Fifth game typically an identity-definer for Mark Dantonio's Spartans
EAST LANSING – Michigan State’s offense was reeling, dealing with inconsistent quarterback play and offensive frustration.
Then came a road game at Iowa. Connor Cook asserted himself, and the Spartans did not lose again.
That was the fifth game of the 2013 season. It has been a trend over the past nine seasons for Mark Dantonio’s team to find its identity after four games, and MSU will try to do that again when it hosts BYU on Saturday (3:30 p.m./ABC).
“When you have problems, there’s usually great growth. There’s leadership growth, there’s growth in terms of what it takes to be able to accomplish things, and that’s natural,” Dantonio said this week. “So nobody felt like we’d be 2-2 at this point during the season. I’m sure most people thought we’d be 4-0. But here we are, and it’s a place we haven’t been for a while.
“But doesn’t mean we’re not going places.”
MSU enters Saturday’s game against BYU having dropped its opening two Big Ten games for the first time since Dantonio’s debut season. That 2007 skid happened to come after opening with a 4-0 start in which the Spartans allowed just 13 points a game. They fell 37-34 at Wisconsin on a fourth-quarter field goal, the first of five Big Ten loses that year. MSU allowed 32.7 points over its final nine games despite averaging 33.2 points on offense in those contests.
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The next season, MSU won 42-29 at Indiana to improve to 4-1. The Spartans went 5-1 from there before losing their regular-season finale at Penn State and the Capital One Bowl to Georgia to finish 9-4.
A three-game skid in 2009 ended in the Week 5 with a dramatic 26-20 home overtime win over Michigan to start a three-game win streak. The Spartans finished 6-7 after dropping their last two games.
During the 2010 season, in the second game without Dantonio after his heart attack, MSU rallied to beat then-No. 11 Wisconsin 34-24 to improve to 5-0. Kirk Cousins went on to lead the Spartans to a share of their first Big Ten title in 20 years and an 11-2 record.
“Sometimes you need to go back and you need to take stock in where this place has come from, what has happened to get it to there,” Dantonio said this week. “It just doesn't happen. Just because you show up here doesn't mean that you automatically get a win. That's whether you're coaching, that's whether you're the head coach and have that success. You have to re-examine what you're doing, reexamine how you're doing it, and make some good decisions. As a player, you have to dig deep a little bit sometimes.
“But I think when you do dig deep, you build equity, you invest. And in that investment comes success.”
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A gutty 10-7 victory at Ohio State in 2011 helped MSU improve to 4-1 and shake off its loss at Notre Dame from two weeks earlier. The Spartans went 11-3 that season, eventually winning Dantonio’s first bowl game over Georgia.
The Buckeyes again provided the pivotal point during the struggles of 2012, with MSU struggling to “find the inches” in a 17-16 loss at home. That was the first of five Big Ten losses decided by a combined 13 points in a 7-6 season.
“It’s hard, because I feel like that year, the seniors did the hardest they could,” said senior Brandon Clemons, who was a redshirt freshman on that team. “It was the small things – the small plays here or there just didn’t go our way.”
Then came the Iowa game in 2013, two weeks after losing at Notre Dame. Cook threw for 277 yards and two touchdowns, the first sign of life from the Spartans’ passing game that would go on to win the Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl in a 13-1 season.
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In the past two years, surviving at home against Nebraska and Purdue in the fifth game displayed the resiliency the Cook-led teams became known for. The Spartans were 33-4 in 2014 and ’15 combined, winning the Cotton Bowl Classic over Baylor the first year and winning another Big Ten title to earn a spot in the College Football Playoff the second.
“You can never feel comfortable playing this game,” senior offensive lineman Kodi Kieler said. “You gotta go into every week feeling like you’re playing the Patriots or something. You gotta go in there thinking this is the best team you’re going to go against, and you gotta prepare that way so you don’t get beat.”
But as Dantonio admitted, none of that matters this week and for the rest of the season. Neither does the first four games of this year. Despite his players “hurting,” Dantonio believes they are ready to move past the slow start.
“Regardless of what’s happened in the past, you have an opportunity to make it right and to play forward and start to improve those particular situations that allow you to win a game,” he said. “So that’s what we have to do.”