Mark Dantonio
Mark Dantonio
Mark Justin Dantoniois an American football coach and former player. He is the current head football coach at Michigan State University, a position he has held since the 2007 season, presiding over one of the most successful eras in the program's history. He's led the Michigan State Spartans to three Big Ten Conference championships, and seven victories over archrival Michigan in eight years. In 2013, he coached Michigan State to its first 13-win season and the program's fifth trip to...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth9 March 1956
CityEl Paso, TX
We have a lot of young players that have not experienced the Louisville game yet. I don't know if they can identify with it. But for the players that went through it, it will be very motivating.
Tight end is a strength of this team and should be throughout this year, next year and the year after.
Well, it's no different than playing at Ohio State last year. Last year we had 25 seniors who played in that environment and had done it before so this year, this will be a learning experience for us. My advice to the players will be to enjoy the moment. Don't get uptight. These are the things you've dreamed about as a young person growing up. Enjoy the experience, live it and play hard.
We need to protect the passer and run the ball better on offense, but we did make some plays down the field with our tight ends. Defensively, we played pretty well at the point of attack, but gave up some big plays that hurt us.
You'll probably see him play three positions out there (today). That's something that's a positive for him. He's a football player, we just need to find him a role and allow him to grow into that role.
It was very bad for our players. It had a tremendous impact on the game, huge. We're about to score, then they go 98 yards very quickly and it's 18-7 instead of us leading 14-12. I firmly believe that if we had gotten it in the end zone there it's a football game. I don't know if we would have won, but it's a game. Even at that, we were still in it at halftime. But we weren't the same team in the second half.
Chet did a nice job. He had a couple of real nice punts. He'll go into this game as the punter. But we're always going to hold people to a standard as we move through this.
I'm sure they do. We're working. We know where we're at.
I'm not going to walk out of here with my head down. I'm not looking for moral victories. I'm just looking for guys who will play with toughness and will compete and I think we did that. Maybe (Penn State) thought we were going to go in the bag, but I was going to keep playing.
We came in at halftime and we thought we were going to win the game.
It's an extremely great class for us. This year's class builds on our previous two and has established a foundation for us to build championships.
That's not an excuse. We've got to grow up in a hurry.
It was as tough an experience as I've had in coaching. It was one that we will remember.
They remind me of our Ohio State defense in 2002. Teams are not going to score on them. They don't give up big plays. They pressure the ball and force turnovers.