Mark Dantonio
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 7-6
Cincinnati’04WMichigan State’07L’08L’09L’10L’11W’12W’13W’14W’15L’17W’18L’19W
Show all 13 games
2004Fort Worth BowlW 32-14
Michigan State
2007Champs Sports BowlL 21-24
2008Capital One BowlL 12-24
2009Alamo BowlL 31-41
2010Capital One BowlL 7-49
2011Outback BowlW 33-30
2012Buffalo Wild Wings BowlW 17-16
2013Rose BowlW 24-20
2014Cotton Bowl ClassicW 42-41
2015 semiCotton Bowl ClassicL 0-38
2017Holiday BowlW 42-17
2018Redbox BowlL 6-7
2019Pinstripe BowlW 27-21
Report card
Defense carries it: 86th percentile defense, above the median offense at 56th.
Michigan State, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
1-3 against his rivals at Cincinnati.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
14-9 against his rivals at Michigan State. Just 2-4 against Brian Kelly.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
15-12 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Jim Tressel.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Passed more than the situation called for under Salem.
9,840 run and pass snaps at Michigan State, 2007–2019, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Six numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 2 ranked Michigan State classes of his own have averaged #32 nationally — best #31, worst #32.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Followed him here
Cincinnati→
Michigan State2007Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2019 roster arrived on his watch — 120 of 120 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2007-2019) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Michigan State rosters have averaged 8 lb heavier than the FBS average (2010–2019 rosters on record) — heavier than 90% of FBS coaching runs since 2010.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 78 of 224 signees (35%) across his 2007–2019 tenure, drawn from 22 states in all. Next: OH (64).
67% of his signees come from MI and its 3 border states (OH 64, WI 6, IN 3).
Off this map: 14 signees to the south (FL 14) and 11 to the west (CA 4, AZ 3, others).
- median hometown distance
- 151 mi
- within 100 mi
- 44%
- within 500 mi
- 85%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 7%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 21 of them himself. 12 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record). 3 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | R4.31 | Josiah Scott | Cornerback |  Jacksonville Jaguars | |
| 2020 | R7.11 | Kenny Willekes | Defensive End |  Minnesota Vikings | |
| 2019 | R3.19 | Justin Layne | Cornerback |  Pittsburgh Steelers | |
| 2019 | R4.07 | Khari Willis | Safety |  Indianapolis Colts | |
| 2018 | R4.11 | Brian Allen | Center |  Los Angeles Rams | |
| 2017 | R2.03 | Malik McDowell | Defensive Tackle |  Seattle Seahawks | |
| 2017 | R4.17 | Montae Nicholson | Safety |  Washington Redskins | |
| 2016 | R1.08 | Jack Conklin | Offensive Tackle |  Tennessee Titans |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | R3.12 | Shilique Calhoun | Defensive End |  Oakland Raiders | |
| 2016 | R4.02 | Connor Cook | Quarterback | Oakland Raiders | |
| 2016 | R6.38 | Aaron Burbridge | Wide Receiver |  San Francisco 49ers | |
| 2016 | R7.03 | Donavon Clark | Offensive Guard |  San Diego Chargers | |
| 2015 | R1.11 | Trae Waynes | Cornerback | Minnesota Vikings | |
| 2015 | R4.07 | Jeremy Langford | Running Back |  Chicago Bears | |
| 2015 | R5.20 | Tony Lippett | Wide Receiver |  Miami Dolphins | |
| 2015 | R5.39 | Keith Mumphery | Wide Receiver |  Houston Texans | |
| 2014 | R1.24 | Darqueze Dennard | Cornerback |  Cincinnati Bengals | |
| 2013 | R2.16 | Le'veon Bell | Running Back | Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2013 | R4.09 | Dion Sims | Tight End | Miami Dolphins | |
| 2013 | R4.29 | William Gholston | Defensive End |  Tampa Bay Buccaneers | |
| 2012 | R2.19 | Jerel Worthy | Defensive Tackle |  Green Bay Packers | |
| 2012 | R4.07 | Kirk Cousins | Quarterback | Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2012 | R4.26 | Keshawn Martin | Wide Receiver | Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.10 | Trent Robinson | Safety | San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.13 | B.J. Cunningham | Wide Receiver |  Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 2012 | R7.43 | Edwin Baker | Running Back | San Diego Chargers | |
| 2011 | R6.20 | Greg Jones | Inside Linebacker |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2011 | R6.23 | Chris L. Rucker | Cornerback | Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2010 | R7.08 | Jeremy Ware | Cornerback | Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2009 | R5.37 | Javon Ringer | Running Back | Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2008 | R2.03 | Devin Thomas | Wide Receiver | Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2008 | R5.23 | Kellen Davis | Tight End | Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 2008 | R7.01 | Ervin Baldwin | Defensive End | Chicago Bears | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
3rd-best Michigan State tenure of 16 by the numbers.
Followed John Smith (2003–2006) · succeeded by Mel Tucker (2020–2023).
| Season | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||||||
| Record | 7-6 | 9-4 | 6-7 | 11-2 | 11-3 | 7-6 | 13-1 | 11-2 | 12-2 | 3-9 | 10-3 | 7-6 | 7-6 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | CFP loss | — | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | |
| Coordinators | ||||||||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Jim Bollman / Dave Warner | Jim Bollman / Dave Warner | Jim Bollman / Dave Warner | Jim Bollman / Dave Warner | Jim Bollman / Dave Warner | Brad Salem | |
| DC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Pat Narduzzi | Harlon Barnett / Mike Tressel | Harlon Barnett / Mike Tressel | Harlon Barnett / Mike Tressel | Mike Tressel | Mike Tressel | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||||||
| Offense | 47 | 21 | 34 | 68 | 29 | 29 | 37 | 93 | 33 | 54 | 50 | 3 | 14 | |
| Defense | 76 | 69 | 38 | 37 | 98 | 98 | 99 | 81 | 60 | 57 | 63 | 97 | 82 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 35.9 | 33.4 | 44.7 | 37.5 | 38.8 | 42.0 | 29.9 | 32.8 | 32.7 | 33.9 | 35.3 | 44.4 | 45.4 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 30.7 | 28.9 | 36.6 | 39.4 | 52.0 | 29.4 | 28.1 | 32.8 | 35.9 | 35.6 | 41.4 | 45.5 | 45.7 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 25.0 | 19.6 | 17.1 | 33.3 | 23.1 | 11.8 | 16.7 | 33.3 | 31.0 | 23.7 | 23.5 | 22.6 | 28.8 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.
1 player-season honored (All-America / national award): Connor Cook (2015)
12th-best Cincinnati tenure of 19 by the numbers.
Followed Rick Minter (1994–2003) · succeeded by Brian Kelly (2006–2009).
| Season | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 7-5 | 4-7 | 7-5 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 18 | 24 | 55 | |
| Defense | 83 | 32 | 90 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 39.3 | 43.0 | 36.3 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 49.2 | 28.6 | 33.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 50.0 | 11.5 | 20.9 | |
5 NFL Draft picks: Trent Cole (2005), Tyjuan Hagler (2005), Daven Holly (2005), John Bowie (2007), Brent Celek (2007)
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
1st all-time at Michigan State
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
+15.8 pts at Michigan State · #105 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.