Mark Dantonio, Michigan State Have Proven Themselves To Be One Team Not Afraid of Urban Meyer, Ohio State

Urban Meyer has had two 20-plus game winning streaks since he has been the head coach at Ohio State. Both of those have been stopped at the hands of Michigan State and Mark Dantonio.

The Spartans ended Meyer’s latest streak of 23 games Saturday night with a 17-14 win at Ohio Stadium. It was a win Michigan State deserved as the Buckeyes were seemingly lost in all phases of the game.

The result raises a question: What does Dantonio do against Meyer-coached teams that nobody else can seem to figure out? How does Michigan State continue to give Ohio State fits year in and year out?

The numbers are pretty striking.

Since Meyer’s arrival in Columbus, Ohio State and Michigan State have faced each other four times. Each side has won twice. Meyer has only lost four games total in Columbus, but half of those have come at the hands of Dantonio and the Spartans. Meyer is undefeated, a perfect 29-0 against the rest of Big Ten opponents, but against Dantonio he’s just a .500 coach.

The combined point total in those games might be even more striking: It’s Buckeyes 104, Spartans 104 over the last four seasons.

It’s hard to say Dantonio has any sort of edge over Meyer as he’s been on the losing side just as often as he has been on the winning one. But there’s certainly something to the fact Dantonio always has his team ready to go against the Meyer-coached Buckeyes.

Dantonio has had some really good teams with really good players since this rivalry has ratcheted up in recent years, as has Meyer, so that’s obviously a large part of it. Good players make up good teams and these two teams have been tops in the Big Ten for the last four seasons.

But Dantonio, like Meyer, is a master motivator. He gets his team up for seemingly every game when they’re counted out. It’s that “chip on the shoulder” cliché that gets used so often. But for Michigan State, there actually seems to be some merit to that.

Any Ohio State fan or player will tell you, the Buckeyes only have one true rival and that’s Michigan. But there’s not a whole lot disputing the fact it’s actually Michigan State that has provided Ohio State with the stiffest challenge throughout Meyer’s tenure in Columbus.