#23, etc...

The Spartans are ranked in the Coaches' poll for the first time since 2005.

We received 60 votes in the AP poll, but not enough to crack the rankings.  I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that this is the first ranking for Dantonio as a head coach.  Says a lot about how far we've come under the new leadership.

Would we be here right now if JLS was still running the show?  It's debatable, due to the strength (or lack there of) of our schedule so far.  But, I think the BGSU and Pitt games were definitely losable, and JLS may have been too emotional to manage the Notre Dame game well enough to ensure a victory.  What do you think?

P.S.  I thought the push on the punt play was a classic instance of Weis's coaching strategy; try to get away with one if you can.  If he isn't fired by the end of the season I will lose what little respect I have for that program.  Even if you have the worst team in your school's history (0-8 looks like a real possibility) you can at least play with pride and dignity.

Comments

[JDS]

When was the last time that MSU was ranked in any of the football polls and UofM was not?

[RW]

Two years ago when UM beat MSU to climb back into the rankings.... before that it had been about 30 years or so.

Hopefully that particular piece of history will not repeat itself. Which it probably won't, because Michigan will more than likely be ranked again by the time we play them

[Andy]

In 2005 before we played scUM, MSU was ranked 11th and they were unranked.

[Freddy]

ND won't fire Weis; he's white. They fired Willingham because he was black and struggling. Weis will be given a much longer rope (no pun intended) with which to hang himself. He could go 2-10 this year, and they'd still keep him.

I am sorry if this post is politically incorrect, but the racism at Notre Dame has to be obvious to everyone now.

[mc2000]

I agree that Willingham got a raw deal, especially considering the current circumstances.

I don't think it is appropriate to go back and try to guess what John L would have done this year. He had us at 3-0 and 4-0 at times while he was here. He was a good guy, and he was our Coach, like it or not. It didn't work out for him at MSU and it's good that we have all moved on.

Now it's time to see what coach Dantonio can do now that we start playing some decent teams, and now that we are going to start having some bigger expectations- thats always been our downfall in the past.

[Steve]

Notre Dame cannot afford to fire Weis with the $11 Million (or whatever ridiculous number it was) 10 year contract they signed him too after his first season...

[Spartan58]

C.W. will not be fire and even if they get less than 8 wins next year it would be hard to justify that as well.

He just signed a 10 year, golden parachute contract. If ND wants him out, the boosters will have to dig DEEP! Not that I wouldn't put it past them but there in-lies one of the problems.

You fired Ty after 3, if you fire C.W. after 4, who will want to take that job? Maybe an up and comer who needs a break to get on the national scene but it gets very dicy.

MSU faced the same problem last fall. Too many coaches in too short a period of time, who wants to be next for the hang man's noose?

Granted the changes were necessary but the University made some very poor choices that set up our scenario. We were damn lucky to get M.D. and I wouldn't want to take that chance again.

N.D. has to hang onto C.W. other wise they risk losing any chance of having a solid program in the future. I hate to Agree with Freddy on his last point but it's true. Tubby faced the same crap in KY.

[rg]

ND may not even have to fire Weis. There are rumors that he'd like to join the NY Giants staff if Coughlin leaves (which looks pretty likely).

By the way, is it my imagination or does Weis look like a Disney character? Chucky, the World's Biggest Chipmunk, or something like that.

[Adam]

They are having a hell of a season but like Coach Dantonio said, we need to keep our composure and focus on next week.

[Spartan58]

Agreed Adam. As of right now, we are 0-0 in BT play and the goal is always to win or do well in your conference.

We will have more than our hands full this week.

