MSU football coach Mark Dantonio walks on the field before the game against Oregon on Sept. 12, 2015 at Spartan Stadium. The Spartans defeated the Ducks 31-28. Joshua Abraham/The State News
—When MSU head coach Mark Dantonio was asked after the University of Michigan game on Saturday if he had a name for the final play, he said he would have to think about that one. But at Dantonio’s press conference on Tuesday, he said the name was set.
“I came up with Rangers. ‘Rangers: Mission 4:10,’” Dantonio said. “Works perfectly.”
The Spartans' punt coverage team is commonly called the "Rangers," so the nickname gets its origins from there.
Dantonio said the numbering of “4-1” comes from the coaching staff telling the players all week to be four times more mentally tough than they were physically tough.
“And inevitably, it was going to come down to a mental game,” Dantonio said. “They were going to make some plays. We were going have to handle adversity, we were going to have to handle the crowd, weather a storm or be the storm, one of the two. We were going to have to be able to do that.”
Dantonio said the “10” came in because, obviously, there were 10 seconds remaining during the last play, but also because he had the team sit on the bus for 10 extra seconds before the game.
“But it also comes in on the front end because we sat on that bus for 10 extra seconds because I wanted to make sure our players understood the size of this game, the bigness of this particular game, the impact it will have not only on them at that point in time but on their entire lives,” Dantonio said. “And so that's where the 4-10 comes in. That's where we're at.”
Dantonio concluded the initial question on the play’s name with a forward thinking statement.
“That's all I've got for you," he said. "We're on to Indiana.”
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