Mark Dantonio is ‘Pleasantly Surprised’ By Number of ‘Good Players We Have’
At Michigan State's annual media day inside Spartan Stadium, head coach Mark Dantonio spoke about recovering from a 3-9 season, how their culture is still good, and his "pleasant surprise" at the amount of good players he had on the squad this year.
As you can see from the video above Dantonio was explicitly asked about what he is "most pleasantly surprised about" so while there was some slight baiting to get this quote, it is a little revealing that Dantonio said what he said.
For a coach who is quite fluent in coachspeak, for him to say he's impressed with his players so far is interesting for a number of different reasons. He could have said something obscure about effort or grit, or he could have been impressed with his teams desire and compete level so far.
Instead just pure talent impressed Dantonio and that could mean he was expecting less from his team or he did not think they would make up the talent gap lost to attrition this offseason. Whatever it was, Dantonio was a bit more open than he usually is to the media in this regard.
The other festivities from media day saw offensive and defensive players available for comment. Here are some notable videos from the day, you can view all of our videos on our YouTube page and there are also videos from our live broadcasts on Facebook.
Projected starting quarterback Brian Lewerke
Running back LJ Scott
Wide Receiver Trishton Jackson
Linebackers Andrew Dowell and Byron Bullough
Co-Defensive Coordinator Harlon Barnett
Quarterbacks Coach Brad Salem