Anonymous Big Ten coach takes cheap shot at Michigan State football

An anonymous — of course — Big Ten coach took a massive cheap shot at Michigan State football recently. What can we make of it?

‘Tis the season of anonymous coaching quotes and Michigan State was the recipient of one of the lowest blows of the past few months.

With no sports happening at the moment, anything that can somehow get us excited for the 2020 season will grab headlines and that includes bulletin board material.

Unfortunately, when there is no coach putting his name on a quote, it’s hard to use it as bulletin board material because, well,

According to Athlon’s 2020 college football preview magazine, uncovered by 247Sports‘ Garrett Stepien, one anonymous coach took a massive cheap shot at the Michigan State program and Mark Dantonio’s “off-field stuff”.

"“This is the big unknown in the league,” one coach said. “There was a lot of talk about Mark stepping down after the off-field stuff started to build. I think a lot of us watched the hiring process from the outside, and it showed you this program is desperate, and there’s probably more going on there with scandals and the NCAA than we know.”"

Who conjured up this quote? Who knows, but it’s apparently a coach who didn’t have much respect for Dantonio or the program he built basically from scratch in 2007.

Was the quote fair or unfair?

It’s fair to say Michigan State is an unknown in the league, because under a new coaching staff and 12 new starters, that much is obvious. It’s fair to say Dantonio stepped down amid all the off-field stuff because, well, it involved basically just him and a lawsuit from Curtis Blackwell. He was worn down, so I guess that could be categorized as “off-field stuff”.

It’s not fair to say that the off-field stuff started to build. It was most definitely a past issue which had been cleared up and the most infamous incident involving a few players from the 2016 recruiting class ended up leading to their removal from the team almost immediately — before the courts even made a ruling.

Also unfair is calling Michigan State “desperate” during the hiring process. The Spartans had their favorite candidate (Luke Fickell) and it looked like a deal had been done, but he changed his mind. They then went to their No. 2 guy and he said yes.

It’s also incredibly unfair to say “there’s probably more going on there with scandals and the NCAA than we know” because there’s absolutely no basis for that statement.

Whichever Big Ten coach made this statement was clearly not a fan of Dantonio’s when he was in East Lansing but he’s also not man enough to say these things and stamp his own name next to the quotes.

Cheap shot after cheap shot, likely used in this man’s recruiting pitches as well.