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.