2020 Michigan State Offseason Thread

[ELA]

Well, I think they are learning the difference between a true running back, and a guy trying to play the position.  Collins and Williams just look miles ahead of Heyward and Jefferson.  I'd move Jefferson to TE and Heyward to LB.

[CatsbyAZ]

After last weekend’s disaster it’s time for the Michigan State to start moving on from Dantonio.

Burns two timeouts on leading up to a Fourth-and-13 to rush three against the true freshman ASU QB whose arm isn’t lethal.

After MSU loses the lead and Lewerke quickly marches the offense down, rather than going with Salem’s push to give the endzone a shot, Dantonio appears to veto his OC and send in an unprepared kicking unit. This all before the offense was at least prepared to control the clock with a spike.

Despite fully controlling and failing at both those fatal decisions, doubly wasted on timeouts no less, above Dantonio spends the aftermath on Saturday blaming officials then on Sunday passive-aggressively blames his own players by saying “execution can’t be put on the coaches.”

Dantonio doesn’t get it; he doesn't have it anymore. Time to start thinking about moving on from the Dantonio era. Or else let Michigan State get Fulmerized. And bench Lewerke for good measure.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are MSU, I think you want to keep Dantonio if your priority is program health but you want Dantonio to retire ASAP if your priority is not blemishing the legacy of MSU's best ever coach. And when it comes to picking between a program or a guy, I think you pick the program; MSU needs to keep Dantonio. I'm not sure it'll be up to MSU, though. What are the odds Dantonio is just staying long enough to take the MSU wins record and earn his $4+ million bonus in January? That's not a sure thing, but those odds also aren't small.

As for why keeping Dantonio is the best thing for the MSU program, two reasons:

• First, MSU is actually punching at or above it's recruiting right now. The Spartans' multi-year recruiting average is perhaps lower now than any time since the JLS tenure. And yet they may have the nation's best defense. That's outrageous.
• Second, who's the "obviously better coach" that MSU is going to hire to navigate life after Dantonio? Outside of hiring Urban Meyer, true coaching searches tend to succeed at less than a 30% clip. Or maybe you skip a coaching search and promote Mike Tressel. But what are the odds he can keep the defense at this level? Because with what has happened to Narduzzi, I'm skeptical of the idea that this defense belongs to anyone other than Dantonio.

[medinabuckeye1]

MSU is fascinating because it just plays so very many close games every year. And they can swing very oddly.

MSU is now the worst case scenario for high end opponents. Their defense is so good that they can take down anybody but they have that ASU loss and likely others this year knock down their reputation such that a loss to them will be a bad loss and a win won't be all that impressive. 

[ftbobs]

After last weekend’s disaster it’s time for the Michigan State to start moving on from Dantonio.

Burns two timeouts on leading up to a Fourth-and-13 to rush three against the true freshman ASU QB whose arm isn’t lethal.

After MSU loses the lead and Lewerke quickly marches the offense down, rather than going with Salem’s push to give the endzone a shot, Dantonio appears to veto his OC and send in an unprepared kicking unit. This all before the offense was at least prepared to control the clock with a spike.

Despite fully controlling and failing at both those fatal decisions, doubly wasted on timeouts no less, above Dantonio spends the aftermath on Saturday blaming officials then on Sunday passive-aggressively blames his own players by saying “execution can’t be put on the coaches.”

Dantonio doesn’t get it; he doesn't have it anymore. Time to start thinking about moving on from the Dantonio era. Or else let Michigan State get Fulmerized. And bench Lewerke for good measure.
a

Dantonio has made a few decisions that make you scratch your head recently.  The two the spring to mind are from the Michigan game a few years ago.  Down 20 late he kicks a field goal.  When asked why later he said he wanted to cut it to 2 scores.  Michigan State then scored with 1 second left to cut the lead to 7 and Dantonio goes for 2, for no apparent reason.  He seemed to believe that you couldn't recover an onside kick with no time running off and just made a terrible decision.  Both decisions seemed to be just to make the score look better in a losing effort.

[ELA]

Dantonio has made a few decisions that make you scratch your head recently.  The two the spring to mind are from the Michigan game a few years ago.  Down 20 late he kicks a field goal.  When asked why later he said he wanted to cut it to 2 scores.  Michigan State then scored with 1 second left to cut the lead to 7 and Dantonio goes for 2, for no apparent reason.  He seemed to believe that you couldn't recover an onside kick with no time running off and just made a terrible decision.  Both decisions seemed to be just to make the score look better in a losing effort.

