Press conference shows Dantonio gets U-M rivalry

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Between his light jabs at Michigan, the coy smiles and the pounding of the podium in advance of the day’s practice, it was obvious Tuesday that MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio takes Michigan week seriously.

There was a palpable excitement emanating from Dantonio as he spoke in anticipation of this weekend’s collision between U-M and MSU.

Dantonio — whose calm compliments of future opponents each Tuesday are as reliable as the sun rising in the east — tried to hold back bulletin-board material in advance of Saturday. He looked like a middle-schooler who knew a secret juicier than a Florida orange but didn’t want to spill the beans.

For the most part, Dantonio succeeded in keeping quiet this Tuesday.

Still, he couldn’t resist a dig or two at the 2-5 Wolverines, who host MSU this weekend.

When a reporter rattled off U-M’s recent home losses to teams that took sandpaper to the luster of Michigan tradition — Utah, Toledo, Appalachian State — Dantonio interrupted twice to hear the list of Big House invaders repeated again.

He called U-M defensive end Brandon Graham’s prophecy that U-M will not lose to MSU “soft,” before cushioning the comment by calling it not antagonistic or deliberate.

Looking back on last year’s collapse, Dantonio said, “We were up by 10 with seven minutes to go, and you know what? It wasn’t over. And it still is not over.”

Dantonio’s verbal escapades following the 28-24 loss — mocking the vertically challenged Mike Hart and warning Michigan that “pride comes before the fall,” for example — were well-documented last season.

During Michigan week, Dantonio has come off as an off-the-cuff coach who, self-admittedly, hasn’t been mature when speaking about the Wolverines.

But I’m going to put on my conspiracy hat when analyzing the rivalry and look back at a conversation I had earlier this fall with Dantonio’s college position coach, Dale Evans.

In talking to Evans, a secondary coach during Dantonio’s years as a defensive back at South Carolina in the late 1970s, one comment stood out:

“If you’ve watched a lot of football, there are some people who wear their emotions on their sleeve,” he said.

“Mark’s not like that. He’s always in control.”

For a coach always in control, it seems odd that Dantonio would go out of his way to stir the U-M rivalry pot.

When a reporter asks a probing question that could induce verbal vomit, Dantonio could respond “no comment” or take a page from the political notebook by not answering the question.

He could be in control.

I think there is a level of premeditation in Dantonio’s comments, which are determined to ignite a once-dormant rivalry that U-M doesn’t want. The Wolverines have their one rival — Ohio State — and don’t want to deal with a “little brother.”

U-M preaches that it is above sparring with the Spartans but fear what might happen if MSU one day beat up on the Wolverines. It could mean the fall of tradition and the decimation of a dynastic domination over an in-state rival.

With his pointed comments, Dantonio is bringing attention to a game that nobody in the Wolverines program wants anybody to notice.

It kind of sounds like the little brother thing to do.

But it is one way for Dantonio to control the importance of a game that U-M doesn’t want to be important.

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