Mark Dantonio — as he steps down from Michigan State and calls it a career as a head football coach — owns some achievements Wisconsin doesn’t have, chiefly a College Football Playoff berth.
He owns an achievement Bret Bielema never gained: a Rose Bowl win.
He has done something no Wisconsin coach has done: beat Ohio State in a Big Ten Championship Game.
Give Dantonio this as he rides into the sunset: His mountaintop moments, his best moments, have been better than Wisconsin’s best moments over the past 10 years. That is what he will cherish for the rest of his days as he moves into retirement.
However, there is another dimension to Dantonio’s career, as impressive as it was: It didn’t last as long as the more durable and enduring reign of Wisconsin, and its worst moments were worse than the Badgers’ lowest points over the past 13 seasons in which Dantonio coached in East Lansing, since 2007.
Wisconsin never bottomed out at 3-9 the way Michigan State and Dantonio did in 2016. Wisconsin, during the Dantonio era, never had a single losing season. Dantonio had two — the 2016 debacle and a 6-7 season in 2009. Wisconsin, in the Dantonio era, had one seven-win season, in 2008. Dantonio had four.
Wisconsin, in these past 13 years in which the Badgers competed against Mark Dantonio, won at least eight games 12 times. Dantonio won at least eight games in only seven of his 13 seasons, barely a majority.
Most of all: Wisconsin is still going strong! The Badgers just won the Big Ten West and made the Rose Bowl. Michigan State went 6-6 in the regular season and had to eke out a win over Wake Forest in the Pinstripe Bowl to finish 7-6. Michigan State has failed to win at least eight games in three of its last four seasons. Wisconsin has won at least eight games in each of the past 11 seasons and won at least 10 games in five of the last six seasons.
Yes, Mark Dantonio made the College Football Playoff and beat Urban Meyer in the Big Ten Championship Game. He beat Stanford in the 2014 Rose Bowl. When he was great, he was awesome. Give him that.
Wisconsin, however, has been far more consistent, far more reliable, and far more durable… and the Badgers are definitely going to be better in 2020.
Mark Dantonio won’t care about Wisconsin as he moves into retirement, but Wisconsin did outlast him… under three different head coaches.
Not too shabby, Badgers. Not too shabby at all.