MSU FOOTBALL FRONT-BURNER: 2013 REWIND Featuring MSUSpartan76

BIG TEN CHAMPIONS EDITION
Our weekly feature on MSU Football brings diverse responses to
a variety of questions related to the Spartans program. 

Front-Burner will be published in three parts between the B1G Championship and the Rose Bowl

Part 1. B1G Championship Game Discussion
Part 2. MSU 2013 Season Discussion
           2A. ATownAndDown Feature
           2B. MSUSpartan76 Feature (This Edition)
Part 3. Rose Bowl and Beyond Discussion

Panelists:

ATownAndDown (Follow A-Town on M-Live)

MSUSpartan76 (Follow '76 on M-Live)

Part 2 Discussion Questions (Readers COMMENT below the post.)

1. Looking back at the season, what are your favorite two or three specific moments/visions - not stats or general outcomes/results, but specific events captured on TV, seen in person, read about or heard on the radio?

2. What are some of the most impressive observations/aspects of this team, staff, players, program, etc. that you feel may have gone a bit under reported?

3. Mark Dantonio selected a few true-freshmen to play this season, while still red-shirting most of their classmates. How do you feel about the decisions to activate Shelton, Williams, and Geiger?

4. How many of the fans who wanted Damion Terry to "burn the redshirt" still think that would have been the right thing to do? What does that tell us for the future about fan reactions and early-season perceptions?

5. As for the QB competition, Datonio was accused of was "creating a circus". Was Dantonio being indecisive or was he merely being patient while gathering information, adjusting and verifying? A little of both? What was your take on the situation then vs. now?

6. Michigan State has 18 seniors and will suffer significant losses on defense. Although the Spartans do return good players on defense, I think most analysts will assume a significant drop off in defensive production. Whatever that drop off might be, if there is one, discuss your thoughts on how the experienced offense might help out the defense in 2014. Will it? Can it? Will it be needed?

Responses from MSUSpartan76

(Follow '76 on M-Live)

1. Looking back at the season, what are your favorite two or three specific moments/visions - not stats or general outcomes/results, but specific events captured on TV, seen in person, read about or heard on the radio?

You just had to ask, didn't you! In a season chock full of highlight reel plays, we have to pick and only 2 or 3? Can't be done. The SHORT LIST:

• WMU: Defensive TD, Jarius Jones interception, as he is tackled, he flips it back to Kurtis Drummond who takes it in for the TD.
• OSU: Cook muscling his way in for the TD on a QB keeper.
• OSU: Langford slicing through the heart of the OSU defense for a TD.
• OSU: Spartan Dawgs stopping OSU on 4th and... and again.
• USF: Tyler Hoover leaping over a defender to get the sack. (If readers know of the play and it wasn't Hoover, please let me know in comments)
• UM: Trevon Pendleton's bail out reception for 49 yards on MSU's 1st offensive play.
• OSU: Josaih Price alone in the end zone TD!

But at the top of my list is:

• OSU: Mumphrey 72 yard pass reception taken in for a TD.

2. What are some of the most impressive observations/aspects of this team, staff, players, program, etc. that you feel may have gone a bit under reported?

I keep reading about how O'Connor will be gone since he is not looking to get any playing time with Terry and Cook likely to be the 1 & 2. I recall reading how Terry would bolt for some other school because he was being red shirted. It seems no matter which page I turn to, there is some noise about one Spartan player or another who will be selfish and take his ball and goes home.

Then I look at Andrew Maxwell. He took the decision and stepped up and found other ways to contribute. We are hearing how great Terry was on the scout team preparing the Dawgs for their games. One can run down the roster and find story after story of how these kids put their team and their teammates ahead of themselves. We get glimpses from time to time, but it really is a big story.

If one looks over the past 7 years, there have been a few who left but the turnover is particulary light. The program Mark Dantonio has built, the "monster in East Lansing," has values that go beyond the stadium and practice fields. Family. Work ethic. Academics. Team work. Loyaty. Selflessness. Humbleness. Will to win.

This is all about how to do it right and sadly that is not going to get any headlines.

3. Mark Dantonio selected a few true-freshmen to play this season, while still red-shirting most of their classmates. How do you feel about the decisions to activate Shelton, Williams, and Geiger?

