MSU’s AD Hollis reaffirms support for Mark Dantonio
East Lansing — A day after the Michigan State Board of Trustees said that football coach Mark Dantonio and athletic director Mark Hollis have their full support, Hollis offered up the same vote of confidence to Dantonio.
Following a news conference at Spartan Stadium several hours after players Josh King, Demetric Vance and Donnie Corley had been charged with criminal sexual conduct and dismissed from the team, Hollis said he believes Dantonio and his staff are in a position to get the football program headed back in the right direction.
“He’s done it before and I have confidence that he can do it again,” Hollis said. “We’ve had very frank conversations but we always do. We challenge each other and I think that’s good and I think that’s healthy.
“I’m confident. I do want to say that accountability for student-athletes is the coach’s regardless of what the sport is. But he has the full support of everybody in our department and all the resources that can assist with that process.”
Dantonio and the Spartans are coming off a 3-9 season, just one year after reaching the College Football Playoff. But that paled in comparison to the last few months of off-field problems, the charging of the three players on Tuesday being the largest issue.
In April, Auston Robertson was dismissed from the team after being charged with criminal sexual conduct.
Also, senior-to-be Demetrius Cooper reached a plea deal in a case where he was accused of spitting on and East Lansing code enforcement officer while linebacker Jon Reschke left the team after making an insensitive comment to a former teammate. Add in the decision by freshman Thiyo Lukusa to give up football and leave school as well as the recent decisions to transfer by defensive backs Kaleel Gaines and Kenney Lyke and it’s been a difficult few months.
However, at no point has Dantonio entertained the idea of stepping down.
“No. I don’t think you walk away from problems,” said Dantonio, who has coached Michigan State for 11 seasons. “You’re hired here to handle the problems. That’s why you’re hired here, that’s why you’re asked to do what you do. (A) 3-9 (record), yeah that’s difficult. We’ll push through it. This thing that has occurred is very, very difficult. As I said earlier, I didn’t even want to talk about football for the last six months because of this situation, and we refrained from doing it because of the seriousness of this.
“But I was hired here to do a job and I believe that the people who hired me have faith in me as a person to do right to the very best of my ability and I have complete confidence in our coaches and our players and I have a lot of confidence in myself that we can deliver and that’s what we’ll do.”
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