Couch: 6 steps from 'blah' to excitement for the uninspired Michigan State football fan

Lansing State Journal

Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio reacts while walking off the field after this year's win at Penn State. MSU is 53-23 in Big Ten games since 2010.

I sense a malaise falling over Michigan State’s fan base. This football season has left you with a case of the blahs.

So let’s fix it. We’ve been here before plenty, you and I. Our therapy session before the Spartans’ game at Indiana this season was too small a dosage. It didn’t anticipate all that was to come. My bad. I’ll do better.

This one’s on me.

Here are six steps from “meh” to enthusiasm for the dispirited MSU football fan:

1. Perspective: If this is a struggle, your struggle ain’t real

Remember who you’re not and how much better you have it than most of the football programs in the Big Ten. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers and maybe even Nebraska — considering the last decade — would trade places with you right now, in a heartbeat. They’d take your injuries, your division schedule, your rivalry angst, your QB situation, your concerns about your coaching staff’s offensive acumen, and warmly embrace it.

What you consider a disappointing season for your beloved Spartans — perhaps an 8-4 finish, going 1-2 against the other top three teams in your division, probably a New Year’s Day bowl game in Florida — is the dream of half of those programs listed above.

You’ve tasted better times recently and measure MSU against a different class. Nothing wrong with that. You and Minnesota shouldn’t share the same goals anymore. You shouldn’t accept Kirk Ferentz’s constant quest to find the center of mediocrity. But, also, if you can’t find a degree of pleasure in eight wins and holiday warmth, you’re going to die an unhappy person.

That’s what we’re here to avoid. So let’s move on.

2. Remember what your Spartans have become.

Since 2010, Mark Dantonio’s fourth season, the Spartans are 53-23 in Big Ten games, with three Big Ten championships. Ohio State is 65-11, also with three titles. Michigan is 46-27, Penn State 46-28. The Nittany Lions with one league title, the Wolverines with none. Those are the three teams MSU is measured against.

The Spartans are 14-9 in that span versus their division rivals (counting several years before they made up the meat of the East Division). Ohio State is 18-7. Michigan is 8-16. Penn State 6-16.

This is who you are: The second-best program in the Big Ten’s varsity division, one of the best couple divisions in college football.

You can start the clock at different places to fit a narrative, but 2010 is a fair spot to begin. It starts with MSU’s initial rise under Dantonio and includes the frustrations and failings of 2012 and 2016. Every one of these programs has dealt with their own stuff. That span is a large enough snap shot to give you a good picture and recent enough to call it relevant.

This season is part of that picture. It does not alone define MSU’s program. And, again, what it does say about the Spartans isn’t all that bad.

3. While enjoying this season, look ahead to next season

Kenny Willekes, Mike Panasiuk, Raequan Williams, Jacub Panasiuk, Joe Bachie, Tyriq Thompson, Justin Layne, David Dowell, Josiah Scott, Darrell Stewart, Cody White, Connor Heyward, Brian Lewerke, Cole Chewins, Jordan Reid, Kevin Jarvis, Matt Dotson, Blake Bueter and Matt Coghlin.

Those are the 19 scholarship starters on this week’s depth chart with eligibility left next season. That doesn’t include running back LJ Scott or punter Jake Hartbarger, both of whom are expected to take redshirts and return in 2019, or quarterback Rocky Lombardi, who could be in the mix.

I doubt you’ll find another seven- or eight-win team in college football with that much coming back.

Williams and Layne will have decisions to make about the NFL and listing the offensive line returners isn’t a guarantee of anything up front. But that’s a lot of sweat equity and talent returning. If you had high hopes for this season, you should be bullish on next year.

The offensive line, albeit, has to be better. It just has to be, or … well, these therapy sessions are going to require a turn toward hypnosis.

Redshirt freshman Rocky Lombardi gives MSU a promising QB through the 2021 season.

4. You’re set at QB through 2021

However this quarterback situation shakes out between Brian Lewerke and Rocky Lombardi through this season and next, you know you’ve got a quarterback for two seasons after that. That’s a comforting thought for a program that’s two hiccup seasons since its initial rise, 2012 and ’16, came in years when MSU didn’t have an able playmaker at QB.

Consider this, after giving the reins to Kirk Cousins full-time in 2010, the Spartans are 71-16 in the last nine years when they’ve had their answer at QB under center. That’s not including 2012 and the first month of ’13 and all of 2016. That does include Connor Cook’s injury in 2015, which covers the Ohio State win without him and Cook’s struggles after he returned, and the situation this year, with Lewerke’s performances through a shoulder injury.

You get the point though: When MSU has a quarterback, it’s usually in a good place. Lombardi, a redshirt freshman, has already shown he’ll be a capable playmaker in the Big Ten and a QB who can spur an offense.

The value of having both Lombardi and Lewerke next season shouldn’t be undersold. The thought entering this fall was that an injury to Lewerke could wreck MSU’s season. And the play-calling reflected it early on. That won’t be the case next year. MSU has a chance at big things, bolstered by the luxury of depth at QB.

MSU's Raequan Williams, right, and Justin Layne, bottom, will have to decide whether they want to leave for the NFL or headline a potentially ferocious Spartan defense in 2019.

5. MSU’s defense is elite again – and should be in 2019, too

The Spartans’ defense has developed into something not far from what it was in its best years under Dantonio, perhaps only behind the 2013 unit that devastated opposing offenses and whose secondary earned the moniker “No Fly Zone.” This group might be stronger up the middle than that team, at defensive tackle and linebacker.

If Raequan Williams and Justin Layne return, look out. If not, it’s still a formable defense. MSU has talented depth on the interior line especially. The Spartans are, week by week, bullying opponents’ as they attempt to run the football and increasingly limiting them in the passing game. That identity should continue.

MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, left, and football coach Mark Dantonio, shown here together last February, have created one of the better 1-2 punches in the country in terms of football and hoops.

6. Almost no other fan base gets to make this turn from football to hoops

You’ve got it really, really good as an MSU fan. Think about being a Penn State fan these days. Whatever becomes of their football season, that’s kind of it — there’s no tomorrow until next Labor Day. Their men’s basketball squad is an NCAA tournament bubble team at best, without much fan intensity anyway. Every situation in the Big Ten is different. Almost no one else gets to begin the football season with legitimate Big Ten title hopes and, in November, make the turn to legitimate Final Four hopes. Michigan might be the only other. Wisconsin some years. Ohio State once upon a time. Everyone else gets one of the two major sports where they get to really matter, if that.

Nationally, its MSU, Michigan, sometimes Wisconsin, same for Oregon and West Virginia, occasionally Oklahoma, Florida not so long ago. This is the company you keep. This is your club. Everyone else is envious.

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