Michigan State football may not be considered as historically elite as some of the other giants in college football, but it has had some of the best coaches in the history of the sport.
That much was proven in a recent ranking from The Athletic, which ranked the Top 25 college football coaches since 2000.
Both Nick Saban and Mark Dantonio made the list, Saban coming in at No. 1 and Dantonio coming in at No. 21.
Dantonio is Michigan State’s all-time winningest head coach. He won three Big Ten championships, a Rose Bowl, and led the Spartans to a College Football Playoff appearance while at the helm.
“Dantonio took over a floundering MSU program in 2007 and turned it into one of the Big Ten’s best,” The Athletic’s Chris Vannini wrote. “He won the school’s first Big Ten title in more than two decades. The 2013 team that won the Rose Bowl might have won a national championship if the CFP had existed. Dantonio also won four consecutive games against Michigan, the first time the Spartans had done that since the early 1960s.
“But like several other coaches on this list, the final few years were below the standard he set, with one Top 25 finish in his last four seasons, including a 3-9 record on the heels of the CFP appearance. The consistency was similar to Ferentz, but the highs were higher, including a win over Ferentz in the 2015 Big Ten title game.”
Saban won seven national titles — one at LSU and six at Alabama. His tenure at Michigan State, of course, preceded his legendary run.
“Saban is the most successful coach in the history of the sport and an easy No. 1,” Vannini wrote. “His run at Alabama from the late 2000s through the 2010s set a new precedent for the era. A lot of other really good coaches and programs that historically would have won a championship did not because they ran into Saban’s Alabama on the other sideline.
“Every four-year player at Alabama under Saban won a national championship. We’ll likely never see a run like that again. Fittingly, Saban and Meyer will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in the same class later this year.”
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