“We were a 6-6 football team and I certainly wasn’t happy with it, but nevertheless we went to a bowl game and competed well,” Dantonio said at his year-end press conference.. “In 2009 there was a lot of heartache along the way. There were some very close losses that we had an opportunity to win. When that happens, it’s tough on a football team, but we’re able to always come back. We were always able to be resilient.”

With the inconsistent 2009 season officially closed, Dantonio looked ahead to the 2010 season with great promise.

“I’m very, very excited about 2010,” Dantonio said. “It’s very optimistic, very exciting with Greg Jones coming back, with the pieces of the puzzle that we have coming back. We were an extremely young football team last year in certain positions that require experience, really, to be truly successful at a high, high level.”

Enos-less

Dantonio will have to deal with losing an assistant coach for the first time since he became the head man in East Lansing. Former MSU running backs coach Dan Enos was named the head coach of Central Michigan University on Tuesday.

“I think it’s an outstanding opportunity for him and his family, and not many people have the opportunity,” Dantonio said. “You work so long, so hard, throughout your entire lifetime as a football coach, and to become a head football coach is truly an accomplishment, and he’ll do an outstanding job there.”

Dantonio did not expect any of his staff to join Enos at Central Michigan, but doesn’t have a timetable for finding a replacement.

“I’ve always tried to slow it down a little bit, slow the game down a little bit,” Dantonio said. “Things start to roll up on you and I think it’s important now that we just step back and allow our recruiting to be the priority and allow the chemistry of our football team to be the priority.”

Aside from losing their running backs coach, the Spartans will lose perhaps their best recruiter. Enos was the team’s primary recruiter in Detroit and helped the Spartans land prized recruits, such as freshman running backs Larry Caper and Edwin Baker.

For the 2010 recruiting class, Enos had a hand in the recruitment of seven of MSU’s 17 verbal commitments, including Detroit Southeastern’s William Gholston, a five-star defensive end, according to recruiting Web site Rivals.com.

Dantonio said the majority of his staff has a presence in Detroit and doesn’t expect a letdown in the state’s most populous city.

“We’ll miss Dan’s expertise there in that area and the ability to find the guy that’s not being as highly recruited,” Dantonio said. “We’ll miss his ability to understand the overall infrastructure of every high school, not just the head football coach. But there’s a vast amount of people on our staff that have been in Detroit in the last three years, and (they) now (have) to step to the forefront.”

Out of town

Dantonio announced that the suspended players involved in the Nov. 22 assault at Rather Hall were allowed back into the program’s football facilities recently, but four of the 12 have decided to leave the program.

Sophomore running back Ashton Leggett will transfer to Illinois State, redshirt freshman defensive end Jamiihr Williams will transfer to Northeast Missouri Community College and redshirt freshman linebacker Brynden Trawick will transfer, although Dantonio did not say where.

Redshirt sophomore nose tackle Ishmyl Johnson is no longer on the team, but Dantonio would not specify why.

Seven of the involved players are scheduled to attend a pretrial conference at 10 a.m. Thursday in East Lansing’s 54-B District Court.