Mark Dantonio is a Fraud

Close your eyes and think back to that grim early November night in 2016. Remember the multitude of mouths agape in shock and disbelief at an outcome no one seriously considered—an upset that was so improbable and so grossly unsettling that many refused to believe it could be true. “A joke!” they gasped. “No...a nightmare!” they shrieked. “How could this happen?” they stammered.

Michigan State actually lost to Illinois.

For many, it was hard to process. Not for me, though. The truth was always there to see if you weren’t willfully blind to it—if you weren’t jaded by years of anger at being left behind by “elitist” Michigan neighbors.

Or if you weren’t just happy to see those snobby Ohio State fans pissed off at any cost...those nose-in-the-air folks whose once-beloved hero was undone by his emails.

Or if you weren't willing to ignore everything before 2010.

If you weren’t obsessed with believing in simple, 3-star answers to complex, 5-star problems, the unvarnished reality has been laid bare from day one.

Dantonio is a fraud, and he always has been.

He wheeled into town with his trademark scowl and his bad combover. He strutted around in his ill-fitting suits and his cheap ties tied too long. He spooned out the populist slop that the slobbering masses with their phony victim complex ate up like the finest of tater tot casseroles. He shook hands gleefully with unsavory characters from frozen lands and beamed like the Cheshire cat all the while.

He hung his hat on fake slights and made mountains out of tent stakes, unable to shrug off even the smallest of insults. He rode his unctuous schtick all the way to the top (misspelling many a word along the way). He had great players, he said. The best players. Everyone knew it. People loved his players.

Finally, he made the big time. He got his chance to make good on all of his promises.

38-0.

3-9.

I guess he thought being elite would be easier.

Dantonio loved his previous life. He had so many things going. But after such a rough three months...week after week of crushing defeats and public mockery, he’s not quite sure how to right the ship. His best advisors seem helpless...like they’ve never run an offense before. Leaks from inside the program indicate that his closest assistants fear for their jobs and have lived in a state of chaos since that fateful November night.

Now the scandals have set in. Arrests. Investigations. Players leaving the program. Everything those elitist Michigan types with their fancy sweaters and horn-rim glasses accused him of has come true. The Green & White house is stained by thuggery of the worst kind.

That’s the real Mark Dantonio. That’s the man with his finger on the button of the headset...but to whom does that headset connect? Rumors of collusion with foreign agents abound, but the head man sees nothing wrong with his actions.

The truth is there, and everyone in the B1G who isn’t a slave to the Sparty line knows it. Dantonio is a fraud. He’s a phony. A charlatan. From the East to the West, he makes the B1G look foolish and gives ammunition to those who want to tear us down. Worst of all, he makes our neighbors to the south laugh.

As the House of Cards topples down around them and the sins become ever harder to defend, the biggest question is whether MSU fans should be mocked for being taken in by such an obvious huckster, or whether we should seek to reconcile with them—provided they can even see how wrong they were to begin with.