Just put down the pitchfork and hear me out.
Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio made headlines Tuesday when he told gathered media at his weekly press conference that he plans on returning to coach Michigan State in 2020.
The “news” was met with a few reactions. Some fans were angered by it, wanting Dantonio to retire and/or get fired. Some fans welcomed the news, glad for a little clarity on his future. Many fans thought, “What the hell else is Dantonio going to say?”
While group three makes the salient point–really, Dantonio is going to announce his retirement two weeks short of the end of the season?–the first two groups are clearly in conflict with one another. I wanted to see just where fans stand on this, so I ran a Twitter poll–which is obviously unscientific–just to take the temperature of the room, so to speak.
That’s a lot of votes and a lot of people who want Dantonio to retire and/or get fired. Now, it’s not the majority, but it’s close.
I’m writing this to talk to that group of people. Or perhaps I’m writing this for the other group of people to use as evidence when talking with the crowd that wants Dantonio gone.
Let’s start here: Mark Dantonio has not done a good enough job the last four years to justify keeping his job.
WHOAAAAAAHAAoooaOOOH
“Wil, I thought you were going to tell us why Dantonio should stay?! What are you doing saying that off the jump?!”
Well, astute reader, he just hasn’t. Yes, it’s an opinion, but it’s one based on a lot of facts. Facts like the .500 record overall and the losing record in the Big Ten since 2016. I would also cite the drop off in recruiting, the lack of talent development, the unwillingness to fire his friends and on and on.
That stuff is all true and because it is true, it makes what I’m saying that much more so. Despite all of that, Mark Dantonio returning to coach Michigan State in 2020 is still the right path forward for the long term health of the program.
It’s a simple logic trail that gets us to that answer and it all boils down to one question: Who would you rather have in charge of the MSU football program, Mark Dantonio or Bill Beekman?
First a primer. Who is Bill Beekman?
Bill Beekman is Michigan State’s current athletic director. He was appointed as the interim-AD as part of the fallout of the Larry Nassar scandal then hired to the job full time. Both the appointment and the hiring were done by then interim-president John Engler. Engler has since departed the university after spending his entire tenure further embarrassing the school. Dr. Samuel Stanley was hired as the new president of the university at the end of May 2019 and officially took over the job on August 1.
Prior to being named AD Beekman was vice president and secretary of the Board of Trustees, a position he held since 2008. Before that he held other administrative and executive positions around the school, but never worked in athletics.
Why does all of this matter? For starters there is a feeling that President Stanley might want to hire his own athletic director. He’s only been on the job a few months, so we can’t blame him for not having that squared away yet. Beekman has a provision in his contract that guarantees him a demoted position within the athletic department should Stanley decided to replace him. Coming out of a scandal the size of the Larry Nassar abuse case it would make sense that a new university president would want to bring in some new voices. Second, Beekman, having never worked in an athletic department, would be the primary person responsible for hiring Mark Dantonio’s replacement should Dantonio retire at season’s end.
I don’t know Bill Beekman. He hasn’t been much of a public face since his hiring. I do know a couple of things: Replacing Mark Dantonio, the head of the biggest program in an athletic department with more than $145 million in revenue, the most winningest football coach in school history, a legitimate legend at Michigan State, should not be the first big moment of whomever is doing the hiring. Beekman has no professional history that suggests he’s up to that challenge. Would you make someone completely foreign to your industry responsible for hiring one of the most important jobs in said industry? Would a school like Ohio State ever do that? The answer is no. Their AD, Gene Smith, was AD at Arizona State, Iowa State and Eastern Michigan for 19 years before taking the Ohio State job. How about Penn State? No, again. Sandy Barbour was the AD at Cal for a decade before going to Happy Valley and before that she was Deputy AD at Notre Dame. Go ask Michigan fans how Dave Brandon worked out for them.
As we’ve seen all over college football, hiring coaches is a massive deal financially. Do it wrong and you’re looking at tens of millions of dollars out the door. Notre Dame paid Charlie Weis $19 million over six years after firing him. Willie Taggert is going to get $20 million from Florida State (thanks to boosters) after the school fired him. Hirings of this magnitude should be made by people who have been involved in the process or made big decisions like this before.
