Couch: True disrespect for MSU football is an illusion

EAST LANSING – No one who is paying any attention is disrespecting Michigan State’s football program any longer.

That narrative, for a while, was fair and useful. A rallying cry. Inside the program, it might continue to be. But if MSU and its fans find disrespect today, they’re looking for it. Or staring too hard at Ann Arbor, mistaking disrespect for the unreasonable behavior that comes with a rivalry.

There will always be pundits with biases and meatheads with obscure radio shows who foster the sense that MSU’s program is less than it is. Those are fringe voices these days, folks stuck in 2006 or 1996, too lazy to learn something new.

This year’s preseason rankings — magazines and polls alike — are telling. Not of anything meaningful in-season. But of respect.

Here’s what the Spartans lost from last season: a three-year starting quarterback, the best the program has ever seen; two All-Americans on the offensive line and another to the NFL draft; a receiver who caught more passes last season than any other in school history; and two intimidating defensive ends, one of them among the faces of the program for the last three seasons.

So, MSU is replacing its quarterback, most of the guys who protect the quarterback and catch his passes and, on the other side of the ball, get after the other team's quarterback.

And the Spartans’ composite preseason ranking — from Athlon, Lindy’s, Sporting News, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Phil Steele and the USA Today Coaches Poll — is 14.1.

None of those seven publications or polls has the Spartans ranked lower than No. 22 (Lindy’s). Two have them as high as No. 11 (Sporting News and the coaches poll). Phil Steele, whose rankings actually include considerable research, has MSU at 13. The Associated Press Poll, which came out Sunday, had the Spartans in this window, too, at No. 12.

Given all the talent and production no longer on the roster, predicting anything much higher would take knowing things about certain players and position groups that only MSU’s coaches might know.

“The culture here is all about physicality and — what’s that word again? — winning. MSU is in fine shape,” an editor at Lindy’s wrote, even as the publication picked MSU lower than the others.

Full disclosure, I write Lindy’s MSU preview, though I don’t have a hand in the rankings or Big Ten predictions. Most of the previews you read in these preseason annuals have been farmed out to freelancers — beat writers or columnists with some sense of the team they’re writing about — but the rankings are done in-house. Phil Steele’s annual magazine is the only one that is written by one person. And, not so coincidentally, his sense of the entire college football landscape tends be the most accurate.

All of them, though, are good reads for salivating college football fans. I considered doing a breakdown of each of their analyses, but that would be hypocritical since, in the social media world, I so often rail against aggregation blogs and columns that steal too much and don’t leave the reader seeking the original work.

None of these publications this year pick the Spartans to win the Big Ten. Nor do any of them have MSU ranked the highest in their own division.

That is not disrespect. It’s a fair bird’s-eye projection.

Michigan returns far more of its team. Ohio State brings back its quarterback.

Any feeling of disrespect is steeped in the emotions that go with these rivalries. Same goes for most of the moments of perceived disrespect over the last few years. For example, when Jim Harbaugh was hired at Michigan just as Dantonio’s program prepared for the Cotton Bowl at the end of the 2014 season, talk of Harbaugh dominated the conversation. That irked Dantonio.

But the Harbaugh hire was a fascinating story, more compelling than MSU vs. Baylor for the right to be No. 5 in the country. The obsession with Harbaugh was not disrespect toward Dantonio. It was the full force of a storied and desperate program finding its voice again. Those who tried to quickly tie Harbaugh’s hiring to MSU’s certain decline were looking at it from one side. Or looking to poke the bear. And MSU’s fan base — which has turned an ugly multi-generation inferiority complex into a somewhat healthier oversensitivity to disrespect — remains easy to poke.

Disrespect hasn’t cost the Spartans a single thing in Dantonio’s tenure — not a Rose Bowl or a Big Ten title or College Football Playoff berth.

Last season, every one of the aforementioned publications had the Spartans in their preseason top 10.

The Spartans have been respected for a while now. The best example of this is four years ago, in 2012, when MSU last faced such a transition on its roster. Minus Kirk Cousins, B.J. Cunningham, Keshawn Martin and Jerel Worthy, those same seven publications and polls had a composite ranking for Spartans of 12.2. Sporting News, Sports Illustrated and ESPN had that 7-6 team in the top 10. Only Phil Steele saw any warning signs, giving MSU a preseason ranking of 22. Again, read Phil Steele.

The Spartans have without question won with the help of a chip on their shoulder, believing the world doubts them. It’s part of the story of their rise. If that’s what it takes for unprecedented winning, then the Spartans should keep seeking disrespect, even if it’s only occasionally real, mostly anecdotal and, today, usually a stretch.

MSU is 65-16 in the last six seasons, with five 11-win seasons, three Big Ten titles, three division titles, a Rose Bowl win, a college playoff berth, five wins over Michigan and three over Ohio State.

Folks have noticed.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

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