Charges leave Spartans trying to repair reputation

EAST LANSING, Mich.—On the day three Michigan State football players were charged with criminal sexual conduct, coach Mark Dantonio and athletic director Mark Hollis held a somber news conference, befitting a program that has a lot of work to do to repair its reputation.

“I would say last year, if you came up here to talk, we probably were on the cusp of being exactly what you want in major college football,” Dantonio said. “But one year has changed some of that—a lot of that. So now we have to deal with that aspect of our program, and we have to change it back.”

Josh King, Demetric Vance and Donnie Corley Jr. were the three players charged Tuesday , and all three were immediately dismissed from the team. The Spartans previously dismissed another player, Auston Robertson, after a separate criminal sexual conduct charge against him in April .

The charges at Michigan State come after football programs at Baylor and Minnesota have been rocked by sexual assault allegations, and although an external probe into the MSU situation praised Dantonio’s handling of the aftermath, the claims against his players leave the Spartans facing serious challenges as they try to regain the trust and respect of fans and the community.

“My assessment of each of our 25 sports and the coaching staffs that lead them is focused on three general categories— academic success, athletic success and social behavior and engagement,” Hollis said. “With much improvement and success in these areas in football over the previous nine years, 2016 was a difficult year in all three. My expectations are that it will not continue.”

Michigan State is a sobering reminder of how precipitously a program can fall in a short amount of time. Last summer, the Spartans were coming off an appearance in college football’s playoff that capped several years among the Big Ten’s elite. Then Michigan State stumbled to a 3-9 record in 2016, and this offseason has been filled with off-field problems.

Dantonio said he’s “angry” about what’s happened. He dismissed the players charged Tuesday without waiting for the rest of their criminal proceedings to play out, and he made a point of mentioning educational efforts aimed at helping athletes stay out of trouble.

“The education I felt was there, and they compromised themselves by getting involved in such a situation,” he said.