The smoke from the Smith regime had cleared, and it was safe to breathe.

It wasn’t tough for Dantonio to rise to the level of local hero before he even coached a game at MSU considering the gator-booted villain was finally gone, possibly retreating to a mountaintop home somewhere in Nepal. But for all this talk about a completely new atmosphere and philosophy at Spartan Stadium, nobody has seen the results.

That’s something the Spartans can’t wait to change.

“I think everyone’s – I don’t want to say more excited because you’re always excited for the first game – but with this new opportunity, the new coaching staff, the new schemes, all that stuff, I think it gives you a little more incentive and a little more pumped up,” junior quarterback Brian Hoyer said. “So, as a team and as a player on the team, everyone’s excited.”

After the heartbreaking losses last season to Notre Dame and Illinois, the penalties that came so frequently (the Spartans probably should have just started every series at first down and 15), a rash of injuries and other players not performing to their potential, Dantonio has seen a positive glimmer in his players’ eyes.

“I feel a sense of resolve from our players,” Dantonio said.

“What’s happened in the past is a direct result of injuries, players not performing to their abilities and other situations. Anytime you have those situations, you’re anxious to go back and try and make things right. I think our players will really try to do that, they’ll come out very emotional.”

Ringer remembers last year all too well, even though he tries not to. The then-sophomore running back was having a career year until he had a near season-ending injury in September. He then underwent intensive rehabilitation and eventually made it back onto the field but wasn’t quite at full speed.

What might have been most painful for Ringer, though, was watching his team’s season unravel while he was rendered useless on the sidelines. It’s the memory of what went wrong that has Ringer and his teammates fueled to set the Big Ten on fire.

“We need to stop messing up on the little things from last – I don’t want to keep referring to last year, but it’s something that we’ve forgotten about but also still remember so that we can know that we need to fix it,” he said.

Ringer is anxious to test his healthy knee against new competition. After months of hitting each other during spring and summer camp, it’s only natural that the team wants to bolt through the tunnel and into the cacophonous roar emanating from the fans.

There might be one problem to that storybook image — the fans will surely be there, but to what extent is unknown.

MSU last reached a bowl game in 2003, when it lost 17-3 to Nebraska in the Alamo Bowl. Since then, the Spartan faithful have endured collapse after collapse under Smith. As a result, the fan base’s confidence has taken a hit.

Dantonio knows.

He is just as eager to go out there and show his brainchild off to the world as he is to hear the student section chanting the fight song in perfect unison.

“It seems as if since coming here that, for whatever reason, Michigan State has been going down a slope,” Dantonio said. “We need to change that. We need to build belief back from our fans and we can talk about that all we want but it’s got to show up on Saturday.”

Hoyer would like to forget the sights and sounds he encountered last year against Ohio State. By the time Hoyer entered the game after halftime, Spartan Stadium looked more like a sea of red Kool-Aid than the green and white he had anticipated.

And when Ohio State scored? Eruption. Explosion.

Hoyer wasn’t in East Lansing anymore.

“Toward the end, you could hear the Ohio State fans more than the others,” Hoyer said. “It hurt to see that we had lost those people’s respect.”

The players don’t underestimate how much the fans have suffered. It seems the players almost feel guilty for not delivering.

The last thing this new chapter in MSU football wants to do is start off with disappointment. To prevent that, they need to honor their fans with success.

“You never want to hear your home fans boo you, but I know we haven’t been too satisfying for them anyway,” Ringer said. “But they help support us; they’re always there.”

The field and the fans’ hearts are there for the taking.

The Spartans are ready for both.