When Mark Dantonio was introduced as MSU's head football coach Nov. 27, he used the word "toughness" five times in a matter of minutes when describing his philosophy. He then added that football is "a tough game," being a coach is "a tough job" and leaving behind Cincinnati made it "a tough day."

So, we knew this much about Dantonio within an hour of meeting him: He's pro-toughness.

But what does that word mean, anyway? It's ambiguous, unquantifiable, even cryptic — yet athletes and coaches throw it around as if it's a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

While many lauded Dantonio's comments as a sign that he was the hard-nosed coach needed to turn the program around, I found myself unable to escape a feeling of skepticism. It all felt too much like a PR campaign — he was saying the right things, but I had little reason to believe them after watching the program suffer through the last four years. As Champ Kind told Ron Burgundy, "The hurt was so deep. … I don't know if I can go through that again."

Flash forward five months to last week's practice, which I attended in hopes of seeing whether anything's actually different under the new guard. (Quick disclosure: I've been monitoring the basketball team much more closely than the football team the past few months, so I hardly consider myself the foremost authority on its progress.

I have not talked to Dantonio since he was introduced, nor can I provide an accurate comparison of this year's practice demeanor to last year's, as I have never covered the team as a full-time beat reporter.

I am admittedly writing this column more as a fan than a journalist.)

I knew I had to take everything I heard with a grain of salt.

Few places bubble with optimism like spring football practice — the mistakes of last season are forgotten, the mistakes of next season are, too far off to worry about.

Baghdad Bob would have done great here.

With that in mind, I wanted to see some tangible proof that things had really changed.

I wanted to see everyone running around in Rambo attire, screaming in unison, "Strike first, strike hard, no mercy, sir!"

What I soon realized was that, like mending a relationship or improving your diet, it takes a lot of little choices in a football team to add up to a big change.

The defensive backs are jamming opposing wide receivers at the line, a 180-degree turn in aggressiveness from the tell-us-if-we're-in-your way zone they played last season.

"We want to get in their face," sophomore defensive back Kendell Davis-Clark said.

The linebackers are off their leashes, getting implored by the coaching staff to become the playmakers of the unit.

"Before, we were more of a gap-contain defense," senior linebacker Kaleb Thornhill said. "Now, it's downhill — don't just control your gap, run through it and make a play.

That's a huge difference in philosophy."

The offense has become more traditional, using fullbacks and tight ends to open up the run instead of multiple wide receivers to open up the pass.

"Run blocking's a lot more fun for an offensive lineman," senior tackle Pete Clifford said.

Players talked of more intense offseason conditioning, of Friday afternoons spent wrestling with their teammates, of coaches not afraid to pull them aside in practice and say, "Hey, you were a little soft on that play."

"It's like an epidemic — one person sees it, and they feed off it," Davis-Clark said.

Maybe it's all just more talk, carefully crafted to keep us drinking the MSU Kool-Aid until the fall.

Or maybe things have really changed, and a team that seemed resigned to defeat before the game even started last season is on its way back to respectability.

We'll have to wait and see. Right now, it's too tough to call.

We'll see how things are come September.

Tom Keller can be reached at kellert1@msu.edu.