Thursday Morning Michigan State Reading Room: Spartans have swagger and an edge

"We've got an edge to us," said Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio.

That is from Marlen Garcia's feature on the 8-0 Spartans at USAtoday.com. Another excerpt:

Such swagger was hard for outsiders to fathom in the preseason when the Spartans did not receive a vote in the top 25 polls.

Michigan State finished 6-7 last season, and Dantonio dismissed or suspended 15 players in the aftermath of a November fight in which some players were involved and others lied to Dantonio about being there. The bond between remaining players tightened.

"Adversity brings people together," said Dantonio, 54. "I didn't know how many games we'd win, but I knew we had a special group."

Last week, we kept hearing Iowa and Wisconsin for similar teams. This week, it's Iowa and Michigan State. So writes David Mayo in this story for the Grand Rapids Press and mlive.com.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz has controlled the series recently.

Mark Dantonio's job, as it has been in virtually all applications since he returned to MSU, is to reverse that trend. He has his best opportunity yet Saturday.

Iowa? Big game. Biggest for Michigan State in years.

Jeff Kanan of Michigan State's student newspaper, the State News, looks at four matchups we'll see Saturday at Kinnick and says two favor MSU and two favor Iowa.

Kanan likes MSU's passing attack vs. Iowa's secondary and the Spartans' front seven against Iowa's offensive line. But he favors the Hawkeyes' front seven against MSU's O-line and Hawkeye quarterback Ricky Stanzi vs. the Spartans' secondary. He writes:

MSU, which ranks second in the conference in pass efficiency defense, will benefit if it can force turnovers as it did in wins against U-M and Illinois, when it had three interceptions apiece, but will need its best performance against a good passing attack.

In an intentionally silly piece, Tom Panzenhagen of the Detroit Free Press has his own MSU-Iowa tale of the tape. An example:

ALUMNI

Iowa alumni include Gene Wilder and Tennessee Williams

Michigan State alumni include Chad Everett and Magic Johnson

Edge: Iowa

Finally, the Spartans got quite the royal treatment in Chicagoland last Saturday after their 35-27 win at Northwestern.

From the Chicago Tribune's story:

In a maneuver usually reserved for U.S. presidents and other VIPs, Illinois State Police troopers for the first time escorted the Michigan State football caravan from Ryan Field on the Northwestern campus and along the Edens and Kennedy expressways toward Michigan. Previously, Evanston police would escort teams only to the entrance of the Edens Expressway in Skokie. ...

Saturday's chaotic spectacle, with trooper car sirens wailing and emergency lights flashing, confused some regular drivers and angered others. Some motorists complained that the temporary closing of the left lanes, forcing all other vehicles to abruptly pull to the right in already heavy Saturday afternoon traffic, created an inconvenience and an unnecessary danger.