The other thing I know is that John Engler should never have had the authority to hire a janitor, let alone the athletic director. Engler was a governor-appointed interim president that did everything in his power to make Michigan State look bad during his time at the school. In a time of crisis, when MSU needed strong leadership at the highest spots, Engler delivered the exact opposite. It’s a damn shame the current athletic director was hired by him. That’s not even taking into account Beekman’s obviously close ties with the Board of Trustees. It is a common misunderstanding that nepotism extends only to family members. It doesn’t. Beekman’s literal proximity to people in power at the university is, at the very least, part of the reason he was appointed and then hired. That’s nepotism. If it wasn’t part of the reason he was hired, then Engler was incompetent in hiring a person with zero athletic department experience to head up one of the biggest and most valuable athletic departments in the country.
So where does that leave us? Not in a good spot, that’s for sure.
Michigan State currently has: A stumbling football program lead by a coach half of the fan base wants out and an athletic director who is under qualified for his job that was hired during the fallout of one of the biggest sexual abuse scandals the history of college sports.
If Mark Dantonio goes right now, I’m not sure the long-term outlook of replacing him is a good one.
On the other side of the coin we have Dantonio himself. Due to a myriad of factors, Michigan State football looks a lot like it did when Dantonio took over; stuck in the mud with no clear positives in the future. The blame for much of this can and should be set at the feet of Dantonio. Nepotism (there’s that word again) has led to assistants being retained long beyond their value which has led to a significant decrease in success on the field. We don’t have to rehash all of that, but it is so.
So what is the benefit of him staying around? Stability.
Right now, for the many reasons noted prior, Michigan State football is not in a good place. The exit of the winningest coach in school history might just send the program further into chaos considering the circumstances in the athletic department. It’s not hard to imagine Dantonio leaving, Beekman hiring a replacement that doesn’t work out, which prolongs the losing of games on the field, which then in turn drives down revenue and costs the school money in the form of an expensive buyout. Five years down the line Michigan State football could be in the exact same spot–or worse–in terms of product and could have just flushed tens of millions of dollars and any national cache down the toilet.
Hiring a football coach at a university like Michigan State is never a given. Hiring a football coach at a university like Michigan State under these circumstances feels like a given to fail.
Then what is the best case scenario? How should the program proceed?
Dantonio stays and finally makes legitimate personnel changes within the program. There are maybe a couple of assistants that should be considered safe. He finally accepts that evolution is necessary for the program to climb back to the heights of the early 2010’s.
Coupled with that, the university goes through a legitimate process and hires the athletic director to take the department into the future. It is incredibly important to every aspect of the school that athletics is functioning at a high rate. Athletic director is an incredibly important hire. It should be treated as such, not as a gig you toss to that guy who has just always been around. With a fully functioning athletic department headed up by a proper director, then the evaluation on Dantonio can take place.
What that would leave us with is Dantonio getting one final shot with some actual–and very necessary–accountability. If it works, if Dantonio hires new assistants that help him turn the program back around, great. One last Dantonio run would be very welcomed in East Lansing so long as he’s up for it. And it really could work. Dantonio is still a capable leader and face of a program. Think of him like a more coherent Ed Orgeron. A tone setter. An identity establisher. He can be that at the very least. Maybe he isn’t a great game-day coach, but you know what? (lean in so I can whisper this to you) Dantonio has never been a strategically great game-day coach. It’s easy to overlook bad decisions when the team is winning.
If it doesn’t work, Dantonio leaves at the end of the 2020 season and a real search for a very important replacement takes place. A search with a much higher chance of success than if it were to happen right now.
It may not be what everyone wants or what some of the loudest voices are clamoring for, but unfortunate for them–and all of us, really–Michigan State just isn’t in a place to go through a massive coaching search. It’s a shame that gross incompetence and nepotism have led us down this path, but it’s the path we’re all on together.
Sometimes the way back up is by first going further down. Sometimes you have to go into the crevasse.
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