As much as MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio may want to move past it, the fact that 12 players have been suspended from the Valero Alamo Bowl and two others have been removed from the team is something that will follow the Spartans to San Antonio.
“A lot of times, you look at a football team and I think it directly correlates with what happens in society sometimes,” Dantonio said. “Any time that you’re put up against a wall or in a corner a little bit, I think it’s human nature that you get yourself ready to go and you come out and get ready to play, or you get ready to respond in the workforce, or you get yourself up in the morning and put on a tie or do whatever you have to do to get yourself ready to go. That’s the kind of resolve that we will have with this.”
Dantonio said he didn’t anticipate any more players being suspended, though he added, “but you never know.”
“If you have to, you have to. We’ll do what’s right,” he said. “The tough thing is you don’t want to take a redshirt off somebody right now and play them in one game, because we have some young men who can play and play very, very well for us who are freshmen right now. But you don’t want to do that and we won’t do that.”
Dantonio expressed sadness in reference to the dismissals of sophomore running back Glenn Winston and junior safety Roderick Jenrette from the team.
“I think for the most part, from my dealings with young people for over 30 years and people in general for over 53 years, I think that there are very few people who are truly bad people out there – very, very few,” Dantonio said. “I think what we have are people who make bad choices, and as I’ve said many, many times, a choice can impact a person for a lifetime, and that’s the sad thing and that’s a tragic thing when you look at a person or any individual who has the opportunity to play in this environment.”
Even without the 14 players, Dantonio said that the team will be focused and ready to play once the ball is kicked off on Jan. 2.
“Human nature says that you have a challenge ahead of you, and you can either shrink back to that nature or you can stand up to it,” he said. “We have some strong leaders on our team. They need to get ready to play, they need to impact other people, but from what I’ve seen in practices, we’ll be ready to go. Game day is coming. The clock is ticking.”
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