EAST LANSING — Even in retirement these days, Mark Dantonio is watching more college football than ever. And not just Michigan State football games.
That’s the responsibility that comes as a member of the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Dantonio is in his first season as one of the 13 people that will choose the 12-team field able to play for the CFP championship starting in December. His inclusion is part of a whirlwind year in which the winningest coach in Spartan history was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.
He added the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame to his growing post-career résumé on Friday, Sept. 12 — a momentary pause to celebrate the past before returning to his busy job on the CFP committee.
“I’ve watched more coaching film, and I’ve watched a lot of TV games to sort of get the start of the season, who’s who and things of that nature,” Dantonio said Friday. “I’ve always watched a lot of football, but probably pushing it a little bit more now.”
Dantonio was set to be honored at halftime Saturday, Sept. 13, when the 2-0 Spartans take on 2-0 Youngstown State (3:30 p.m., Big Ten Network). Also in the class of 2025: former MSU basketball star Sam Vincent, golfer Caroline Powers, wrestler Nick Simmons, volleyball player Kori Moster and soccer player Kenneth “Tony” Keyes.
“I’m greatly appreciative. And like I’ve said before, these are program awards,” Dantonio said of his latest honor. “A lot of people are involved in this when you’re coaching.”
Dantonio said former MSU athletic director Alan Haller recommended him for his CFP committee spot, and Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettitti officially nominated him.
“You go through a pretty thorough vetting process, and then you get voted on and all that kind of stuff,” Dantonio said. “So I made the cut.”
Dantonio, whose name went into the Spartan Stadium Ring of Fame last season before MSU’s loss to Ohio State, went 114-57 in his 13 seasons with the Spartans from 2007-19 and passed Duffy Daugherty for the most wins in program history. His teams won three Big Ten titles (2010, 2013, 2015), earned the school’s lone CFP appearance (2015) and made 12 bowls in 13 seasons.
Whether second-year coach Jonathan Smith can return MSU to that level of success remains to be seen. The Spartans have made only one bowl since Dantonio’s 2020 retirement, the Peach Bowl in 2021; Smith’s debut season finished with a 5-7 record and a third straight year without a bowl trip.
Dantonio said he has “a lot of respect” for Smith and the two talk and text when they can. He feels the 46-year-old has the ability to revive the program like the now 69-year-old Dantonio did when he took over after John L. Smith was fired in 2006.
“I think everybody has their own program, but you always look back in the past and try and I think replicate what was good,” Dantonio said. “That’s what I tried to do. I reached back to coach (George) Perles’ teams and also to Duffy’s teams and things like that. Michigan State’s got a great tradition here. Once you’ve done it once, there’s always a possibility of doing it again. …
“It’s tough to win. They all count one, and it’s hard to win football games. But I think he’s got things on the right course right now.”
Like Dantonio, Smith has preached wanting MSU to be a program that develops players – both in life and toward a pro path in football. Since Dantonio retired, MSU’s historic streak of having a player selected in every NFL draft came to an end in 2021. Only nine Spartans have been selected in the draft since, six of whom were brought into the MSU program by Dantonio (AJ Arcuri, Connor Heyward and Jalen Nailor in 2022; Bryce Baringer and Jayden Reed in 2023 and Nick Samac in 2024). Mel Tucker had two transfers taken (Kenneth Walker III in 2022 and Ameer Speed in 2023), while Smith last season bought in transfer Luke Newman, who was the only Spartan taken in the draft in April 2025.
A son of a former high school principal who took an educational approach with his coaching, Dantonio was asked about the future of development at the college level in light of players now getting paid through revenue sharing and name-image-likeness deals, as well as the constant flow of transfers through the portal that exploded after his retirement.
“I don’t necessarily worry about it, I wonder about it,” Dantonio said. “You gotta be able to stay the course and learn and develop in a program, because the techniques are gonna be a little different, the coaches are gonna be a little different. So when you do move, you sort of start over a little bit in some respects. You gotta build trust and the ability to communicate with each other and the commitment with each other. So I think that’s an ongoing process. It’s difficult to do in six months.”
Dantonio said he watched MSU’s two-overtime win over Boston College last week and liked what he saw with how Smith’s team “kept handling adversity throughout the football game.”
“When you can start doing that and you can do that on a continuing basis,” he said, “you can be successful. You saw that. You didn’t see people flinching.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mark Dantonio: Ex-Michigan State football coach watching closely in new CFP committee role
Reporting by Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
