Mork D'Antonio's "secret formula"
"While Dantonio is back on staff in an advisory role to Barnett this year, the interim coach was coy about the impact Dantonio would have on the Spartans this Saturday.
Because he has a secret formula to success, I can't share. So, I'll just say it that way, if that's okay," Barnett said with a broad smile."
You mean being 2-3 against Harbaugh with his last win coming in 2017?
October 18th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
60 minutes of unnecessary roughness. Unleash the Spartan Dogs. Double A gap blitzes. His formula isn't exactly a secret.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:25 AM ^
Well, half his wins against Harbaugh involved a punter dropping a snap and then throwing the ball to one of his players. So, likely that's part of his formula.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:24 PM ^
And the other one involved a monsoon, a backup Michigan QB throwing 3 INTs in his first start of the season, and MSU +5 in turnover ratio. That resulted in a 4-point win.
October 18th, 2023 at 1:03 PM ^
Definitely part of the so called "formula". Pettiness and sucking lemons seem to be some of the other components.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:28 AM ^
Don't forget the fullback wheel route
October 18th, 2023 at 10:39 AM ^
Secret formula…
1) Be angry and petty
2) Watch 2 traditional CFB powers (UM & PSU) in your conference/division self immolate for 15 years due to scandals and shit coaching hires
3) Attempt to convince media MSU is more than a regional stepping stone job
4a) Watch fans embrace delusional expectations and go full lil bro, paying career .500 successor coach $100mm for 2 wins in “rivalry” Super Bowl
4b) watch program return to mid tier status as mean reversion plays out (add in dash of further humiliation with tugger scandal).
October 18th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
Wow! You've cracked the code.
[Maybe add a 3rd 4, as in 4) Teach your players that competition includes assault.]
October 18th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
Sparty fans don't want to hear it, but, overall, Michigan has outplayed MSU during the Harbaugh era.
Each of their four victories has been as a result of flukes...
*The punt
*A monsoon with a third-string QB at the helm for Michigan
*Covid year
*Overturned fumble recovery
Conversely, each of the Michigan victories has been by a comfortable or convincing margin.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:28 PM ^
Spot on that Mel Tucker's contract was the most little brother move of all time.
October 18th, 2023 at 2:46 PM ^
"Harbaughs remember."
October 18th, 2023 at 2:22 PM ^
Don't forget the steroids. MSU has definitely used that secret formula.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
I hear Mel Tucker has some not so "secret sauce"
October 18th, 2023 at 10:33 AM ^
He loves to share it over a phone call
October 18th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
After a "Butt Hurt" loss this Saturday, Mork D'Antonio will be passing out his "secret sauce"!
GO BLUE!
October 18th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
Thug it up and try to injure. That’s his not so secret formula.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:37 AM ^
Old time hockey! Toe Blake, Dit Clapper, Eddie Shore, those guys were the greats!
October 18th, 2023 at 1:53 PM ^
Are you from Fulham?
October 18th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
His secret formula was RichRod and Hoke.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:17 AM ^
and PSU contemporaneously wandering in the wilderness with us, and tressel sending mork his plan B guys. all gone now.
people (well, not 'people', but spartys) are also forgetting how badly his reign ended. he hosed sparty with the timing of his departure, empty cupboard, and taking the money and running with a scandal nipping at his heels. my how sparty has memory problems, suddenly mork is super-duper, when in fact the last time we saw him he was septic.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:30 AM ^
Great points. The reason Mel was hired in the first place was Dantonio hanging around to collect a multi-million dollar bonus - before he informed the MSU AD that he was walking out the door.
How many, if any, of the players on the roster ever met Dantonio prior to a couple of weeks ago? Maybe 1/3 of the roster - those are 6th year players and RS Juniors / Seniors - who were signed by him - but, he's been gone for over three years.
This Spartan squad utilizes the fundamentals and schemes that were developed and implemented by Mel and his staff.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:33 AM ^
Is it memory problems or a lack of self-respect & self-awareness?
