Be prepared: Small step back very likely

EAST LANSING - "This year's Illinois" has been one of the silliest projections I've heard this offseason in reference to the Michigan State football team.

This year's Illinois? Everyone picked Illinois to win four games last year, and the Illini got to the Rose Bowl. You can't be this year's Illinois if people are saying you're good before the season!

A lot of people, by the way, are saying Michigan State is good. Some are talking eight or nine wins, New Year's Day bowl, darkhorse Big Ten contention.

I'm here to say: Slow down. This team has holes, its schedule has few, and a repeat of last season's 7-5 showing would be a feat. More likely, a small step backward is to be expected in Mark Dantonio's second year as head coach.

You can't lose Devin Thomas, Kellen Davis, Jehuu Caulcrick and four key linemen and maintain last season's record pace on offense. This defense might improve some, but ends Ervin Baldwin and Jonal Saint-Dic will be missed, and there remain questions in the secondary.

The schedule starts with Saturday's trip to Cal and ends with this fistful of nails, in order: Ohio State, at Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, at Penn State. Don't expect MSU to be as injury-free by then as it was last November.

Handling the hype

And we haven't even talked about Dantonio's next "culture change" challenge, which is getting an MSU team with high expectations to actually approach them. Hype has been poison for this program.

Luckily for the Spartans, he experienced that issue as an assistant here under Nick Saban and is talking about it.

"I think you have to address it," Dantonio said. "We came off a '97 year (of 7-5) and played in '98, everybody remembers that, we didn't go to a bowl game. We come back in '99 and go 10-2. In 2000 we didn't go to a bowl game, right? So it goes back and forth.

"A lot of programs do that, but I think that if there's one message that I've tried to send, when we first got here, it was that we have to (go) in the same direction. Everybody has to go in the same direction. I think that's difficult to do."

Dantonio has been vocal about the need for MSU to improve on last season. He believes he has the players to do it, and he certainly has some studs. Javon Ringer. Greg Jones. Mark Dell. Eric Gordon.

He's improved the talent level here with two good recruiting classes - and the 2009 haul is drawing national raves. But the 2008 team is still very young in places.

Last season's team fed off low preseason forecasts, the changes under Dantonio and the leadership of seniors such as Caulcrick and Kaleb Thornhill. This year's seniors - Ringer, Brian Hoyer, Justin Kershaw, Otis Wiley, Jesse Miller - have a high standard to meet.

"I plan on winning a national championship, that's how you've got to think of everything," Miller said. "Go out there 100 percent and, just like in the classroom, try to get an A, fall down on a B, not bad at all."

A "B" in Miller's mind would be a New Year's Day appearance.

From here, that looks like an A-plus.

Still a ways to go

That's not to say it's impossible. I can't find one game on this schedule, not even the home game with Ohio State, that the Spartans couldn't win.

Problem is, I can only find one game - Eastern Michigan's visit - that they couldn't lose.

All six of the Spartans' losses in 2007 came by a touchdown or less. Some think that's a sign that 10-2 is right around the corner. Some are getting ahead of themselves, as has been the case here before.

"I think they have a history here of fattening everybody up after a so so season and saying great things are on the horizon," Dantonio said. "I think that's the natural progression here. I think also the progression is they want to deflate you very quickly, as well."

Let's get the deflating out of the way early. This team should be expected to break even and earn a bowl bid. That would be the start of a sturdy, two-season bridge to 2010 - when the "fattening up" and wild expectations will actually be justified.