OT: Did Dantonio Rebuild Cincinnati?
I was talking to a State fan the other day, and he mentioned that he thought their football team had a good coach in Dantonio. I kept the discussion to on-field performance and stated that I thought he was just an average coach with a barely-over-0.500 record. His only "good" season just happened to be a season with a pretty easy schedule, but no Spartan fans seem to recognize that.
But then he went on to say that he thinks that Dantonio's a good coach because he rebuilt Cincinnati and that Brian Kelly came in just in time to take all the credit.
Anybody have thoughts or input to share about this? I've never heard this side before.
Dantonio definitely laid a foundation for Brian Kelly's success. I've been a season ticket holder at UC for the past 4 seasons, and its been cool to watch. Dantonio recruited a lot of the athletes that sent UC to their first BCS bowl, and Brian Kelly has really built on that, and his style of play really fit the team. I don't think UC would have won the Big East the past couple years with Dantonio though. So to answer your question, Dantonio had a hand in Cincinnati's rejuvenation, but he didn't rebuild it by himself.
I live here as well but another guy who gets no credit is Rick Minter who put them back on the map by getting to their first bowl game in decades, he just couldn't sustain it. Rick ended up getting UC to 4 bowl games during his time here, he just couldn't win more than 7 games which is the same record Dantonio was hitting as coach. Dantonio built on what Minter built but never could rally public support as he just isn't a PR kind of coach. He recruited ok and then pulled an RR before RR even thought of it by leaving his team literally just before their bowl game. Kelly of course came in and literaly performed miracles, plus it helped to not be short scholarship players, have upper classmen and not a virtual turnover of the entire offensive starting unit.
Is it Brian Kelly day on MGoBlog? This thead has some amusing parallels to the one about RichRod and Kelly.
Dantonio coached there from '04 to '06. Here's a page with Cinci's records up to '05:
http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/year.html
In his first two years he was perfectly in line with the recent history. He was working mostly with the prior regime's players, though.
We all know Rivals recruiting information shouldn't be used a standard, but it's probably not useless, either. Here's the '06 Cinci class:
http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-footbl/archive/year.html
You can look at '05, '04, and the two prior years and get the idea that Dantonio didn't make a big impact there. (That might not be fair.) But, an upgrade in '07 and '08 (more 3-stars) can be seen. Does Kelly get credit for that, or did better players get interested in the program because of Dantonio? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that Dantonio "rebuilt" the program.
Dantonio went 7-5, 4-7, and 7-5 in his three seasons at Cinci.
And then he is 7-6, 9-4, and 6-7 at MSU.
I don't get all the MD adulation. Big drop-off last year. Off the field issues that would have taken out many HCs.
One of the best ways to measure how good MD is, is to look around and see who else is dying to steal him away. To be honest, I cannot remember his name being on the short list for any major job in the past few years. When LC stepped down, I remember BK's name and even Brady Hoke's name, but not MD's. Was he up for the ND job? No. The USC job? Yeah, right. Will he be on the list of coaches to replace JoePa? Not if they wish to remain relevant. Auburn, Tennessee, UCLA, Washington, TTU even? Nope, nope, nope, nope and nope.
If Les Miles has a disappointing season this year, it is possible he will be replaced at LSU. You might expect they would look to the school that sent them their last program changing coach (Saban), but I highly doubt you will hear MD's name even mentioned. And, given that he is a branch off the vaunted Tressel coaching tree, you would expect MD would be on a very short list of names to replace the Sweater someday. Go over to one of the OSU message boards and ask them if Tressel were to retire tomorrow, who are the coaches they would realistically like to see replace him. MD's name will not come up.
nothing more than that...Rich is not to blame
We had the best quarterback recruit in the nation before RR came. I agree that RR isn't to blame, but you probably picked the worst position example against Carr's recruiting
no matter who was the coach. He was going to Ar-kansas no matter what.
I don't know about that... Yes, he is a prick. But also a great player. I think he would have stayed if we brought in another pro-style offense.
I'd say he was probably going to transfer to Ark regardless. Would there have been a better chance of him staying with a pro-style offense, yeah. But he was giving Carr problems. I can't remember what game it was, but I remember Carr yelling at him, and then he started talking back at Carr. I don't think that was the only time something like that happend either.
Didn't rumor have it that Carr threw transfer papers at Mallett after he talked back to him? To say he was disliked by numerous players and coaches would be putting it nicely.
My point was if you want to blame Carr's recruiting (which I think is valid reading Mispogen's stuff) quarterback is probably the worst position to bring up against Carr. He got the best QB in the nation to come here, it doesn't get much better recruiting wise in that regard.
This would be correct if any other college football team in America's recruiting strategy was to recruit 1 QB every 4 years. Since it isn't, QB is a completely acceptable position to point out just how poor Carr's last couple classes were.
If you look at the recruiting class rankings, they were really low the whole time Dantonio was there (mostly in the 100s) and Cinci never won more than 7 games.
Then when Kelly came in, the recruting classes skyrocketed (shot up to 40-60 range) and stayed high for his whole tenure, and the wins began rolling in.
Did Dantonio have a hand in taking Cinci from a poor, obscure program to a medicore, obscure program? Sure.
But to give him anything more than minimal credit for Kelly's 3-straight, double-digit win seasons (including an undefeated season) is REALLY stretching it.
With a loss to a Texas Tech team in turmoil in the Valero Alamo Bowl, Mark Dantonio is 0-3 in bowl games at Michigan State.
