Football coach denies allegations forced his decision to step down
Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio stepped down Tuesday, hours after new details about recruiting allegations became public.
The later years of his tenure included alleged recruiting violations and sexual assault accusations involving players.
Dantonio led Michigan State to its lone College Football Playoff appearance, its first Rose Bowl victory in a generation and three Big Ten championships. He leaves as the school’s winningest coach after 13 seasons with the Spartans.
“This is a decision that’s been weighing on me,” Dantonio, 63, said at a news conference Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s any big secret; it’s been weighing on me for a while.”
Former staffer Curtis Blackwell has sued Dantonio, former athletic director Mark Hollis and former university president Lou Anna Simon.
Blackwell argued he was fired to cover for Dantonio’s alleged NCAA recruiting violations and accusations that three players sexually assaulted a woman at a 2017 party. Blackwell’s legal team wrote in a court filing that Dantonio asked Blackwell to secure employment for the parents of two Michigan State players at the company of a program donor, according to the Detroit News. Lawyers for Dantonio called the allegations “not only false but totally gratuitous.”
On Tuesday, Dantonio said the lawsuit had “no relevance whatsoever” to his decision to step down.
Michigan State named defensive co-ordinator Mike Tressel, a longtime Dantonio lieutenant and the nephew of Dantonio mentor Jim
Tressel, as the program’s interim leader.
In a statement, Dantonio wrote that he expected to stay with Michigan State and its athletic department “in a role involving special projects, especially transitioning our players, both current and incoming, to their next challenges.”
Dantonio arrived at Michigan State after a three-year run at Cincinnati. Before that, he spent 19 years as defensive backs coach or defensive co-ordinator at Akron, Youngstown State, Kansas and Ohio State. He also was with the Spartans from 1995 to 2000 under Nick Saban and Bobby Williams.
Dantonio took the Spartans to bowl games each of his first nine seasons as Michigan State’s head coach, but it took him five years to win one. In 2011, his Spartans posted an 11-3 record and were the Big Ten runners-up. They defeated Georgia in the Outback Bowl.
Michigan State went on to win bowl games each of the next three years, setting the school record for consecutive bowl wins, a streak snapped at the 2015 Cotton Bowl with a loss to Saban and Alabama in a College Football Playoff semifinal. Since then, Dantonio’s teams have gone 27-24. His career mark at Michigan State is 114-57.
“The things that come across your desk, the overwhelming responsibility for people day in and day out, just feels sometimes like an avalanche, to be quite honest, or a big wave,” he said at the news conference.
“You’re always surfing that wave. I just felt like at points and times throughout the season, you’re just like, ‘What else? What else? What else is there?’ ”
The Washington Post