43 years of the same ole Spartans.

Many MSU fans repeatedly mention how the Spartans are a perennial .500 team when in their opinion should be much better. What are your reasons for believing that MSU is somehow above or on par with programs? Until the recent renovations of Spartan Stadium, this facility has been relatively ignored for the last fifty plus years. Besides changing from grass to artificial turf and back to grass, and removing the first several rows, the stadium has remained unchanged.

MSU built the Duffy Daugherty Building and finally had a training facility more representative of a large institution, compared to the antiquated weight room the players were forced to use at the stadium. It has been a quarter of a century since this facility opened, and very little has changed or been updated. Many of the other programs in the conference have not only built similar facilities in that time span, they have either updated or upgraded them their opening.

I am entering my forty-third season of following the Spartans, and have shared the ups and downs of this program. The biggest loss to the Spartan program to me was when John Hannah stepped down as university president. The program lost its most ardent supporter at a critical point in history. College sports would boom in the 1970’s and MSU did absolutely nothing to establish itself. This program fell from the ranks of the elite to an also-ran in a few short years.

The malaise that has been the Spartan program can be attributed to many things, poor coaching, probation, not keeping up with the times. Here is my evaluation of the eight coaches and the programs they ran during my forty-two years.

Duffy Daugherty:
When I started to follow the Spartans in 1964, MSU finished the season with a record of 4-5. I am sure the DE’s would have been calling for Duffy’s head because of his poor showing. The one thing I came to learn from my father (former college and semi-pro player, and in my mind a very astute football analyst) that year was that MSU was a very young team. The Spartans had lost a good many veteran players from the 1963 team, and Duffy was playing a bunch of inexperienced players by the name of Smith, Webster, Washington, Jones, Goovert, etc. Most of these guys were either first year sophomore players (freshman players were not eligible to play on the varsity), or juniors with limited experience. These guys made their share of mistakes, but you could sense that this group would mature. The 1965 and 66 teams were laden with talented upperclassmen with experience. Those two years were something special.

One knock I have against Duffy was it was either all or nothing for him. His model was always the same, take a group of players and work with them all the way through until they graduated and then start over. Duffy was most successful when he had a starting twenty-two who were upperclassmen. This routinely meant that there would be a sub .500 year or two before a break out year. I don’t know if it was the attitude back then, but there was little emphasis placed on depth and development. Part of the reason could be due to segregation, as many of the better black athletes from the south came north to play. When many of the southern programs began to allow blacks on their teams, Duffy no longer had a recruiting pipeline.

The last two years of the Duffy era should have been his swan song. The 1971 and 72 teams had numerous NFL caliber players on the team. Like before, these teams had a strong starting twenty-two who were experienced and talented, but very little in the way of depth. One or two injuries to the starting group at critical positions resulted in these teams from achieving their full potential. Duffy didn’t leave the cupboard bare for Denny, but most of what he had was unproven.

Duffy was an elite level coach when he had talent, but after the 1966 season he ignored the winds of change in society and college football, and he became very average.

Denny Stoltz:
Say what you want about Denny Stoltz, but if it wasn’t for being put on probation, he would have had a long and distinguished career at MSU. He was one of the new breed of coaches that understood the need to not only stockpile talent, but to rotate players into games to give them experience and the starters a breather. His 1974 and 75 teams won seven games, and he was beginning to develop the program depth that concerned Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.
Stoltz was a strong recruiter and MSU wasn’t that far removed from its glory days of the mid-sixties that recruits were unfamiliar with its history.

The player scandals that lead to the program eventually being put on probation, and the subsequent penalties ruined the program. Stoltz had made inroads that upset Woody Hayes, and he feared MSU would return to power. Hayes wielded his influence in making sure MSU received an extremely harsh sentence by the NCAA. The last thing Woody wanted was more competition, and Stoltz had gained a toehold that Woody wanted undone.

Stoltz was an up and coming coach. He was building the foundation that would have allowed MSU to probably maintain a top-three level in the conference.

Darryl Rogers:
If there was any doubt that Rogers was an offensive minded coach, consider the fact that he had six or seven scholarship players who were recruited as QB’s.

Rogers was sort of a carpet bagger. He had never truly built a program, and he had limited recruiting experience outside of California. His recruiting was abysmal. Part of his recruiting woes were due to the label placed on MSU for being on probation, but a large part was that he just wasn’t very good at it.

His two most successful years 1977 & 78 were teams filled with Stoltz’s recruits who were now in their junior and senior seasons. The poor recruiting had al but wiped away the foundation that Stoltz had constructed. When Rogers bolted for ASU after the 1979 season he left little in the way of talent, and depth could best be described as marginal D1 talent.

Muddy Waters:
Nice guy, who was placed in a situation that he, was not equipped to handle. He may have been a successful DII or DIII coach (Whatever GVSU is), but he was lost when it came to performing all the other aspects outside of coaching. If it wasn’t for Coach Joe Pendry, I doubt MSU would have won any games under Waters. I don’t want to say the players disrespected Muddy Waters, but they knew he was a pushover and they used that against him.

Waters leaves the program with less talent than when he started, with many of the roster filled in with marginal MAC level talent.

