Michigan State's Dantonio Retires

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Wistrom Disciple

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Mark Dantonio has decided to step down at Michigan State (source). He received a $4.3 million longevity bonus on Jan. 15th. Given all the drama going on around East Lansing, doesn't seem too surprising but the timing is definitely less than ideal. Could be a rough decade for Sparty ahead with the timing and all the issues they're facing. 

 
Interesting to hear about potential recruiting violations and I'd like to know more about the severity of those as they come out and do/don't get confirmed.

I always thought that for a stretch from roughly 2008 - 2015 that Dantonio was pound-for-pound potentially the best coach in the country. That opinion for me probably gets wiped away if it turns out he was cheating, ha.

Will be interesting. Still, a good coach.

 
Undone said:
Interesting to hear about potential recruiting violations and I'd like to know more about the severity of those as they come out and do/don't get confirmed.

I always thought that for a stretch from roughly 2008 - 2015 that Dantonio was pound-for-pound potentially the best coach in the country. That opinion for me probably gets wiped away if it turns out he was cheating, ha.

Will be interesting. Still, a good coach.
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Dantonio had some good/great seasons, which coincided with Michigan and Penn State having downturns, and even some transition/turmoil at Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

 
Undone said:
Interesting to hear about potential recruiting violations and I'd like to know more about the severity of those as they come out and do/don't get confirmed.
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So far it's been job offers to parents of a recruit but the source is his former shady director of recruiting so there could be some legitimacy to the accusations with that insider knowledge. 

 
Wistrom Disciple said:
So far it's been job offers to parents of a recruit but the source is his former shady director of recruiting so there could be some legitimacy to the accusations with that insider knowledge. 
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There's also the whole offering a scholarship to a guy with a history of sexual assault, who ended up committing sexual assault at MSU. He was only charged once in high school and never convicted, and there's not a lot of clarity in who knew what and who made the call to take him. But the general view seems to be if the coaches didn't know he was going to be a problem, they should have.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27652914/ex-staffer-dantonio-ignored-warnings-recruit

 
Husker in WI said:
There's also the whole offering a scholarship to a guy with a history of sexual assault, who ended up committing sexual assault at MSU. He was only charged once in high school and never convicted, and there's not a lot of clarity in who knew what and who made the call to take him. But the general view seems to be if the coaches didn't know he was going to be a problem, they should have.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27652914/ex-staffer-dantonio-ignored-warnings-recruit
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Good point though hindsight is always 20/20. Would more due diligence have helped? Maybe? It is easy to put blame back on the coaches after the fact but no one would have said a word if the guy turned out to be an upstanding citizen to society after signing. 

That said, there proved to be a pattern of off the field issues going on. Add in lawsuits and a struggling program and it isn't an unreasonable decision for Dantonio to take his money and run. 

 
LOL

Regarding the allegations, Dantonio said in his Jan. 10 deposition that Blackwell never did home visits because it would've been an NCAA violation. He did recall Blackwell once traveling with him to see a recruit, but that Blackwell remained in the car.
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I am guessing if we could see behind the scenes at most major programs we would have a tainted view of college football.  There is just way too much money on the line to not have guys either flat out breaking rules or at a minimum pushing them to limits unintended.  Hope he has a great and happy retirement.

 
Pretty crappy time to resign, the day before NSD. They have any recruits we can steal in the 23rd hour? (Insert sarcasm...kind of)

 
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HUSKER 37 said:
How about Dantonio as a Defensive consultant?
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Yup.  He’s a dam good coach.  Got a lot of good play from their average talent if u believe the “experts”.    He knows Big Ten.  Might like being a coach called analyst with none of the media and job accountability really. 

 
LumberJackSker said:
He had to wait until he got his bonus to resign.
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I read somewhere his deal is like 6 more years and a lot of it is "guaranteed," so the thinking is they let him take the bonus and in return he won't fight for all of the rest of the money he's technically owed. I don't know if it's true or not, but it would make it a little less sketchy on his part.

 
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