The secret to Michigan State Football’s overwhelming success
By Stephen Robb
Mark Dantonio and Michigan State Football have enjoyed an abundance of success in the past decade, but how?
Many commentators and sportswriters have attributed, rightfully so, Michigan State Football’s rise to college football elite status to Mark Dantonio’s ability to evaluate talent.
They would be correct for, the most part, because Dantonio has recruited a number of players with two or three stars and transformed them into college football studs and now rising stars in the NFL.
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However, Dantonio’s talent evaluation only describes part of the story of MSU’s rise to college football prominence. The other aspect is his ability to make believers out of the players not only in the team, but also in themselves. It is this aspect which has been the fuel behind the Spartans’ meteoric rise.
Dantonio told his team, in the now famous video form the Rose Bowl stadium before the 2013 season that they “will be the ones.” It was an inspirational mantra but it did something more because the saying described the core of Michigan State football: belief.
Belief drives the Spartans, but this is nothing new to those who have been around or followed the program over the past decade.
Nevertheless, Tyler O’ Connor’s comments earlier this week further propagated that belief but also gave insight into the mindset and secret to the Spartans’ success. O’Connor stated that he was, going out like it was his job and playing with a ton of confidence. Dantonio has not just provided a culture where players believe in the program but one in which they begin to develop a strong confidence in themselves to be champions.
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Many experts write and comment about how the Spartans overachieve because they have historically not had a roster full of four and five-star players. However, it is not so much overachieving, as it is Dantonio tapping into the player and getting more out of them than they even thought they had. Coach D accomplishes this with visualization and a firm grasp of the mental aspects of the game.
In the 2011 Big Ten Championship game against Wisconsin, Dantonio put roses in the players’ lockers. They came within a play of winning that game against the Russell Wilson-led Badgers. Dantonio understands the buttons to push on his players and he has only gotten better at it as evidenced by the latest QB battle.
Tyler’s comments represent a window into the MSU program and what Dantonio imprints onto his players. Dantonio is all about providing the opportunities but he prepares his players to take ownership of their actions and then frees them to make their destiny. This is why a two-star player is just as good and maybe possibly better than a five-star player to the head coach.
Athletic ability or star rating can be a relative term because the process starts over in college. A great player in high school may not necessarily translate into the college game. Players choose their destiny and Dantonio emphasizes this concept with competition at every position.
The secret to Dantonio’s success is not necessarily his talent in evaluation nor is it in selling his players on the program, but rather it is in his ability to get them to realize that they can be as great as they want to be. He does this by building confidence in his players and a belief in the team.
This is why players are willing to run through a wall for him. It’s why Dantonio does not care at all about stars because in his mind every player is a five-star talent and at MSU they create their destiny.