[wristbands_to_the_rescue]

It serves no purpose whatsoever to compare JLS vs. Coach D specifically, or to even to continue bringing JLS up in conversation. Suffice to say JLS and staff sunk this football program to depths not seen since Muddy Waters (God bless his soul, he was a good and decent man) was head coach. The difference between where we were at the end of 2006 and the Muddy years was while we lost a lot of games under Muddy, we never became the punch line for national jokes like we were under JLS.
Few things can ruin a great day faster for me than to start thinking about the JLS “legacy”. I can feel my blood pressure rising just typing this note. I still don’t know what in the world Ron Mason was thinking when he made this hire, but I thank God above that LAS ran the last job search that resulted in MSU hiring Coach D, and Ron Mason acted as recording secretary.
Now I have a request of all the State Journal bloggers; let’s stay away from JLS stories completely. He’s gone, best wishes to him and his wife, but its time to move on. NO MORE JOHN L SMITH STORIES, PLEASE!!!!

PS...Pat Forde from ESPN.com has the best analysis yet about the Ty/Charlie Weiss conundrum from his post of 9/11/07. I highly recommend it for anybody that is interested in this issue. Right or wrong, Notre Dame set a precedent by firing Ty after only 3 yrs on the job. As Pat writes "you've got three years Pal, have it up and running or else". Well, this year will be 3 yrs for CW, and they are staring 0-8 in the face. You can blame Ty's recruits if you want, but he had Bob Davie's recruits to worth with. The best players CW had were Ty's players. At some point, some of this catastrophe is going to fall on CW, and ND as it should. God don't like ugly...

[Chris]

Many folks on this site are complaining about Ron Mason hiring of JLS. Well, I think that hiring a football coach is a crapshoot. Ron Mason did a good job of hiring Rick Comley as hockey coach and David Greive as baseball coach (baseball at State stunk, but it's getting better). I don't know how much of the work he did on the Suzy Merchant hiring, but that looks like a good fit. Look at the funding of the Spartan Stadiun project and the Duffy Daugherty Building. I think he has done a very good job!!!!

[Matt]

"I thought the push on the punt play was a classic instance of Weis's coaching strategy"
Can someone tell what this means? I completely missed it.

[sean]

yeah i agree, what was the push on the punt play? Also just wondering how much ticket's sold for before the game ( for those who scalped)

sparty on

[mc2000]

I agree that hiring coaches is a crap shoot. We can look back on JLS and say he did a bad job, but most of us thought it was a great hire when he was hired. And you know what, he may go somewhere else and do a good job. It just didn't work out for him at MSU and he turned out to be a bad fit for whatever reason. Maybe he would fit better at a SEC school or a PAC 10 school- jobs and fans vary greatly by conference, let alone by school.

Saban was a bad hire too if you want to look at hiring coaches that way. He left us and screwed the program for the next 4 years. John L at least left us with some good players and now we're 4-0. It's not like MSU has some great tradition of consistent winning in football- most of the coaches struggle, even Perles.

[Rob]

Regarding the ranking, I dont like it AT ALL. It is WAY too premature. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled we are 4-0 and playing with a whole different, no-nonsense attitude this year. I am very impressed with Coach Dantonio. But lets be real....UAB, Bowling Green, Pitt (who was clobbered by UConn at home last Saturday), and 0-4 Notre Dame?! I would MUCH rather have a ranking later on in the year when and if we prove our mettle against the likes of OSU, Wisconsin, Iowa and scUM.

[shadowhawk]

The push was on the ND punt that rolled down the field after the punter could not handle the snap. He barely kicked the ball and it rolled down the field. One of the ND plays pushed I believe T Love into the ball trying to create a live ball situation. Unforetunately for ND if the kicking team pushes the receiving team into the ball it is not a fumble and even though ND appealed the Ref's got it right.

It is nice to speculate, but for me it is still one game at a time as Perles used to say. I was not all that impressed Wisconsin against Iowa, but only time will tell. Go State!

[Doug]

Let's all agree to let John L. Smith and his tenure here be in the past where it belongs.. He was successful everywhere else he coached; it just wasn't a good match here at MSU.

He brought the team's academic grades up, as was sorely needed. He also left far more talent behind than was here when he arrived. He took grief for bringing in so many JUCO transfers; now they are giving all Spartan opponents grief!
MD is the right man at the right time, we are blessed with fine coaches in all the major sports for the first time in my memory, so lay off Ron Mason also; he's simply the greatest college hockey coach of all time.
Let's all look forward to a very bright green Spartan future together!