George Perles:
As a Duffy prodigy he used the same method of taking a group of underclassmen and developing them to where they would be successful as juniors and seniors. His NFL connections helped him land some very good talent, but his lackadaisical attitude about OOC games was irritating. He considered them to be unimportant (except for Notre Dame), and it resulted in him having a 13-20-1 record. I can remember Perles being upset with his Rose Bowl teams #8 ranking, because he failed to realize that the pollsters took into account all games and not just the one George believed were the most important (read Big Ten).

He would eventually build sufficient depth that allowed him to have a successful run for three or four years, but his continued power struggle with the university and flirtation with the NFL resulted in his eventual collapse. The program was in shambles when he left, with the inmates running the institution.

Nick Saban:
Many here worship the ground that Saban walked upon. I too was a huge Saban supporter, especially for his dedication to conditioning. He like Stoltz understood that he need to build a foundation that would allow for continual, repeatable success.

As good as a coach as he was/is, he had several flaws that would hurt the program. He was a heck of a recruiter, but at times he went for the high risk athlete. Some of them made it; some of them didn’t, and for those who didn’t it severely hindered his goal of building a foundation. Another flaw he had was burning redshirts of his true freshmen players. Saban was a very good judge of talent and realized that MSU was nowhere near the talent level to compete on a yearly basis with UM, OSU, PSU. Many times his true freshmen recruits were better than the veterans, but in his drive to win quickly he sacrificed a year of eligibility and further delayed building a solid foundation.

His biggest flaw was his repeated flirtation with the NFL. Instead of squelching rumors when his named was being mentioned for an NFL opening he would take his time before he eventually said no. For all of you who believe that MSU should have thrown more money at Nick to stay when he jumped to LSU, you were mistaken regarding his motive. Saban was a good NFL assistant coach, and he wanted to return to the big leagues as a head coach. He wasn’t going to jump at just any opening it would have to be one where he would have total control of the operations. He also knew that having a National Championship on his resume would add additional clout. LSU afforded him that opportunity, and when the Dolphins came calling he had placed himself in the catbirds seat. I don’t blame Saban for wanting an NFL gig, nor do I despise him for leaving MSU. He manipulated the system to allow him the best opportunity to achieve his goal.

He was definitely one of the better coaches that MSU has had over the last forty-two years. When he had a solid level of first team talent he won, but even his 1999 team got embarrassed at Wisconsin and Purdue. He also had mental lapses against Northwestern, Purdue in 1997 and 98.

Bobby Williams:
The only thing I came remember about Williams is the strained expression on his face as if he was continually constipated. He and Frank Waters would have to go down as two of the most misguided coaching selections at MSU. Williams was in over his head from the get go. He wanted to be a players coach and have everyone like him, he opposite of Saban.

He had no clue on how to maintain, let alone build a foundation for a program. Even though he is credited with the 2000 recruiting class, much of the ground work was laid by Saban. Several of the assistants were instrumental in keeping some of the better players committed to MSU.
Upon his firing MSU was without any discipline, accountability, and most regrettably firm foundation.

John L Smith:
I can still remember what JLS said after being introduced as MSU’s next head coach. It was something to the effect that his reason for being hired was due to problems with the football program. I shudder to think what would have happened to him if Smoker was unable to return. Can anyone imagine how the season would have looked with Damon Dowdell or possibly true freshman, Sean Clayton under center the entire season? Going 8-5 in his first year was a testament to his ability to coach. MSU was rarely the most talented team (wins against Iowa and Minnesota most surprising), but he was able to scheme and get some breaks that helped MSU hold on to games they should have lost.

Smith’s 2003 team had many of the players from the 2000 recruiting class that were talented, but needed the guidance that was lacking under Williams.

The loss to LA Tech has been a rallying point for many of those who want JLS fired, but what it showed was MSU’s overall lack of talent in regards to depth. After Jeff Smoker got injured Smith had a choice to either play a redshirt freshman with little grasp of the offense, or a fourth year junior with some playing time. Looking back it probably would have been better to have inserted Stanton. He would have at least followed the directives of the coaching staff. In the end the starters on defense tired from having spent most of the second half on the field. There literally were no viable substitutes to spell the starters because the quality in the depth players was so abysmal.

2004 and 2005 continued to expose MSU’s lack of depth. The late game and late season fades were not surprising. I don’t know how many people expect 22 players to carry the weight of an entire season without eventually wearing down. The other problem is that some of these starters weren’t very good to begin with, but they were the best MSU had to offer.

Smith is proving he is a capable recruiter as witnessed by his 2004, 2005 and 2006 recruiting classes. He also has verbal commitments from some highly regarded players for 2007. He also has a proven track record of developing talent and turning around programs. JLS has taken the path of building a foundation that will stabilize MSU, and allow the program to maintain a continued high level of performance. As one very successful college coach said, "The better talent I recruit, the better coach I become."

I make no excuse for being a John L Smith supporter. His personal goal is to win a National Championship, and in order to do it will take laying the proper foundation that is conducive to bring about that goal. Maybe I am just a foolish old man, but after forty-two years of seeing the good and the bad that has been the Spartan football program, I can see the positive strides Mason, Smith and the Athletic Department are making to return MSU to a prominent position in the college football world.