Jamie Samuelsen

Special to the Detroit Free Press

Jamie Samuelsen, co-host of the "Jamie and Stoney" show at 6 a.m. weekdays on WXYT-FM (97.1), blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. You can reach him at jamsam22@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @jamiesamuelsen.

What’s your take on Michigan State’s 27-24 win over Penn State on Saturday?

A couple of years ago, as Michigan State was making another unforecasted run to the Final Four, I made the vow that I would never pick against Tom Izzo again. He had proven us wrong so many times that I refused to ever be duped again. The Spartans haven’t advanced to every Final Four since, but if there is ever a chance, I normally pencil them in.

I think we need to start doing the same for Mark Dantonio.

To clarify, I’m not putting them in the college football playoff. That’s a little rash. Even if the Spartans win out from here, the odds of them getting to the final four are a long shot at best. But when it comes to Dantonio and comes to Michigan State football - it needs to be stated emphatically and repeated until the point is driven home for good. Never count them out. Never tell them what they can’t do. Never put them towards the bottom in some arbitrary Big Ten East pecking order. Never. You do so at your own peril.

Related:

Michigan State stock watch: Spartans who helped, hurt case vs. Penn State

Michigan State: Mark Dantonio wants Spartans sure, not overconfident

Take it from me. I made this mistake. I looked at Michigan State’s 3-9 season. I looked at the off-season issues and the attrition within the program. The recruiting was down. I figured that the Spartans would struggle get back to where Dantonio had taken them in the previous years. The best case scenario was 7-5 or maybe 8-4. Gone were the days of the Big Ten Championship Game. Gone were the days of any talk about rankings and the national playoff.

To be fair, I never lost faith in Dantonio. Some placed him on the hot seat heading into the 2017 season. Some suggested that the game had passed him by and that he was far too loyal to his assistant coaches. I didn’t buy that. I just figured that he’d struggle going up against Urban Meyer, James Franklin and Jim Harbaugh year in and year out.

The undercurrent rumbling against Dantonio prior to this year reflects a problem that pervades sports and really, in a way, pervades society. We, as a people, have lost patience with everything. Instead of getting five years, coaches now get three. Winning a division isn’t good enough in baseball anymore, now you have to advance in the postseason. Joe Girardi took an unheralded Yankee team to Game 7 of the ALCS. A week later, he was out of a job.

Dantonio was hired at MSU in 2006. He put together one of the greatest runs that the football program has had in the modern era turning the Spartans into perennial conference contenders and perennial bowl winners. The 2015 team lost once during the regular season and then lost to Alabama, badly, in the college football playoff. That team lost All-Americans on the offensive line and all-conference performers at a number of other positions including, most notably, Connor Cook at quarterback. Last year was a disaster. Losses piled on losses. The locker room splintered. Off-field issues took over control of the program. And all of a sudden the Spartans had fallen on hard times and Dantonio apparently forgot how to coach.

This is the dilemma in sports. When things go wrong, do you turn to a new voice or the hot young assistant from a power program? Or do you trust the process? More and more it seems that people are less willing to trust the process and more willing to throw it all away to try something new. It’s not as if Dantonio took over a strong program like Will Muschamp did at Florida or like Charlie Strong did at Texas. He took over a mediocre team and a weak program that was left behind by John L. Smith. He built it into an annual power. He had one bad year on and off the field. Some were willing to make a run at P.J. Fleck when he was still at Western Michigan. Who is a better fit to build Michigan State football back up than the man who built them to where they got in the first place?

I can’t sit here and say that I told you so. Because like many, I didn’t. I knew that Dantonio was the right man for Michigan State. But I certainly didn’t think he’d already have wins at Michigan and home against Penn State this season. I didn’t think that MSU would control its own destiny with three games to go in the regular season. I trusted the man. I didn’t trust the process.

I never doubted Dantonio. I just happened to doubt his standing in a powerful division. I’m here to say that I won’t make that mistake again.

Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!