[JRS]

Dantonio and JLS are miles apart on personality that is for sure.
Dantonio come off as rather cold
and no nonsense in his press conferences, I get the impression he really does not like talking before an audience.

[Mister X]

You all need to get off your knees in front of MD real quick, and realize that he has gotten us nothing that JLS hasn't at some point.

4-0? Check.
Win in South Bend? Check.
Ranking? Check.

Now...

Win over scUM? Not yet.
Rebound from loss? Not yet.
Bowl Game? Not yet.

All those things are more important than what we have now, and MD has yet to deliver. So before we proclaim him messiah, let's wait for something worth getting excited about.

[Enrique EGlacias]

I think that the MSU Fans and the Football Team see right through all the Rankings crap.

Performance dictates everything.
Rankings dictate nothing.

[Spartysucker]

The game this weekend has all the makings for a classic upset. we will come in with confidence and i think Wiscy has yet to be tested. and if you look back at our schedule you could say we also havent really been tested. the Pitt game was only close becuase we committed so many penalties. Iowa has a great D so of course Wiscy wasnt going to drop 50 on them but hey they still won. sure 4 teams have spanked ND but only we and Georgia Tech can say they did it in front of a hostile SB crowd. in fact you could make the argument that our crowd was worse and we played the most motivated ND team in history, and they truly thought they could beat us. i think Wisc might be looking past us becuase they have been favoured to win the Big 10 and look who comes to town but the team that ruined their season a few years ago. but a team that hasnt been "tested" is still very dangerous because nobody knows how could we might really be. early for a prediction...and i dont think anybody has asked for one yet but
MSU 24
Wisc 21

[Mitchqs]

I have been looking at Wisconsin and the way it has played against its opponents, who its opponents have played and what the combined records look like. I believe now more than before that the Wisconsin game is most definitely winable! In fact when you crunch the numbers MSU has the slightest edge. Wisconsin has narrowly been escaping opponents who do not look any better than the ones MSU has faced.

I still think this will be a tight game. But if the Spartans play a next to flawless game they should be able to put Wisconsin away. A person could get really excited looking past Wis assuming a win. The schedule is kind for the first two weeks in October.

[shelly waxman]

Wisconsin's O-Line is huge. It will be a battle of the trences. I'd start out passing because I'm sure they will expect Caulcrick up the middle as the first play.

[Spartan58]

Look, the hiring problems all started back after Saban left. Not when JL was hired. Bobby should have never been made head coach, not in 1000 years.

I hate to break bad on a former coach but Bobby was never head coaching material. He was a good running backs coach and assistant coach but did not have what it takes (as we all saw) to run the ship.

It was an emotional decision at the time and decisions based on emotion are just that. That was a mistake.

The next "mistake" really wasn't a mistake at all but something that had to happen. Bobby not only burned the house to its foundation, he dug out and hauled away the foundation after it was done smoking.

A change had to be made and so the search started. Where I wasn't thrilled about the spread when JL was picked, I backed the decision and supported the team and it's choice.

I still think JL is a good coach but not at the Big Ten level. He proved his system else where and had success, unfortunately he wasn't up for everything else that came with it. He didn't handle the pressure well and it lead to the break down of many things.

You also have to realize that JL had to rebuild a program from the ground up. There was nothing left after Bobby. In my opinion the deck was stacked against JL since the moment he signed.

JL got a good foundation started, restored more discipline than was there when he arrived, and left some talent in the cupboards.

I relate it to the Chicago Bulls firing Doug Collins after he took the bulls to the playoffs for a few years but couldn't go anywhere. They dumped him and brought in Phil Jackson, whom to them to the next level.

While JL was no Doug Collins, he did do some good things for us and I think was put in a position that he could not win. Unfortunately things like the face slapping, tend to blur everything else into the back ground.

So while I think it's fair call out JL on some of his issues, the real problem started before he even arrived. But as "wristbands" stated, I hope he and his wife are doing fine where ever they are.