Michigan State Football: 5 most productive players in Mark Dantonio Era

Mark Dantonio has enjoyed much success in his time in East Lansing. However, his ability to mine for gem recruits and coach them up has been unprecedented.

There are so many players that Mark Dantonio has had who were lightly-recruited and turned out to be excellent college and NFL players like Kirk Cousins, Le’Veon Bell, Jack Conklin and Trae Waynes, to name a few.

Many coaches are able to find those few who uplift their team, but Dantonio has made it into an art. This list of little-known players seemingly grows by the year therefore, this list is not meant to exhaustive. However, please share in the comments section or on Twitter which player(s) I may have missed or you would rank higher or lower.

The criteria I have used are the players had to be lightly-recruited (meaning few, if any, FBS offers). A lightly-recruited player would typically be one that was either given an arbitrary three-star to the two or even none.

The players had to reflect the Dantonio chip on the shoulder way. The players had to be vital to the rise of the Spartans in the last decade. Lastly, but not least, they had to be super productive at their positions.

Here is a list of other players I considered being on this list: Connor Cook, Tony Lippett, Jeremy Langford and Tyler Hoover. Here are the five most productive players in the Dantonio era.