Mark Dantonio has been coaching his Michigan State team from the press box for the past few weeks after suffering a heart attack following the Week 3 win against Notre Dame.

With Dantonio in the box (or not even there in two instances), the Spartans were 4-0, and looking like a legitimate Big Ten title contender. But now, with Dantonio back on the field, the Spartans are in a world of hurt early against Northwestern, trailing 17-0 in the second quarter.

There’s still a lot of time left in this one, and I doubt Dantonio’s sideline presence is really having that much of a negative impact, but it’s quite a coincidence. Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell has had a lot of success running things down there, and it’s been Michigan State’s offense that’s been so anemic today. Also on upset alert early on, Notre Dame getting gashed by the Navy option and trailing 14-10, and Texas struggling with Iowa State.

Could be an interesting set of noon games, for once.

My wife essentially makes the schedule in our house. My job is to make sure I stay gainfully employed and just show up to the things she’s set up for us. It’s normally pretty easy and painless, to be honest. And since I’m a scatter-brain most of the time, I completely relinquish the scheduling.

But she messed up this weekend. Big time. We’re signed up for a wine tasting at 6 p.m. (EDT) today, which will be smack dab in the middle of some of the best college football finishes of the day. It also means I’ll be out of commission after 6 p.m. (never drink and blog kids, it never ends up well), so expect heavier blogging early in the day, and not much later. I’ll let you decide if that’s good or bad.

After the jump, I’ll dissect some of the great matchups of the day (there a couple of huge ones), and introduce a couple of new features for this morning forecast post. Read the rest of this entry »

At 6-0, Michigan State is off to its best start since 1999 — Nick Saban’s final year in East Lansing. But fairly fast starts are nothing new for the Spartans, who teased their fan base with early-season victories in the past.

It’s the finishing that has eluded Michigan State.

Today’s game against Illinois is big for the Spartans, and not only because it would put them at 7-0 — the best start since 1966 (!) — and keep them at the top of the Big Ten standings. A win today would calm a lot of Spartan Nation’s fears about another second-half collapse.

For Michigan State, it’s not the big games that scare their fans. They usually aren’t expected to win those anyway, and it’s often much easier to get a team up for a game against an opponent that’s perceived as better. It’s the games they’re expected to win that are scary. Reading their own press clippings, and basking in the pats on the back from their fans have been a problem for the Spartans. They just don’t seem to handle success well.

Many Michigan State fans feel like things will be different with Mark Dantonio in his fourth year. This team is definitely an extension of its coach, and his no-nonsense, disciplined style gives the fans hope. That hasn’t stopped a lot of them from being rightfully nervous about Illinois today, and lapses in judgment like senior cornerback Chris L. Rucker’s drunk driving arrest last week don’t help.

So a win today doesn’t give the Spartans a Big Ten title, and doesn’t get them to a BCS bowl. But it will put to rest a lot of the common fears about the team, and show they’re ready to focus on winning, even when they’re expected to.

College football season continues to be awesome. It seems like every week I sit down to write my picks (which also continue to be awesome) there are a handful of games that are can’t miss.

I don’t know if that’s because there’s an increasing number of good teams in college football, or if all the cupcakes teams were feasting on at the beginning of the season beefed up their records artificially. Either way, I like being excited on a Friday night for what I’m about to see the next day, and I’ve been like that for a few weeks now.

This week is no different, in fact, it’s about as big as any weekend of the season. And maybe that’s artificially inflated for myself living in Michigan and seeing about 50% of my Facebook “friends” switch their profile picture to something Michigan or Michigan State related. It’s half exciting and half terribly annoying (example: New friend request from John Doe. Hmm, John Doe doesn’t ring a bell, I wonder what he looks like. Oh, he looks just like Denard Robinson. Strange. Ignore. (Not true, I never ignore. My ego can use all the friends it can get, virtual or not.)).

Enough parentheses, let’s get to the games. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the feel good stories of the week was supposed to unfold today in East Lansing, as Michigan State Coach Mark Dantonio was going to return to Spartan Stadium, where he was last seen calling a remarkable fake field goal to beat Notre Dame, just two weeks after suffering a heart attack.

Dantonio will not be at the stadium, however, after a routine post-op exam revealed a blod clot in his leg. Dantonio was going to call the game from the booth, but will now be watching his Spartans take on No. 11 Wisconsin from home.

It doesn’t look like this is a serious problem, thankfully, but Dantonio and his doctors are simply taking a precaution.

It will be interesting to see how the Spartans respond to this on the field. They were able to control their emotions last week against Northern Colorado, but that was Northern Colorado. Today, they were expecting to get an emotional lift from having their coach in the stadium, and now have to deal with this news, which will no doubt weigh on their minds, even if it’s not supposed to be serious.

Either way, hopefully Dantonio gets through this latest setback quickly, and is back on the sidelines in perfect health before long.