Pretty sad to lose to a team that just fired their coach
state of course is my number three on the hatred scale behind ND and OSU, BUT i do think Dantonios a good coach, maybe top 4 in the B10. aside from him callin Mike Hart little, i think hes revamped the UofM-MSU. on a Cinci note tho, i hope they can become a legit consistent good team down the line ala top 3 in big east every year. cuz its ridiculous how any athlete thats 4 stars or up in Ohio is pretty much an OSU lock. cinci needs to screw the bucks over like state does to us
Wow. I couldn't disagree more.
He had one decent season at MSU during Javon Ringer's senior year, but you need to be able to win with your own recruits, and he hasn't done that.
He just recorded a losing season in his 3rd year, which is a critical measuring point for any college football coach since that's when the players in your first recruiting class become upper classmen.
He has also continued MSU's proud tradition of not having won a bowl game since the year Bill Clinton left office.
Additionally, he is 1-9 against AP Top 25 teams, with the only win being in overtime at home against a true freshman QB who was playing in his first ever road game.
For these reasons, I have to disagree with your assessment that he's one of the top 4 coaches in the conference. I think he defintely belongs in the bottom half based on his record, and the only other B10 coach I'd place him ahead of for certain is Ron Zook.
Oh come on, he's better than Tim Brewster (lol).
O my god. I cannot wait for October 9th when these guys come to the Big House...
Cincinnati wasn't built to start with.
Though some try to paralell RR and MD, it seems that the same media that vilifies RR at every turn worships the ground MD walks on. Saying that the media gives Dantonio the benefit of the doubt is like saying that Michigan was just a little bet better than Delaware State last year.
The media worshipping Dantonio and looking the other way when he lies or messes up has helped his recruiting at the same time we have had bad PR every other week.
In the eyes of Sparty, a good coach is one who can beat Michigan, so in that sense yes he is a good coach. I'm not saying I agree with this, or that it means much considering the quality of our team the past two years, but it is what it is.
I will say that many of the Sparty losses under Dantonio have been very close heart breakers, but one has to wonder if this is a streak of bad luck, or if after 3 seasons a pattern is there and Dantonio has an inability to close out games.
That all being said, I suspect that once we have our team up and running again, the opinion of Dantonio will start to slip. I give him credit for putting some fire back in the MSU-UM rivalry, but it's only a matter of time before UM takes back control. I feel that Dantonio is very similar to another coach in the B10, Minnesota's own Tim Brewster. He had one season of dramatic improvement (1-11 to 7-5), followed by a season of dissapointment. Like Dantonio, Brewster also seems to be unable to close out the close games. Brewster will likely be gone after this year, and I could see a similar fate for Dantonio 3 or 4 years down the road, once it becomes clear that 7-5 will be the norm, not the exception in EL.
Sorry, but every time I hear this I want to throw up. MD did not put the fire back in the rivalry. What put the fire back is MSU beating UofM the past two years and that had nothing to do with MD.
This is not a knock on RR, but if LC had remained as head coach at UofM we would have easily won those games. The reason we lost those games is the falloff in performance caused by the change to a dramatically different system under RR. Despite UofM being substantially down, we still nearly beat MSU last year in East Lansing (the fact that it was an overtime game should be an embarrassment to MD and MSU). We also lost to IL the past two years. Does that make Ron Zook a great coach? I don't think so.
As soon as we get back on our feet (this year, I expect), MSU will return to its place as little brother, losing to us nearly every year. They know it and we know it. And, again, that will have nothing to do with MD. He will not suddenly lose his super coaching abilities. He has always been and will continue to be (until he is fired) just another mediocre MSU placeholder coach who will be forgotten when he is gone.
make them play with discipline and focus. Dantonio took over uc from Rick Minter and he got more talent then Minter but couldn't get discipline and focus out of his teams. Minter had that but not talent. Kelly took talent and got it going and no uc fan would deny that and msu fans can't and their play proves it.
I was at a party last month and a Spartan fan was talking about how Dantonio had Cincinnati finishing the season in the top 5 - which I knew was BS, as his best record there was 5 losses, but he wouldn't have any of it.
I guarantee from this year on when we start shitting on msu's face, he will be just like Bobby Williams and John L Smith. Highly anticipated coaches only to blow games they should win.
Lets face it. He's not a great coach. I'm not even sure he's a good coach. How many games has he blown and games nearly blown so far? Twice he barely beat us! Our worst teams in history, and his teams only beat them by 14 and 6.
Not to count my chickens, but I like our chances against them in our own house. I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan to yell my ass off and give sparty a taste of the new Big Loud House.
Michigan 45
State 14
I'm calling my shot with Fourth of July fireworks.
Raback that.
His best year at UC was his first when the team finished 7-5 with a 2nd place finish in CUSA. They were never in any top 25 poll until Kelly came in and took them to the top of the Big East. It was Kelly who won 2 Big East conference titles, not MD. It was also Minter who won a CUSA title, again not MD.
Until Kelly showed up the best bowl UC ever made was the Motor City Bowl and they have only been to 12 bowl games ever.
I just shake my head at people who have absolutely no knowledge of the sport they are debating about. Even less when they transfer another player or coach's success to someone else.
Not really... but Dantonio did successfully transition Cinci from the C-USA to the Big East and left them in good shape.
It's fair to say that Dantonio has improved MSU from the condition the team was in under John L. Not sure that's saying much since John L was consistently pulling in recruiting classes that were ranked in the mid 30s to low 40s. Mark is at least getting classes ranked in the high teens to mid 20s. He still hasn't translated that improvement in talent to performance on the field and the lack of discipline should disturb Spartan fans. When Coach Rodriguez begins to beat MSU consistently, it will be amusing to see how fast Spartan fans turn on Coach Dantonio.
Is a D-BAG and a terrible coach. END.