The reckoning was swift and brutal.
The 2016 Michigan State football team ended its shockingly bad 3-9 season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving with a loss to Penn State, and the weary and wounded players got all of four days to digest their failure.
Spartans strength and conditioning coach Ken Mannie called them back to campus on the following Thursday, and they should have understood the boot camp they were in for when he said it was time for a “reaffirmation.”
“It was tough love,” junior safety Khari Willis, who will start Thursday’s Holiday Bowl against Washington State, recalled this week with a grin.
“Without the love.”
Michigan State reached the No. 3 ranking in the country in 2015 and was beaten by eventual champion Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals. That 12-2 squad lost some fine players, and then the Spartans just flat-out lost their way.
In 2016, MSU beat Notre Dame to start the season 2-0, and then it wouldn’t win another game for two months, ending its drought with a rout of lowly Rutgers.
The Spartans missed playing in a bowl game for the first time since 2006, and that was wholly unacceptable to head coach Mark Dantonio, who had established a new standard at perennial underdog MSU with Big Ten championships in 2010, ’13 and ’15.
A re-calibration of attitude and commitment was thought to be needed, and that’s where Mannie came in, with a schedule that shuttled the players between the weight room, classroom and conditioning drills that made them want to either throw up or quit.
“Those were literally some of the hardest times I’ve faced athletically or on a team,” senior starting linebacker and captain Chris Frey said.
“The first couple of days, it was tough. We had just got done playing a game a week ago and our bodies were hurting. … We were upset. We needed a break.”
With the clarity of hindsight, Frey and his teammates who stuck it out can say it was worth it.
“It did the job,” Frey said. “It brought us all closer together.”
In a remarkable turnaround — especially considering the team was packed with underclassmen — Michigan State bounced back this season to earn a 9-3 record (7-2 in the Big Ten). The Spartans beat both Penn State and Michigan when their rivals were ranked No. 7 in the country, and they finished second in the Big Ten East behind fifth-ranked Ohio State (8-1).
Catch them at their most honest, and the 16th-ranked Spartans will admit they hoped to play in a more high-profile bowl, such as the Outback on Jan. 1 (which 8-4 Michigan snagged to face 8-4 South Carolina). But this is their first visit to the Holiday Bowl and they drew an intriguing matchup with No. 18 Washington State (9-3, 6-3 in Pac-12).
Michigan State doesn’t lack motivation. The players have a chance to give Dantonio, who recovered from a heart attack following a triumph over Notre Dame in 2010, his 100th win (against 45 losses) in his 11th season in East Lansing. They’re also trying to become the eighth team in 121 years to record double digits in victories.
The improvement in the record by six wins from last season also is historic. It ties the school standard for greatest turnaround, and a win in the Holiday Bowl would make it the biggest comeback ever.
Of being able to make such an enormous flip, starting sophomore quarterback Brian Lewerke said, “I think it’s the character in the room. The character of the people. We weeded out all of the guys who were selfish and didn’t do the right thing on or off the field.”
There were some Spartans who eliminated themselves by making some unwanted headlines.
In April this year, defensive end Auston Robertson was kicked off the team when he was charged with a sexual assault.
Two months later, three players — Joshua King, Demetric Vance and Donnie Corley Jr. — were dismissed after being arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a woman at an apartment on campus. (The trio continues to await trial.)
Between the final game of 2016 and June, at least nine players left the team through various circumstances, and two others who played as juniors — defensive lineman Malik McDowell and safety Montae Nicholson — opted to go into the NFL draft.
“We faced so much adversity,” Frey said.
The remaining Spartans were incredibly green, with only 15 seniors total on the roster. There are 77 underclassmen, including 16 redshirt freshmen and 24 sophomores. Because MSU missed playing in a bowl last year, the Holiday will be the first for 62 Spartans players.
Thirteen true freshmen have played this season, and there are seven potential Holiday Bowl starters on offense and seven on defense. Among the standouts have been Lewerke, the QB whose 3,066 yards in total offense are the best for a sophomore in school history, and linebacker Joe Bachie, who leads with 94 tackles and is the first sophomore to be voted team MVP since 2004.
Michigan State establishes a leadership council each season, and Dantonio spread out the members among the various classes in an effort to get a complete buy-in.
“Some young guys on this team emerged as leaders, and everyone started leaning on those guys,” Frey said.
Still, after the awful season of 2016, the expectations for this year’s team were lukewarm, at best. A five- or six-win season didn’t seem out of the question.
The players knew they had something more in them.
“I think we were excited to go into the season,” Frey said. “We always know at Michigan State that we’re not the biggest guys, most athletic guys. We’re constantly the underdogs. We know that going into every game, and it doesn’t stop us.
“It adds fuel to the fire and a chip-on-our-shoulder mentality. We’ve had that in every game this year.”
And Spartans fans were happy to see it return.
[email protected]; Twitter: @sdutleonard