Is Mark Dantonio MSU’s Barry Alvarez?

A loss like last week’s loss against Notre Dame can bring on many feelings of pessimism.  It can make you wonder whether last year’s record of 11-2 was a fluke, whether MSU is going to collapse this year (especially if the O-line doesn’t come together), and whether Dantonio can ever get MSU to compete against elite teams.  This was supposed to be MSU’s best team, since…perhaps since the 60s.  And as I discussed in my review of the game a few days ago, they only looked good on defense. 

Well, let me provide some information that can help us develop some perspective, patience, and ultimately gratitude.  You see, when Dantonio was hired, the first thought that came to my mind was that this guy could win about 8 or 9 games a season and get MSU established as a solid football program.  I thought to myself, he’s not going to be Lou Holtz and come in here and win a national championship, but he could be the Barry Alvarez of MSU.

Barry Alvarez was, of course, Wisconsin’s head football coach from 1990 to 2005.  As we can see in the table below, he turned around a program that had been mediocre from 1970 to 1985, and that was a Big Ten bottom-feeder from 1986 to 1990.  Alvarez never became an “elite” coach; he didn’t win a national championship, and his record in the Big Ten was barely above .500.  But he was a solid coach that generally won the games he was supposed to win and he did also manage to win 3 Big Ten titles (1993, 1998, 1999) and go 8-3 in bowl games. 

Coach	Years	Total Record	Big Ten Record
John Jardine	1970–1977	37–47–3	25–38–1
Dave McClain	1978–1985	46–42–3	32–34–3
Jim Hilles	1986	3–9	2–6
Don Morton	1987–1989	6–27	3–21
Barry Alvarez	1990–2005	118–73–4	65–60–3
Bret Bielema	2006–Present	49–16	26–13

So you could say that Wisconsin was not “elite” under Alvarez, but perhaps his biggest accomplishment was that he more than adequately got the program rolling in the right direction, and then he handed the keys off to a guy who appears capable of taking that next step towards “eliteness”: Bret Bielema.  Bielema has clearly continued to improve Wisconsin to the point where they can now be considered a program that can legitimately be expected to compete for the national championship, almost every year.    

So, how does Dantonio compare with Alvarez?  Well, in the table below we can see that Dantonio has done for MSU what Alvarez did for Wisconsin.  Dantonio has taken a mediocre MSU program and turned it into a consistent program that can challenge for the Big Ten title.  Like Alvarez, however, Dantonio has not turned MSU into an elite program that can compete with other elite programs, such as Alabama and Notre Dame (this year’s Notre Dame, which looks to be the best Notre Dame team in a long time).  Dantonio has also not turned MSU into a deep enough team that can reload from year to year and that can overcome injuries in certain units (such as the O-line). 

Coach	Years	Total Record	Total %	Big Ten Record	Big Ten %
Clarence Munn	1947–1953	54–9–2	.846	5–1	.833
Duffy Daugherty	1954–1972	109–69–5	.609	72–50–3	.588
Denny Stolz	1973–1975	19–13–1	.591	14–9–1	.604
Darryl Rogers	1976–1979	24–18–2	.568	19–12–1	.609
Muddy Waters	1980–1982	10–23–0	.303	8–18–0	.308
George Perles	1983–1994	68–67–4	.504	53–42–2	.557
Nick Saban	1995–1999	35–24–1	.592	23–16–1	.589
Bobby Williams	2000–2002	15–17	.469	6–15	.286
Morris Watts	2002	1–2	.333	1–2	.333
John L. Smith	2003–2006	22–26	.458	12–20	.375
Mark Dantonio	2007–present	35–20	.636	20–12	.625

On the other hand, Dantonio’s record is considerably better than Alvarez’s at this point.  Dantonio’s total winning percentage is not overwhelmingly higher (.636 versus .606), but his record in the Big Ten is considerably higher (.625 versus .508).  This is why I (and many other Spartan fans) tend to get ahead of ourselves.  We want to believe that MSU is already where Wisconsin is under Bielema (.754 total winning percentage and .667 Big Ten winning percentage).  But that’s just not the case. 

The bottom line is that Spartan football fans have much to look forward to.  “At worst,” Dantonio is another Barry Alvarez, and he is building something that can be handed off to MSU’s version of Bielema.  Then the dilemma will be choosing the right person to hand the keys off to when the time comes.  At best, Dantonio may turn out to be Alvarez and Bielema all rolled into one.  Perhaps another 3 years and he could bring the program to elite status.