My feelings have nothing to do with this. Coach Dantonio made decisions based on his plans and his vision and team needs as they arose. In general, Coach Dantonio likes to give incoming freshmen a year to assimilate and integrate into the program. He is old school and probably still remembers when there were freshmen teams to do that. There were needs and kids earned the starts. I'm ok with that.

4. How many of the fans who wanted Damion Terry to "burn the redshirt" still think that would have been the right thing to do? What does that tell us for the future about fan reactions and early-season perceptions?

Who cares what the fans think about things they have no influence over and no information on? Ask 100 people for an opinion and you know what you get? 113 opinions. Go back and read the answer to question 3. It applies here, too. To the point, which is, what can we expect in the future from the immature and ill-informed, narrow-minded, single issue mentality fans? More of the same noise and louder.

At the beginning of the season we had many Spartan fans calling for one coach or another to be fired because of this or that. They all thought things should have evolved and progressed to their instant gratification timeline and when it didn't, it had to be the assistant or position coach's fault. Later in the season when UolM was faltering, the chUMps were making exactly the same kind of noise about their assistant and position coaches. 'nuff said.

Coach Dantonio does not listen to the fans and does not allow fan noise to sway his decisions. We are in good hands.

5. As for the QB competition, Datonio was accused of was "creating a circus". Was Dantonio being indecisive or was he merely being patient while gathering information, adjusting and verifying? A little of both? What was your take on the situation then vs. now?

Anyone who raises questions about Head Coach Mark Dantonio's ability to make a plan and see it through is someone who is just trying to cast yet another negative spin on the Spartans. He told us what he wanted to do. He told us what he was looking for. It is the general impatience of the fans and media that colored this into something other than an assessment period. Instant gratification was not there, so it was spun as a controversy rather than the competition that it was. Impatience ruled, so any little molehill was turned into a mountain. Of course the media contributed to this by stirring things up. The media needs controversy, real or fabricated, to get hits that generate advertising revenues. That will never change.

Coach Dantonio was patient and methodical and comprehensive in his evaluations and assessments and in the alterations to the offense for 2013 based on the players that would make it happen. He stayed with his plan even when things were not quite going the way he would have preferred. And the end result? 12-1.

How can you argue with a record setting coach who is now preparing his team for the ROSE BOWL?

6. Michigan State has 18 seniors and will suffer significant losses on defense. Although the Spartans do return good players on defense, I think most analysts will assume a significant drop off in defensive production. Whatever that drop off might be, if there is one, discuss your thoughts on how the experienced offense might help out the defense in 2014. Will it? Can it? Will it be needed?

It is just plain silly to propose a Spartan defense drop off. Having watched 13 games this season and having seen 55 players go in the game against OSU I can say with total confidence that the pipelines are bursting with kids with the desire, the talent, the ability, the drive, and the will to play and win in all 3 phases of the game. Just like we can't get Swenson back or Edinger or Conry or even Muma back, there is always someone who will step up. Sadler was great and he replaced Bates who replace Fields. All three of those were great punters. We look forward now to whoever wins the spot for 2014.

There might be uplevellings by the opponents and certainly the games will be different, but there will not be a Spartan defense drop off. What's more, it is almost certain that the 2014 offense will be "worthy" of sharing the same field with the defense. The offense certainly earned their keep this season.

Why this question? I mean the preface about the defense dropping off and specifically the accurate assessment that media and analysts will spew forth more of this nonsense. When posed versus almost every other team it is answered with, "No probllem. They will just reload." These kinds of media questions and speculations only serve to malign MSU, to reinforce a conjurred mentality of not being able to stand with the best. This is just more of the M4 at their best.

Once again we have to remember the facts. We lost Ringer and Caulcrick; we lost Baker and Bell and Sims and Caper; we lost Jones and Worthy and a whole long list of excellent players and every year we are faced with the same derogatory comments that the Spartan team will just plummet back into mediocrity. 2012 was an anomaly, a transition year that was not well planned in 2011. That will not happen again under Coach Dantonio.

"It isn't over. It will never be over. It's just starting." 

And anyone who does not think 2014 will be as good or better is just a chUMp.

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