How Mark Dantonio prepared Michigan State football to beat U-M in 2015

Former Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio drove around Georgia in January 2020, thinking long and hard about his vision. Not for the upcoming season, but for three, four, five years down the road.

Dantonio couldn’t paint the picture, so he retired Feb. 4 after 13 seasons. He departed as the program’s all-time winningest coach with a 114-57 record, giving way to new coach Mel Tucker.

“It was becoming very difficult, at 64 years of age, to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be coaching at 70,'” Dantonio said in a Wednesday interview on Facebook with the Rev. Joseph Krupp. 

[ Mark Dantonio explains why he retired as Michigan State football coach ]

As Dantonio cruised in his vehicle last January, he thought about Bear Bryant, who coached at Alabama for 25 years (and 13 seasons elsewhere), winning six national championships and 13 SEC titles. He is regarded by many as the best college coach in the history of the game, with a 323-85-17 record.

Bryant retired following the 1982 season

then he died of a heart attack 37 days later.

“I said, ‘Bear Bryant, when did he retire?’ …” Dantonio said. “That immediately sent me thinking, ‘Hey, I want to have a little free time.’ It’s never easy. There are a lot of reasons to stay, a lot of reasons to go.”

Dantonio’s wife, Becky, and two daughters, Kristen and Lauren, heavily factored into the decision.

“There were a lot of things I had to think about in terms of my time with them,” Dantonio said. “Made that tough choice and retired in February, after a lot of sleepless nights thinking about it.”

Dantonio finished his coaching career with 132 wins, of which 18 came as Cincinnati’s coach from 2004-06. For the Spartans, he secured two Big Ten Coach of the Year awards (2010, 2013), three Big Ten championships (2010, 2013 and 2015) and made the College Football Playoff in the 2015 season.

But Dantonio’s squad finished 3-9 in the next year, MSU’s worst overall record since its 1982 (2-9). He had a 27-24 record in his final four seasons.

“There’s inevitably always a time when you have to step away,” Dantonio said. “Some people are forced to step away, others are not. I just felt this was the time. February has always been my reset button. Recruiting was done. At that point, we sat down as a family and made this decision. That’s the deal.”

[ Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio did it his way, even as it led to a messy ending ]

This is the first year Dantonio isn’t coaching since 1980, when he was a graduate assistant at Ohio University. With COVID-19 restrictions in place, his transition from coaching football isn’t going as expected.

Dantonio wishes he could be more connected to the Spartans.

“It takes a little bit of time to settle because it’s different,” Dantonio said. “It’s been a unique year where you had to detach yourself. Because of the pandemic, everything was shut down. I thought I would be able to gradually step away in a sense that maybe (I could) go watch a practice, go watch a scrimmage or something of that nature. Maybe go have dinner with some players. I haven’t been able to do that. But I’m OK. I’m OK.”

“This is the first year I’ve not coached for 41 years. But it’s been OK. It’s been OK.”

[ Why Mark Dantonio’s retirement blindsided Michigan State football ]

Here’s what else Dantonio discussed with Krupp:

Remembering ‘trouble with the snap’

“The night before (playing Michigan in 2015), they came out of their team meeting, and they were hyped. The next morning, we were on the way to the stadium at Michigan. I was like, ‘We got to get that buzz back, we got to get that hype back.’ As we pulled up — and it’s always emotional, everyone is screaming and yelling at you — it’s a good feel. They still do that just walking around. But I said, ‘Nobody gets off the bus until I tell them to.’ Dead bus. I stood up and counted to 10. I said, ‘I want you to think about what it’s going to be like in the last 10 seconds of the game, what it’s going to be like, where we’re going to be.’ I counted to 10, and then we got off the bus.

“And then the last 10 seconds occurred. That’s something we never practiced. I just said, ‘Come off the edge, don’t put a guy back. Give them one more that they’ve got to block.’ The rest of it just happened. That’s something that I’ll forever hang on to.”

Favorite MSU game

“My favorite one might be, obviously, the Michigan ones were big. The Iowa game (in 2015) was huge. The Ohio State championship game (in 2013) was huge. The Holiday Bowl (in the 2017 season) because we bounced back. That season, we rebounded from a tough season (3-9 record) the year before with a lot of problems. There’s a lot of things you can’t control, on and off the field. Bouncing back and winning 10 games that year was a point of focus. I’ve had some great games, and some are hard to explain.”

New hobbies

“Pretty much football, I wouldn’t call it a hobby, but it took up a lot of our time. After that, I just liked to be with my family. I like going to the lake. Got a dog. My wife says, ‘Hey, you need a dog.’ I said, ‘OK, get another one.’ We already had two, so we have three dogs now. Shot skeet for the first time yesterday, went fly fishing. That was the first time ever. My wife caught more than I did. I’m not overcomplicated. I like going to football games. I found that out.”

Is a book coming soon?

“I think there’s a time. What’s happened right now for me is I’m just trying to get my feet on the ground in terms of, ‘OK, you’re done coaching, what’s next?’ And then, organizationally doing things I haven’t done. I have a lot of stuff. But I have a lot of stuff that I need to go through and get my self-organization a little bit. Writing a book to me would be something that would take a little time.”

Evan Petzold is a sports reporting intern at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.