Jonathan Smith's mission for Michigan State football: Renew Mark Dantonio's consistency

A snowy afternoon greeted Michigan State football’s new head coach.

But before he arrived at Lansing’s Capital City Airport, Jonathan Smith delivered his first message to Spartan fans from the private jet carrying him to his new home.

Prepare for winter. For now. And believe that better days are coming soon.

“I'm not gonna sugar-coat, there's some work to do,” Smith said on a video posted to MSU football’s social media accounts while he was still in flight. “There is no doubt. We know that.”

So do Spartans fans and the rest of the Big Ten and college football worlds.

The 44-year-old left his alma mater, Oregon State in Corvallis, for East Lansing, with the hiring announced Saturday afternoon, hours after the Spartans season-ending loss to No. 10 Penn State in Detroit on Friday.`

The vision Smith began selling to players and fans is one of “a new era, a new opportunity.” One that, after the turmoil of the past three months, those stakeholders hope will more closely resemble the stability Mark Dantonio created over his 13 seasons in turning MSU into a perennial bowl team and Big Ten championship contender.

Searching for a 'Program win'

Four years ago, Dantonio directed his team to a win over Maryland in what no one realized then would be his last game as coach at Spartan Stadium. After that 19-16 victory, he handed out hats to his team for achieving a sixth win and bowl eligibility for the 12th time in his 13 seasons.

Stitched on the back were two words: “Program win.” Many scoffed at it in the moment. They felt it a silly gesture of settling for mediocrity from the man who drove MSU from a conference speedbump when he was hired in late 2006 to victory lane three times — with Big Ten titles in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

But like Tom Izzo’s NCAA tournament streak in basketball, Dantonio wanted to recognize the foundation and consistency he created in a football program that had not experienced sustained success since the 1960s. He showed the winning ways established by Duffy Daugherty — seemingly impossible to repeat in East Lansing for decades — could be achieved in the 21st century.

And in the final days of 2019, inside Yankee Stadium in New York following a Pinstripe Bowl victory over Wake Forest — ultimately his last of a school record 114 wins — Dantonio expounded on the reason he gave out those hats.

“I can say that the bar has been raised here immensely,” he said. “When you talk about, OK, we're a 7-6 football team, a lot of people are celebrating that as a tremendous accomplishment. To me, it's the basic minimum that you have to do. That's where this program has come in the last decade.”

How fast and far MSU fell from that moment made Spartan supporters antsy to reach that baseline again.

Dantonio’s abrupt retirement on Feb. 4, 2020, hastened MSU’s chase for his replacement. Eight days later, Mel Tucker landed the job after leading candidate Luke Fickell withdrew from consideration.

Then came the pandemic shutdown, followed by a 2-5 debut which included a promising upset win at Michigan in an otherwise rocky season. Tucker quickly gutted his roster after that season and rebuilt the program with a flood of transfers. One of them, running back Kenneth Walker III, almost singlehandedly ran the Spartans into Big Ten title contention and made Tucker the first MSU coach to beat U-M in his first two tries. As rumors spread of potential interest from other programs, donors scurried to fund a 10-year, $95 million extension for Tucker that did not include a buyout clause.

The Spartans finished 2021 with an 11-2 record and a top-10 finish in the polls, capped by a Peach Bowl win over Pitt on Dec. 30, 2021. It was the only bowl game in Tucker’s three-plus seasons. MSU went 5-7 last year and missed the postseason, and Tucker's alleged personal unraveling cost him his job two games into this season. Harlon Barnett took over on an interim basis, and the Spartans limped to a 4-8 finish and another postseason at home.

Which brings us to Sunday.

STOCK WATCH: A few players ended season with a flourish

'We couldn't be more excited'

The scene at the Lansing airport looked a lot like the early days of 2020. An athletic director greeting his new coach at the bottom of a jet staircase. Sparty and cheerleaders welcoming the hope for the football future. Yet the vibe was markedly different.

Instead of knowing MSU has been there and done that, Smith is tasked with showing he can mend a program wounded by Tucker. He doesn’t have the complete support of the Spartan faithful yet, particularly the ones who spent two months trying to will Urban Meyer-to-MSU into existence and feel dejected that athletic director Alan Haller settled, in their eyes, for a coach with an overall losing record over six seasons.

Except Smith, whose 34-35 mark at Oregon State includes 25 wins over the past three seasons, isn’t replacing Dantonio. He’s replacing an exceptionally flawed coach who went 10-9 after his October 2021 win over U-M — and his embarrassing downfall off the field.

“Hugely excited,” Smith told reporters moments after stepping off the plane, embracing Haller and walking through a tunnel of cheerleaders and band members. “This opportunity, the more and more I looked into it, I could not be more fired up. I think the fit of this place — for me, my family, diving into this community. Competing at the national level, in regards to I think this has a national brand near Michigan State. So we couldn't be more excited.”

Come noon Tuesday, Smith will walk into Breslin Center’s Gilbert Pavilion for his formal introduction to MSU and East Lansing. He planned to meet with players, talk with exiting coaches, and start the process toward his vision of what he believes the Spartans can achieve.

“I think where we're at in our career, the ages of my kids, again the national brand that is Michigan State, all of that was really intriguing to me,” he said. “Learning more and more about the community, the fan base, the alumni. I think the fit in regards to earning what we win, that got me excited. … I want to dive into it and learn about the place. And I'm anxious to do that.

“But we want to compete and win at the biggest level.”

A slow build

Smith knows it might not be right away. His first victories must be like the snowflakes that fluttered to the tarmac Sunday, blanketing the ground slowly in order to build a solid foundation.

Assembling a staff that can recruit an area in which he is an unknown coaching commodity will be critical. OregonLive.com reported five Oregon State assistants and at least three other support staff members will join Smith at MSU, but the school has not formally announced them and Smith said “nothing final on exacts” with those potential hires.

Getting current players to buy into his philosophy and stick with the new staff instead of transferring also will be a top priority, as will building grass-roots relationships in high schools around Michigan, Ohio and other neighboring states over the next month to find other prospects before the Dec. 20-22 early signing period. There'll also be re-recruiting already-committed high school prospects while reaching out to the six who have decommitted since Tucker was fired Sept. 27 to try and get them back in the mix.

Add to it winning over the fans who were begging for Meyer or another brand name, rather than perhaps the most common surname in American — for the second time in 20 years. And to show them that among Smiths, Jonathan C. — his middle name is Charles — is nothing like John L., whose ignominious tenure from 2003-06 gave way to Dantonio’s modern golden era of MSU football.

Dantonio, by the way, was 18-17 as a head coach at a mid-tier program (Cincinnati), when he took over at MSU. In other words, a near-.500 coach who had to win over fans as well.

By January, when the Spartans can begin offseason training, Smith hopes to have an avalanche of momentum going in those areas. Then his attention will turn to initiating and actualizing his program, first in spring workouts and then preseason camp.

When he finally takes the field at Spartan Stadium for the first time as head coach, on Aug. 31, 2024, against Florida Atlantic and (probably) Tom Herman, the snow long will have melted.

That’s when the heat gets real. And Smith will get his opportunity to show how far his work has progressed toward restablishing the program and consistency Tucker’s tenure tore apart.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

Subscribe to the "Spartan Speak" podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jonathan Smith must repeat Mark Dantonio's Michigan State football work