STARK: Does Dantonio have a point?

Published 1:18 am Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio has his team 11-1, in the Big Ten title game and on the verge of its first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1988.

That’s a great season on the football field in East Lansing, a town known more for its product on the basketball court.

But that being said, Dantonio believes the Spartans would deserve a spot in the BCS championship game with a win this weekend over No. 2 Ohio State. There’s just one problem: Michigan State is currently No. 10 in the BCS standings and would have to make a giant leap to get there.

“The fact of the matter is we’re 11-1 right now, we’re playing in a championship environment,” Dantonio said in an online report. “Don’t limit yourself. Dream big. That’s what I tell my football team.”

BCS critics would probably contend that Michigan State should be just as deserving as any one-loss team, even though the once-mighty Big Ten is notably weak these days. The one-loss teams currently ahead of the Spartans are No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Missouri, No. 6 Oklahoma State and No. 9 Baylor.

Even next season, when the four-team playoff debuts in NCAA Division I football, that’s a lot of fan bases that might be bitter at the end. No matter the system, coaches such as Dantonio will have to continue making arguments for their teams once the calendar moves to December and conference championship time.

Consider, for instance (given this season’s rankings), No. 1 Florida State beats Duke in the ACC championship game and Ohio State places the mute button on Dantonio and takes care of business in the Big Ten. That would leave the winner of the SEC title game between Auburn and Missouri, along with two-time defending national champion Alabama, as the other semifinalists.

That, in turn, would leave one-loss Oklahoma State and one-loss Baylor out of a four-team playoff equation and left wondering how they would’ve fared in a four-team playoff. On paper, the only thing the playoff is going to do better than the BCS is leave two less programs feeling slighted.

That’s one reason I somewhat can’t understand when people get excited about the upcoming demise of the BCS and the upcoming beginning of the four-team playoff —- as if college football is going to all the sudden have a postseason structure similar to its basketball counterpart.

Not only that, but such moments as the game-winning field goal return by Auburn’s Chris Davis last week against Alabama would be less important, in the end —- even next season. The Crimson Tide wouldn’t seemingly be on the outside looking in on the national title picture; instead, Nick Saban’s team would be the beneficiaries of a late-season wakeup and considered favorites entering the four-team playoff.

That gets us back to Michigan State.

College football’s system allows programs such as Michigan State to promote themselves as national contenders without a shot to prove themselves as national contenders. What we’re supposed to forget is that the Spartans lost to a mediocre Notre Dame team in September and have produced underwhelming wins throughout their eight-game winning streak.

But that being said, the Spartans finished 8-0 in the Big Ten for the first time in school history and became the conference’s first team to win all its conference games by double figures since 1943 (Michigan). So Dantonio does have a point.

Unless college football decides that the postseason should be more important than the regular season and produces a playoff that includes powers and upstarts alike, coaches will be left making cases like Dantonio’s. Problem is, his argument might not even be strong enough for the semifinals next season.