Dantonio wary of Michigan State's history as highly rated team

Michigan State football is happy to brag about being a top five team in the national polls the past two seasons, but head coach Mark Dantonio is aware being highly rated in the preseason has not always been a good thing for the Spartans. 

Their No. 5 spot in the Associated Press preseason poll is MSU's highest since 1967, a year the pundits did not get it right. 

"Yeah, they went 3-7 that year," Dantonio said. "I saw that."

The Spartans were the defending national champions in 1967. They entered the season on a 10-game unbeaten streak but quickly came back to Earth, starting 0-2 with losses to Houston and USC. After beating Wisconsin and Michigan, MSU dropped five in a row before closing out the regular season with a win over Northwestern. 

The Spartans followed that losing season by going 29-33 over the next six years with only one winning season. 

Few see that type of future in Dantonio's program, particularly with his recruiting efforts seemingly getting stronger every year, but he put the newfound respect his program has been getting in perspective. 

"I think that ratings are great, especially early in the season, but that's an indication of what has been done here -- it's not an indication of what will be done here," Dantonio said. "And we have to look at those rankings and put those over here, and see where we can come with those. At the end of the season, we'll get ranked in terms of what we earned. That's how we've always approached it."