October 18th, 2023 at 9:53 AM ^
trying to be serious, i think its simply fan memory-holed nostalgia, not all that uncommon. but in this case they are memory-holing a very large pile of excrement.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
By grace of the schedule maker, Dantonio also avoided Ohio State in 2009 and 2010. Yes, he would eventually legit beat good, Meyer-coached Ohio State teams in 2013 and 2015, but avoiding Tressel for a couple years back while he was still getting the program off the ground, helped a lot. The "Look out, MSU is coming up fast" narrative changes a bit if their 2009-10 seasons had included blowout losses to Ohio State, as 2008 did.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:25 AM ^
Substitute Ohio State for Illinois in 2009 and MSU doesn't make a bowl game that year. Without upsetting an 11-win Ohio State team, anyway.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:31 AM ^
Dantonio will have something up his sleeve. He had us on our heels in the first quarter of the 2016 game. I expect Carter to have some good runs early. Don't know anything about Houser, and that's the problem - very little tape. I hope the team in blue is not taking the "If we just play our game, we'll be fine" approach. This game will require a lot of grit. And keeping your head on a swivel!
October 18th, 2023 at 9:54 AM ^
I am not sure how much tape you need on a guy who was not clearly better enough than Noah Kim to be the starter. I am not a masochist, so I didn't watch the Rutgers-MSU game, but it sounds like Hauser could have had multiple turnovers if the Rutgers DBs could catch. His yards-per-attempt was also very low, so it sounds like they were dinking and dunking their way down the field. If you try to run that many plays against this Michigan defense, you are going to run into some very bad plays, and that is something MSU can ill afford.
The Dantonio mystique was built on beating bad Michigan teams. This is not a bad Michigan team. They might keep it close for a bit with misdirection and their try-hard attitude, but they don't have the horses to beat us over the course of a 60 minute game.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:41 AM ^
Eh, MSU pulled out a July drive to start the 2016 game and then did nothing until the 4th quarter when the refs started ignoring blatant offensive holding and called multiple extremely dubious PI fouls.
Houser stinks. He threw for 4.6 YPA against Rutgers and should have thrown multiple picks. Carter is a nice RB for sure, but recall Michigan already faced him last season when he played for UConn.
No one at Michigan is going to take this game lightly. Publicly, they will say the right things, but do you really think after last year that they won't be preparing to bury MSU?
October 18th, 2023 at 9:58 AM ^
That's the Occam's Razor explanation. Bad UM coaching hires were obviously important, but Dantonio got high mileage out of many overlooked 3-stars (or worse). (I think that was mostly player development. PEDs don't explain everything.) Just two examples:
https://247sports.com/Player/connor-cook-900/high-school-3619/
https://247sports.com/Player/leveon-bell-8205/high-school-13122/
While we're on the subject, I don't buy the bizarre idea that Tressel "steered" his OSU rejects to MSU. If you look into the details it doesn't make much sense.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
It would be a very simple thing to say to a recruit they didnt offer "I would look at MSU but stay away from Michigan"
October 18th, 2023 at 11:52 AM ^
Quite simple, yes. Smart, too, if you're not afraid of MSU but don't want your run-off coming back to bite you at UM.
It also assumes that such recruits would heed Papa Tressel's words and go to MSU even when they have offers from Kentucky, Cinci, Purdue, et al. How often would that really happen?
October 18th, 2023 at 1:34 PM ^
The point would be dont go to U of M all the other schools would be fine to them.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:30 PM ^
Dantonio had a wonderful 5th-year senior development program. Those programs became obsolete and Dantonio faded.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:24 AM ^
6-1 vs RR/Hoke, 2-4 vs Carr/Harbaugh. Sometimes it really is that simple.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:20 AM ^
And one of those two wins was because Blake O’Neill didn’t just fall on the ball. Dantonio had a nice little run but then Sparty regressed to its mediocre self.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:29 AM ^
The other one involved an October monsoon and Michigan still having a shot at a Hail Mary after going -5 in turnover margin. With John O'Korn at QB.
