The mood was different this week when Mark Dantonio stepped up to the podium for his weekly press conference, following No. 12 MSU’s (7-2 overall, 4-1 Big Ten) 49-37 loss to No. 8 Ohio State (8-1 overall, 5-0 Big Ten).
Dantonio talked about the goals in front of his team following the loss, the play of sophomore cornerback Darian Hicks and the state of the program as a whole.
Tough game for Darian Hicks
There weren’t many bright spots on the defensive side of the ball for MSU, and one player who got exposed a lot was Hicks.
Dantonio said games such as this, following some shut-down performances from Hicks in earlier games, can be good for young players.
“Yeah, he had a difficult game,” he said. “But if he makes the decision and he grows from that, he’ll grow, he’ll be more competitive as he moves forward, and that’s what he’ll do. He’s a tough guy. He’ll survive.”
New goals?
There is still an outside chance that MSU could make it to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship Game. They would need Ohio State to lose twice and they would need to win the rest of their games.
As long as there is a chance, Dantonio said that is still their goal, because that would mean playing in a big bowl game on New Year’s Day.
“I think our goal remains to win a championship in the Big Ten conference,” he said. “That’s the standard, I think, we’re trying to set — to always be a football team that’s in the conversation.”
Dantonio said he watched the game film of the loss Monday again, something he said he doesn’t do often.
“I did that with the (Big Ten) championship game we lost to Wisconsin (in 2011),” he said. “There’ve always been big disappointments.”
State of the program
Dantonio said there is still plenty to play for, but said the perception of MSU is still a work in progress for his staff and players.
“I don’t ever want to start the season by saying ‘I hope we’re 7-2’,” he said. “I don’t know if you ever arrive. We were 7-1 last week at this time and I didn’t feel like we had arrived. We were still pushing, but I know we had a great opportunity and we let that opportunity slip by us.”
Dantonio said part of building a program is understanding that just because one opportunity passes, it doesn’t mean others don’t become available.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have another opportunity this year,” he said. “It just means that that opportunity went by us and we’ve got to create another one for ourselves.”
One thing Dantonio did like was the way his team didn’t stop competing even when the score got a little lopsided.
“That’s what you ask your players to do, and they did that,” he said. “So that ultimately doesn’t mean you’re going to lose or win, but they did that, and that’s the first question you have to ask yourself.”
