Solari: Midseason malaise taking its toll on Dantonio

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Mark Dantonio, wind-blown and weary late Saturday night, did not sound like himself in delivering another postmortem after Michigan State’s fifth straight loss.

There was no bluster, no bravado. And as he began to turn the page from the 28-17 defeat to Maryland, his tone and words became uncharacteristically resigned and aligned with the Spartans’ malaise.

Michigan was on his mind. There was no mention of pride, of stakes, of brothers or selling results.

“Gotta get ourselves ready to play an outstanding football game if we’re to have a chance.”

It was a rare four-word concession, perhaps the first in his 10-season tenure. “To have a chance.” Dantonio recognizes the odds stacked against MSU, the odds the Spartans have themselves helped to create with across-the-board problems that don’t look like they will be fixed soon.

“To have a chance” could mean to make it eight wins in nine games against the second-ranked Wolverines.

“To have a chance” could mean to pull off an upset along the lines of the 1990 miracle in Ann Arbor, when U-M was No. 1 and the Spartans stunned the nation with a 28-27 win.

“To have a chance” simply could mean to keep the score close after watching Jim Harbaugh’s 7-0 team outscore its past four opponents, 182-25 (341-70 for the season).

The wholly flawed Spartans will need to play near-perfect football to give themselves that chance. Even that might not be enough. It doesn’t ensure a win by any stretch, but it might avoid a blowout along the lines of the 49-3 embarrassment from 2002.

It has been virtually impossible for MSU to generate much traction this season in any facet. One week, the offense can’t move the ball; the next, the defense crumbles; the next, the special teams allow a kickoff return for a momentum-swaying touchdown. The results since a 2-0 start are stark: five straight losses for the first time since 1991 under George Perles, an 0-4 Big Ten start for the first time since 1982 under Muddy Waters.

After hearing his name linked to Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty for much of the past decade, especially in the 36-5 run over the previous three seasons, Dantonio now is witnessing the depths of MSU’s dark side.

“You have to just swallow it. And we’ve been swallowing it a lot lately, for a couple weeks,” senior receiver R.J. Shelton said. “But Michigan’s up, and we know what that game is to this program. So, we need to gear in.”

When I asked Dantonio after the game if the Spartans have started playing for the future, one after this season that looks like it will end in November, he remained adamant that the current youth movement is not a white flag.

“I’m not,” he said. “We’re playing to win football games. Everything that we can do to win a football game is what we’re going to do. We’re playing for the future in terms of the next game.”

Meantime, Michigan’s renaissance under Harbaugh won’t be complete without restoring this rivalry’s history. Ten seconds separated his Wolverines from doing just that. They also provided a significant motivation for the Wolverines ever since, with Blake O’Neill’s muffed punt and Jalen Watts-Jackson’s goal-line dive on a loop in front of them.

“It’s on us,” Michigan receiver Amara Darboh said of MSU after U-M’s blowout win over Illinois on Saturday. “I’m not really worried about them too much.”

In reality, the same can be said for the Spartans. Fixing their own problems, correcting the litany of repeated mistakes, finding production from underachieving players, discovering which youngsters can become difference-makers. Those aren’t excuses, they’re MSU’s reality.

“Before we focus on Michigan, we need to figure out what we’re doing wrong and what we can do to win games,” linebacker Chris Frey said. “We need to fix the small things that we’re messing up on.”

Because achieving those things might be the only way the Spartans can have that chance against the Wolverines.