Now, sitting at 5-1 at the midway point after defeating Indiana this weekend, the Spartans are one game away from earning a bowl berth with the Big Ten’s last place team, Purdue (1-5 overall, 0-2 Big Ten), visiting Spartan Stadium this weekend.

After winning 14 consecutive games at Spartan Stadium prior to 2012, head coach Mark Dantonio said that despite a black eye from a season ago, MSU maintains its ability to win games on its home turf, which remains a point of pride for the program.

“I considered last year sort of an incident,” Dantonio said. “I don’t think we lost the games. I think we ran out of time more often than not. We didn’t lose our way. We didn’t lose our home?field advantage. Every time we came back to play, we were ready to play.”

Other than a 20-3 loss to Notre Dame, the Spartans lost four games at Spartan Stadium a season ago to Ohio State, Iowa, Nebraska and Northwestern, respectively, by an average of a little more than three points.

Dantonio called the Notre Dame game an “aberration,” noting that MSU has a tradition of winning games at home. Since Dantonio took over the program in 2007, the Spartans have accumulated a 36-12 record at Spartan Stadium, an impressive 75 percent winning ratio.

“We’ve always played very well at home; that’s been a tradition here,” he said. “We had a tough schedule and lost to an Ohio State team by one. Lost to Nebraska by four, and I think Northwestern by three, and Iowa in double overtime. So we lost four very close games.”

Looking for another home victory, the Spartans will host Purdue on Saturday at Spartan Stadium (noon, Big Ten Network).

Remember November

Closing in on the final month of the season, Dantonio expressed the need for the Spartans to play their best football down the stretch.

“We want to play our best football in November,” Dantonio said. “We don’t want to start to coast in October and hit November and start to play not as well.”

After opening the season with poor offensive showings in games against Western Michigan and South Florida, Dantonio said the team continues to mature on offense, which has been an effort led by sophomore quarterback Connor Cook.

Cook has thrown for 200 or more yards in three of the past four games, including 235 yards and two touchdowns in a win over the Hoosiers. Moving ahead, Cook said the Spartans need to stay “greedy” and look to take positive steps forward every week.

“(I’m) trying to not get complacent and get greedy (instead), not be satisfied where we’re at and continue to push and just build off our performance and improve every week,” Cook said.