Mark Dantonio
Mark Dantonio
Mark Justin Dantoniois an American football coach and former player. He is the current head football coach at Michigan State University, a position he has held since the 2007 season, presiding over one of the most successful eras in the program's history. He's led the Michigan State Spartans to three Big Ten Conference championships, and seven victories over archrival Michigan in eight years. In 2013, he coached Michigan State to its first 13-win season and the program's fifth trip to...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth9 March 1956
CityEl Paso, TX
I asked him about that. They wanted to make the commitment to play one or the other. I brought up the basketball issue, but there was no interest in doing that. Right now, from an academic point of view, he needs to concentrate on one sport.
I'm not going to walk out of here with my head down. I'm not looking for moral victories. I'm just looking for guys who will play with toughness and will compete and I think we did that. Maybe (Penn State) thought we were going to go in the bag, but I was going to keep playing.
I think he can be a dominant player up the middle for us.
He's a better kicker than he showed last year. He's had an outstanding spring. He's been very, very consistent throughout the spring.
It's an extremely great class for us. This year's class builds on our previous two and has established a foundation for us to build championships.
Chet did a nice job. He had a couple of real nice punts. He'll go into this game as the punter. But we're always going to hold people to a standard as we move through this.
Nick Davila had a good day yesterday. He's another guy that's got game experience. Tony Pike for the first time since he's been here has made gains in winter conditioning and feels more confident as a player. He's a Cincinnati guy and he's got a lot of talent.
We couldn't put him out there vs. their wide receivers limping. He tried to go, but he just could not go. He will be back.
We are pretty banged up in some areas on our team, but our attitude was outstanding this spring, and we look forward to the 2006 season.
We actually don't feel any pressure. I mean, we see what they are going through, but it hasn't changed our mindset. We have to be successful for us, period. Other programs' success or failure does not add to the pressure we put on ourselves.
We would not take a guy at this late date if he couldn't help us. When you watch him on film, he looks like (an impact player). He catches the ball very well over the middle. We hope he is that type of player. You never know until they get here, but he was one of the top players in the Pittsburgh area last year.