Things like that happen in football, and doesn't change that both of those games are indeed Ls for Michigan and Harbaugh. But any time now they can stop pretending a Harbaugh team has ever had its ass kicked by MSU. His four losses to them are by an average 3.75 points. His four wins are by an average 19.75. He kicks the shit out of them, they make crazy comebacks and have things fall in their lap. All you can do is take advantage and good on them for doing so, but they haven't "dominated" any Michigan team since Hoke and are unlikely to any time soon.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:34 AM ^
2017 was fluky in a sense but MSU did outcoach Michigan in that game, badly. Each possession in the first half was really really important because the second half was going to be chaos. They knew it. Michigan should have known it. Michigan completely shit themselves on a series 1st and 10 from inside State's 15 on the first possession and treated a field goal like their desired outcome. In contrast, MSU brought out the kitchen sink for its first half possessions. Michigan was not prepared in 2017.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:16 AM ^
I'm not saying it was a fluke in the sense of one crazy play changing everything, ala 2015. I'm just saying it was hardly some dominant performance by MSU, there were some breaks caught, is all.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
In deed. Even in the non-rain portion of the game MSU got some very fortunate calls and bounces. Michigan fumbled twice and the ball went searching with radar for MSU defenders. Michigan got a TD taken off the board on a phantom hold and Michigan State caught two deep passes, both off deflections.
Not that I have obsessed about that game... at all....I swear.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:32 PM ^
. . Twitch.. twitch. . All in the past
October 18th, 2023 at 10:34 AM ^
I think MSU just had a much better prepared gameplan in 2017. They knew a monsoon was rolling through and when that happened, little to no points were going to be scored. They threw everything they had at Michigan for those first few possessions, scored 14 points, and knew they could sit on that lead because by that point the rainstorm rolled in and no one was getting near the endzone.
They were better prepared to handle the elements that night and Michigan wasn't. So no, it wasn't a dominant performance, but like many instances of the Dantonio era, they were happy to sit back and let Michigan make its own mistakes. Dantonio and Co. would be right there to capitalize on all of them.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:03 PM ^
I dont even think it was the msu gameplan. Michigan had Okorn.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:58 AM ^
The other coaching issue was that we repeatedly asked O'Korn to pass during the monsoon part of the game, even though our ground game was working decently. We trimmed our deficit to 14-10 early in the 3rd quarter and should have just ground it out for the next couple drives before the rain passed. When there are 25 minutes left in the game and there's a one-score margin, you don't need to be airing it out. Instead, he airmailed a few INTs to MSU and while our D stopped them, we missed a chance to get good field position.
October 18th, 2023 at 11:18 AM ^
I mean if Ty Isaac doesn’t fumble (not on coaches) and we get another score there we are up 10-0 before monsoon comes. Kind of hard to coach when it’s pouring and you are on your backup qb. I probably wouldn’t have been trying to throw in those conditions either.
October 18th, 2023 at 12:35 PM ^
I remember so many people saying in the run up to that game that the 2nd half was gonna be a mess and make sure you have a lead going into halftime. We did precisely not that and then had to try to win with JOK passing in a monsoon all 2nd half. One of the most frustrating Harbaugh games
October 18th, 2023 at 9:49 AM ^
because Blake O’Neill didn’t just fall on the ball
Dunno. There were 10 seconds left and he was standing around our 40. MSU only needed a FG, down 23-21. If he fell on the ball, they may have been able to squeeze in one pass play and then kick it.
IMO, we should have just kept the offense out there and had Rudock pooch-punt it, which he did a few other times that season.
October 18th, 2023 at 9:54 AM ^
Everybody overthought it. At the time, the idea of beating MSU had become such a big roadblock that the moment got too big. What happened was essentially the result of the baked in fear/assumption that something bad was going to happen. Literally everybody believed that giving MSU the ball at midfield was likely going to result in the completion of a Hail Mary, so all the decisions made were made to avoid that outcome.
Anything would have been better than what they chose.
As for O'Neil I think he made the instinctual play once you realize the entire team felt like giving State the Ball at midfield with 5 seconds left was very dangerous.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:19 AM ^
They also got away with a roughing the snapper on that play. Didn't wait the requisite 1 second before making contact. We got that call against Wisconsin in 2018.
So basically they can only win when they cheat, as we all know.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:23 AM ^
I don't think much of roughing the snapper calls. Every time I see one called it never looks any different than any other punt and it is a huge momentum swing at the whim of the refs.
October 18th, 2023 at 10:41 AM ^
Sure. My comment was at most 10% serious.
But the 2015 ending would have been so nice if after Jalen Watts Jackson dives into the end zone, the ref goes to the middle of the field, turns the mic on, and says, "Personal foul on the receiving team..."