head coach who can and get the program back to where Dantonio once had it.
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