The second one, was unbelievably stupid.  I mean it probably didn't matter, so that might be overselling it, but it was totally nonsensical.

The first one, UM fans seem to bring up all the time, but the only reason MSU had a remote chance was because of that decision.  The problem was that he missed it.  It's not like it was a 4th and 2, it was 4th and goal from like the 20.  That's an almost impossible conversion, but a usually makable FG.  That would have cut it to 30-13.  MSU scored on their next possession to make it 30-17, but instead, with a made FG, it's 30-20.  The difference between 30-17 and 30-20 is that when MSU subsequently had a 4th down from the 12, they went for it, and UM stopped them.  At 30-20, you could kick another FG to make it 30-23.  But if he was just playing to keep the score close, he would have kicked it again there, but he didn't.  MSU scored another TD to make it 30-23, setting up the weird 2 point conversion, but if it was already 30-23, that would have been a tying TD.  Obviously Michigan plays defense differently, so I'm not saying it goes to OT if MSU makes that FG, but it's a very different game if they do.  It was the right decision, when it's 4th and goal from the 20 and there are still like 12 minutes left.  If his goal was just to "lose by less" then he would have repeated the decision 2 possessions later, but he didn't.

Dantonio deserves full blame for the cavalcade of errors Saturday, and several program decisions he's made in previous seasons.  But, they might be the best defense in the nation two years in a row.  Narduzzi isn't working at Pitt, Barnett is about to get fired at FSU, maybe Tressell takes over, but my bet is it's all Dantonio, and we'll figure that out when he's gone.

He might retire after this year.  He'll have the record, and MSU loses a TON this offseason.  Next year could be rough.

[FearlessF]

gotta allow the man to retire on his own terms

[Anonymous Coward]

Narduzzi isn't working at Pitt, Barnett is about to get fired at FSU, maybe Tressell takes over, but my bet is it's all Dantonio, and we'll figure that out when he's gone.

He might retire after this year.  He'll have the record, and MSU loses a TON this offseason.  Next year could be rough.

I agree with this. Given the recruiting, and exacerbating that if Dantonio leaves, the rebuild may take a few years. The candidate list will be fascinating, though. With M. Tressel, the intrigue extends further than just whether he can prove it wasn't Dantonio's defense. I mean we seem to assume he would clear house with the offensive staff, but I'm not sure how compatible that is with the "church buddies" hypothesis.

[ELA]

gotta allow the man to retire on his own terms

I said a couple years ago, his entire career was starting to look very Frank Beamer to me, minus every having a Michael Vick.  I don't think he ever gets fired, he just continues to have 7-5ish seasons, maybe a 10-3 one when things break his way, 5-7 when they don't.

[FearlessF]

Obviously, some gentle suggestions and increased pressure from fans and media may cause him to see the way out

he seems to be a reasonable man

[Mdot21]

gotta allow the man to retire on his own terms

I agree. The dude brought MSU back from the dead and put them on the map. He deserves to write his own ending so long as he wants as long as MSU isn't getting 3-9 or 4-8 every year or something like that.

[bayareabadger]

I said a couple years ago, his entire career was starting to look very Frank Beamer to me, minus every having a Michael Vick.  I don't think he ever gets fired, he just continues to have 7-5ish seasons, maybe a 10-3 one when things break his way, 5-7 when they don't.

It’s interesting because on the one hand, that doesn’t feel great considering where you were.

But in the post Duffy era, that’s equal to or better than all of MSU’s history, maybe give or take Perles’ best four-year run.

The real question is, what would this team want to be after? Hope it can continue this identity. Use it as a chance for change? It’ll be a hard one to replicate.

[Honestbuckeye]

With that defense- I would not count MSU out of ANY game remaining on their schedule.    

[medinabuckeye1]

With that defense- I would not count MSU out of ANY game remaining on their schedule.   

It cuts both ways, with that offense, I would not count MSU's oppoent out of ANY game remaining on their schedule.  

I've been saying this for a while.  Their defense is so good that they have a legit shot against anybody and their offense is so bad that anybody has a legit shot against them.  From what I've seen so far, I would pick Ohio State to beat them something like 27-10.  The problem is that if one of tOSU's TD's turns into a pick-6 for MSU instead that suddenly becomes a 20-17 game deep in the fourth quarter and anything can happen.  Conversely, I would pick MSU to beat Rutgers by a similar score or say 20-3.  Same thing there though, if the Scarlet Knights grab a pick-6 to replace one of my projected MSU TD's, all of a sudden that game is 13-10 deep in the fourth quarter.